“Being chosen into the second phase of the program verifies the value of Lekane’s technology for the customers and our work in building international partnerships. Being part of the Young Innovative Companies program lets us accelerate our efforts in working with our international partners to scale our business and transform our product platform into a fully featured SaaS offering.” (Lekane CEO, Marko Virtanen)

During the first quarter of 2010 the Lekane TalkNow solution has offered around 60% more active sales leads to the car dealers than during the previous year. This growth has happened during the times when overall car sales volumes have been declining. The monthly number of sales leads coming through major Finnish car portals has also quadrupled since last spring.

Lekane’s objective is to utilize this funding to capitalize on success in TalkNow sales in the domestic market and expand our operations to several European countries.

Bilia and Lekane announce an innovative way to serve web customers and streamline contacts

Bilia Oy Ab and Lekane Oy announce a jointly developed new and innovative service for contacting sales. Bilia aims to make web based business easy and straightforward for the consumer. Aligned with this goal, Bilia deploys TalkNow solution by the mobile software company Lekane on Bilia’s used car website.

A customer looking for a used car can now do business with Bilia easier and faster.
When the customer finds a car he likes on www.bilia.fi used car search, the contact with a car sales person is created without delay by the TalkNow-solution. All the customer needs to do is to enter his phone number, and Bilia’s sales representative will call him right away. The customer can also see if sales people are available, and after having entered his phone number, he is shown who will call him.

Bilia takes customer centricity to a new level with Lekane technology. “Web business grows continuously, and we want to make it as easy and fast as possible for our customers. Lekane’s technological expertise and understanding of our services has made the co-operation straightforward and fruitful.” says Bilia CEO, Mikael Malmsten.

Lekane CEO Aarne Ylä-Rotiala: “Bilia is a clear front-runner in service innovation development and deployment. Customer service is extended throughout the business. The natural contact between the expertise in the business and the customer creates a competitive edge. Like other Lekane customers, Bilia focuses on customer service and responding to customer expectations during every service situation and contact.”

Bilia Oy Ab operates in Helsinki metropolitan area, and is Finland’s largest Volvo and Renault dealer. Bilia concentrates in active and customer-centered service. New challenges in automotive industry are exciting opportunities for Bilia. Bilia has a mission to lead and develop car industry’s customer service.

Lekane is an innovative company developing mobile solutions for customer service. Lekane solutions open new customer service channels for businesses by introducing essential customer information to the communications systems of the business. Lekane acts in close co-operation with the world-leading customer service and contact center software provider Genesys. Lekane solutions scale for small and large business alike, with carrier customers such as TeliaSonera and retail outlets.

Finnish press release: Bilia Pikayhteys – nopea ja vaivaton yhteys automyyjään.

Presenting to a panel of independent analyst judges at the Genesys Analyst Conference in San Francisco, Lekane described how to utilise mobility to deliver excellent customer service. The presentation detailed how Lekane helps organizations drive down the cost of delivering expert advice to their key customers. This is achieved by utilising mobility to connect the existing expertise of their organisation to their customer service channels.

“Mobility has happened. It is a strategic asset to gain competitive advantage”, said Petri Pellinen, founder and CTO of Lekane. “With our solution we enable the entire organization to act as a customer service asset. The people that should be reached to serve your key customers are not going to be sitting at their desks with a headset. To create excellent customer service you can either train your contact center to be experts or you can use your existing experts as a strategic resource for customer service. With a mobile solution you can deploy the solution quickly and in a cost effective manner using the existing mobile capabilities.”

Describing the success that TeliaSonera has achieved using Lekane’s solution to support their mobile telephony core network, Mr Aarne Ylä-Rotiala, CEO of Lekane, explained “By utilising Lekane Mobile Contact Center, TeliaSonera has achieved significant improvements in communication between their network operations experts, and the field maintenance staff”.

For more information, please also see the Genesys press release on the Customer Innovation Awards.

Whilst online, key customers can see the availability of their account manager and request to speak to them immediately. The account manager receives a popup on their mobile phone with the customer information and what they are looking at online. The account manager can then call back to the customer and quickly deal with their enquiry.

TalkNow Demonstration

A live demonstration of TalkNow is available on the front page of our website. The telephone image shows our availability as green if at least one of our staff is available to call you back, or red if we are currently busy.

Please enter your phone number (and any extra details) and press the Go button to send a call request direct to the staff members mobile phone.

Lekane’s solution can be deployed out of the box against an existing BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Alternately, Lekane MCC can be easily deployed to support BlackBerrys configured with an Internet service. With both deployment channels supported, Lekane’s product can be installed with minimal effort.

Windows Mobile device support
Lekane Mobile Contact Center client is also in beta testing for a number of devices running on Windows Mobile 2003 as well as Windows Mobile 5 and 6. Users benefit from a consistent user experience and branding independent of device.

Enhanced device support
Lekane Mobile Contact Center client has expanded its supported device range to include the latest Nokia E and N series devices, including the Nokia E90 Communicator with dual screen support.

Enhanced administration capabilities
Lekane introduces tools to simplify management of client installations. Using a web based application you can now see the status of your Lekane environment at a single glance. You can rapidly deploy Lekane clients to your employees to tap the talent of your entire organization where it really makes a difference: enhancing the customer experience.

Lekane offers relevant contextual information on incoming calls, to allow your employees to respond appropriately. The dynamic Mobile Contact Center can be customized on a per call basis so that essential facts can be delivered to a mobile device.

“We are excited to get this opportunity to further accelerate our expansion efforts. BornGlobal™ is a natural fit for Lekane at this stage and will help us strengthen our foothold in European and Asian markets.” says Mr Aarne Ylä-Rotiala, CEO of Lekane.