Salesforce.com unveils Service Cloud 2

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, announced the launch of Service Cloud 2. The Service Cloud, announced in January this year, is the next generation solution for customer service.

The Service Cloud will deliver new product innovations for the customer service industry by introducing the world's first knowledge base designed for cloud computing - Salesforce Knowledge; an entirely new way to look at customer communities and discussion forums - Salesforce Answers; and Salesforce for Twitter, which allows companies to monitor and join the customer service conversations taking place on Twitter.

The customer service application market represents a major opportunity for salesforce.com, which according to IDC will be worth $4.2 billion by 2012.

Salesforce Knowledge will be priced at $50 per agent, per month for Salesforce.com customers and is currently scheduled to be available in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2010. Salesforce Answers is currently in pilot and is currently scheduled to be available in the first quarter of fiscal year 2011. Salesforce for Twitter is available today at no additional charge on the Force.com AppExchange for Professional, Enterprise and Unlimited Edition customers.

Service Cloud 2

Eight thousand companies, including Extra Space Storage, NJ TRANSIT and Plantronics, have standardized on the Service Cloud for their customer service operations - representing a 175 percent growth in business year over year.

Companies using the Service Cloud have seen a 28 percent increase in customer satisfaction, 25 percent increase in call deflection, 30 percent increase in first call resolution, 37 percent rise in service and support productivity and a 26 percent increase in customer retention, according to a recent third party survey.

Salesforce Knowledge

A year after salesforce.com acquired Instranet, salesforce.com will offer the world's first Knowledge-as-a-Service, the first ever multi-tenant knowledge base designed for cloud computing. The core Service Cloud knowledge base built on Force.com will deliver:

Salesforce Answers

For years, customer service centers have been limited to knowledge articles produced by company employees, and have not benefited from the explosion of consumer wisdom that exists across the Web. Today, online communities and social websites hold a wealth of knowledge and facilitate conversations around uncommon problems, new product use cases, best practices and much more. 

Utilizing the Service Cloud, Salesforce Answers will deliver a unique online experience that helps companies leverage the expertise in the cloud to bring the right answer to their customers.

Salesforce for 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. In today's Web-driven world where there is an expectation of real-time interaction, Salesforce for Twitter and the Service