“There’s always something happening at Salesforce.”As this month (and quarter) draws to a close, here are some of the interesting developments in the CRM community: Salesforce announces NEW service for Apps, plus we have all the details from Salesforce Connection Event hosted in New York.
1) Salesforce Community Cloud named leader by Forrester Research
Salesforce announced this week that its Community Cloud was named as a leader by Forrester Research in its report, The Forrester Wave™: Social Depth Platforms Q2 2015. Community Cloud received “high marks for its advanced mobile features, identity management and extensive global support, “as well as receiving the highest score in the market presence category.
Community users want answers and information fast, and Salesforce has been able to address this needs and transform customer experience; it has given customers the power to communicate with enterprises in a whole new way with its Community Cloud and it has been rewarded for it.
http://investor.salesforce.com/about-us/investor/investor-news/investor-news-details/2015/Salesforce-Community-Cloud-Named-a-Leader-by-Independent-Research-Firm/default.aspx
2) Salesforce Announces Service for Apps
Saleforce has a new in-app customer support system called Salesforce Service for Apps , which is part of the Service Cloud Platform. This platform can help companies solve cases 48 % more quickly while reducing support costs by an average of 45 %, as explained by the company.
By using this App a company can easily implement different features like live video, chat support, case monitoring and tap-to-call access to phone support; it also comes with an SOS button that instantly puts users in touch with agents for live on-screen video help. Salesforce SOS is available now, thought other tools are scheduled for later this year.
Service for Apps will enable companies to easily expand their support options for customers who are interacting with them through mobile apps, according to Salesforce.
In-app support should be a key strategy for any app, especially considering our recentt post “Is Your Company Ready For The Mobile Revolution?” that said that 89% of the consumer’s time spent on media is through mobile apps. “The mobile app revolution has created a new requirement for instant, always-on service,” said Mike Milburn, senior vice president and general manager of Service Cloud for Salesforce, and that’s why this in-app service come in so handy for companies.
http://www.salesforce.com/company/news-press/press-releases/2015/06/150618.jsp
3) Salesforce named a most influential brand on LinkedIn
Salesforce was named as one of the top 10 most influential brands on LinkedIn, side by side with other companies such as Google, IBM, Forbes and The Harvard Business Review, within others. The LinkedIn ranking is based on the platform’s content marketing score, which is calculated by measuring a brand’s unique engagement and dividing it by a brand’s audience over the course of six months.
According to a LinkedIn press release, “The most effective brands use a mix of reach, frequency and engagement to boost engagement on LinkedIn. In addition, they are encouraging their employees to act like influencers and boost the reach and engagement of their content by sharing it with their contacts.”
https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2015/06/salesforce-named-most-influential-brand-linkedin.html
4) All about Salesforce Connection event and Keith Block’s interview with Forbes.
After hosting its Connections event in New York City last week, “The Digital Marketing Event of the Year”, Forbes Magazine interviewed Salesforce president, Keith Block about the announcements made at the event. The event was focused on Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud business, which accounted for approximately 10% of last year’s sales. This event is primarily oriented to prospective and existing customers, therefore it becomes a good networking opportunity.
One of the Keith Block’s comments during the interview was that the company expects to achieve a full integration between its Wave analytics product and marketing cloud over the course of the year. We have been posting every week about different acquisitions, and partnerships that Salesforce has made in order to achieve full potential of its Marketing Cloud, this is because the company has noted that predictive content has much higher conversion rates, and it is what companies are demanding now. “This is not just a signal to our customers, but a signal to our ecosystem about building analytic apps for our partners. We have a message that is resonating for our customers that this company’s agenda is growth.” Keith said.
Overall, Salesforce’s message was clear; marketers focus should be entirely on the customer and customer experience. Data drive personalization is the key to achieve better performance and data analytics and situational content is the path, and Marketing Cloud now has the tools to make that happen.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2015/06/22/salesforce-president-keith-block-talks-big-customers-and-startups/?utm_campaign=yahootix&partner=yahootix
5) App of the week
FieldExpert is a Salesforce-native field service application that streamlines the full service lifecycle from service appointment booking, through smart scheduling, work order management, mobile field execution and reporting.
FieldExpert enables organizations to automatically schedule and manage field service employees in real-time, dramatically reducing field service costs. Chatter is built in to every action so that the right people see what’s happening at the right time and can take action.
FieldExpert is 100% on the Salesforce1 platform which means it works great with Sales Cloud, Service Cloud or any other AppExchange application. Easily connect it to any standard or custom object and instantly schedule service appointments for cases, opportunities, leads, assets, or any of your own custom objects.
If you want to learn more go to the Salesforce Appexchange web-page or Contact us for more information by clicking here