Salesforce.com Extends the Service Cloud Into Real-Time Customer Conversations With New Salesforce CRM for Twitter
March 23 2009 - 8:00AM
PR Newswire (US)
Salesforce CRM for Twitter enables companies to search, monitor and
join relevant Twitter micro-conversations directly in the Service
Cloud SAN FRANCISCO, March 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing company,
today announced Salesforce CRM for Twitter, enabling companies to
search, monitor and join conversations taking place on Twitter
directly in the Service Cloud. The Service Cloud, announced in
January of this year, is the next generation solution for customer
service that exponentially increases the quality of customer
service, while lowering the cost, by leveraging the expertise of
the community. Already connected to leading social networking sites
like Facebook, Salesforce CRM for Twitter enables companies to use
the Service Cloud to connect directly with the more than eight
million Twitter users. (Logo:
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO) "Since its
introduction in January, we've seen tremendous momentum and
validation from customers, prospects, and partners that the Service
Cloud represents the future of customer service," said Marc
Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. "Today's announcement
builds on this momentum by enabling companies to join the
conversations happening between the more than eight million users
on Twitter." "Simplicity has played an important role in Twitter's
success, making it quick and easy for consumers to connect to their
community. With Salesforce CRM for Twitter, enterprises can
replicate this same experience by keeping track of the
conversations happening right now on Twitter," said Evan Williams,
founder and CEO of Twitter.com. "Customers are talking, but it is a
question of who is listening. Salesforce CRM for Twitter and the
Service Cloud allows businesses to not only listen and learn, but
to also actively participate in the conversation," said Frank
Eliason of Comcast. Salesforce CRM for Twitter - Leverage the
Service Cloud to Join the Conversations on Twitter Twitter provides
a free platform for users to answer the question "What are you
doing?" in 140 characters or less and broadcast the answer to a
broader community. These "tweets" can cover any topic area,
including specific companies, brands and products. Twitter's
incredible growth has attracted the attention of many enterprises
that want to leverage and participate in this increasingly
influential community. Twitter enables a direct connection between
end-users and enterprises in the more casual world of Twitter
conversations. Salesforce CRM for Twitter and the Service Cloud
give companies an easy way to join conversations happening on
Twitter by enabling: -- Search: Salesforce CRM for Twitter helps
companies search through the millions of "tweets" happening on
Twitter every day to find the relevant conversations - all from
within the Service Cloud. -- Monitor: After identifying an
appropriate "tweet," a company can capture and monitor the
conversation by creating a record in the Service Cloud that tracks
the original post and all subsequent replies. -- Join: Salesforce
CRM for Twitter empowers enterprises to be active participants on
Twitter by enabling them to funnel relevant solutions from the
Service Cloud knowledge base into a Twitter post, effectively
joining the conversation. "Customers are already sharing knowledge
and having conversations about our company on Twitter. Therefore,
we are excited about being able to track these conversations and
engage with the Twitter community through the Service Cloud," said
Dennis Martin of NJ TRANSIT. "Salesforce CRM for Twitter and the
Service Cloud would allow us to reach our customers beyond
traditional avenues of communication." "Today, customers are
looking to the cloud for experts to help answer their service
questions. With more than eight million users, Twitter is a new
destination for customer conversations, yet most companies don't
have a strategy for joining those conversations. Salesforce CRM for
Twitter and the Service Cloud provides companies of all sizes an
efficient and effective way to join the Twitter conversation," said
Rebecca Wettemann, VP Research, Nucleus Research. The Service Cloud
- The Future of Customer Service Traditionally, contact center
technologies have been removed from the experts and knowledge found
in the cloud. Yet, while companies continued to invest in these
technologies, customer satisfaction rates have remained stagnant
and customers turned to the cloud to answer their customer service
questions. Today, 50 percent of all service conversations take
place in the cloud. The Service Cloud unites these two
disconnected, yet vitally important, worlds to establish the new
model for customer service. The Service Cloud transforms customer
service through the power of cloud computing, and brings together
industry leading cloud computing platforms like Google, Facebook
and Twitter to capture every conversation and leverage every
community expert in the cloud. By capturing these conversations,
the Service Cloud helps companies deliver the expertise of the
community to customers, agents and partners regardless of location
or device - ensuring that the quality of customer service is
consistent across every channel. The Service Cloud represents the
future of customer service, where more than two-thirds of all
service conversations will take place in the cloud. Capturing and
funneling information from inside the enterprise and in the cloud
into a company's knowledge base is at the heart of the Service
Cloud. 6,800 companies, including Enterasys, Misys Banking Systems
and Plantronics, have already standardized on Salesforce CRM and
the Service Cloud for their customer service operations. The
Service Cloud Builds on the Power of the Force.com Platform Built
on the Force.com platform, the Service Cloud utilizes the latest
Force.com capabilities, including Force.com Sites, Force.com for
Facebook, and more to uniquely join together knowledge and
conversations regardless of where they take place online. The
Service Cloud also taps into the power of more than 100 customer
service extensions on the Force.com AppExchange for areas like
chat, field service and CTI. Additionally, customers using the
Service Cloud gain all the benefits of the proven security,
reliability and scalability of salesforce.com's trusted global
infrastructure. Pricing and Availability Salesforce CRM for Twitter
is currently scheduled to be available at no additional charge on
the Force.com AppExchange in the summer of 2009. Service Cloud
packages start at $995 per month, which includes the ability to: --
Create an online customer community with unlimited usage for up to
250 customers -- Set up a contact center with up to five agents --
Connect with native cloud computing sites like Facebook, Google and
Twitter -- Invite up to five partners to participate in the Service
Cloud Service Cloud packages are available today. Force.com Sites
is currently scheduled to be generally available later this year.
Please visit http://www.salesforce.com/servicecloud for more
information. About salesforce.com Salesforce.com is the enterprise
cloud computing company. The company's portfolio of SaaS
applications, including its award-winning CRM, available at
http://www.salesforce.com/products/, has revolutionized the ways
that customers manage and share business information over the
Internet. The company's Force.com PaaS enables customers,
developers and partners to build powerful on-demand applications
that deliver the benefits of multi-tenancy across the enterprise.
Applications built on the Force.com platform, available at
http://www.force.com//, can be easily shared, exchanged and
installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's Force.com
AppExchange marketplace available at
http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/. As of January 31, 2009,
salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately
55,400 customers including Allianz Commercial, Dell, Dow Jones
Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, and SunTrust Banks.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other
press releases or public statements are not currently available and
may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase
salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions
based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com
has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia,
and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol
"CRM". For more information please visit
http://www.salesforce.com/, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE. Copyright
(c) 2009 salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved. Salesforce and
the "no software" logo are registered trademarks of salesforce.com,
inc., and salesforce.com owns other registered and unregistered
trademarks. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their
respective owners.
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO
http://photoarchive.ap.org/ DATASOURCE: salesforce.com CONTACT:
Katy Dormer of salesforce.com, +1-415-901-8595, Web Site:
http://www.salesforce.com/
Copyright