KANA Software Inc., a Menlo Park, Calif. provider of customer service applications, has forged a strategic partnership with collaboration software developer to offer the Jive Forums application for creating and managing online communities.

said it will use the software to enhance its customers’ service strategies with knowledge-sharing and collaboration capabilities. Jive Forums enables a company to harness the knowledge residing within its customer base through online communities where customers can answer questions and share ideas and insights, reducing calls to the contact center.

Under the agreement, Jive Forums has been integrated with the KANA IQ enterprise knowledge management system for customer service optimization and Web self-service. The integration allows users to transition from Web self-service sessions to peer support through the online discussion forums. Contact center agents can also use Jive’s expertise ranking technology to locate the most appropriate internal subject matter experts and then collaborate with them in discussion forums to resolve complex inquiries.

Forum postings can be routed through KANA IQ’s workflow, approved and published to the knowledge base for future assisted- and self-service interactions. In addition, content from the knowledge base can be posted to forum discussions.