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Salesforce.com Extends the Service Cloud Into Real-Time Customer Conversations With New Salesforce CRM for Twitter

Posted on: Monday, 23 March 2009, 07:00 CDT

Salesforce CRM for Twitter enables companies to search, monitor and join relevant Twitter micro-conversations directly in the Service Cloud

The Service Cloud empowers customer service organizations to join and manage today's customer service conversations in the 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<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<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.

SOURCE salesforce.com

Source: PR Newswire

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