Salesforce takes customer service to the cloud

NEW DELHI: Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, has launched its next generation solution for customer service - Service Cloud, built on the Force.com platform.  

The Service Cloud through the power of cloud computing, and brings together industry leading cloud computing platforms like Google, Facebook and Amazon.com  to capture every conversation and leverage every community expert in the cloud.

By capturing these conversations, the Service Cloud empowers companies to 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, believes Salesforce.

"The Service Cloud is the first customer service solution that empowers companies to join and manage all service conversations happening in the cloud," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. "This has been made possible through the emergence of native cloud computing platforms like Force.com that are built to harness the power of other clouds like Facebook, Google, and Amazon.com.”

According to Gartner analyst Michael Maoz Vice President and Research Fellow, Gartner, Inc., "The new generation of consumers trusts content created by peers. This consumer expectation that they can create answers and content as part of a community will lead businesses and other organizations to adopt similar techniques to succeed. Ultimately, organizations will have to change their singular emphasis on tools for agents, to a broader strategy that also supports the role of community experts."

"Increasingly, people connect with organizations and products through the trusted friends and communities of experts that are part of their online social network,” said Elliot Schrage, VP, communications, public policy and platform marketing, Facebook. “Organizations need a powerful way to become part of the conversations about their products, and we believe Force.com for Facebook and Facebook Pages enable companies to engage with customers on a more personal level.”

Says Bill Hoban, CIO of Extra Space Storage. "Customers are already sharing knowledge and having meaningful support conversations in the cloud with their community of friends and experts. Salesforce.com will allow us to join the conversation with this expert community to improve the way we serve our customers."

The Service Cloud packages start at $995 per month, and 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 and Google

·Invite up to five partners to participate in the service cloud