Salesforce.com Announces Service Cloud1 and Sales Cloud1
Salesforce.com today announced Service Cloud1, with new innovations that it says will enable businesses to deliver more personalized, smarter, and faster customer service experiences, and Sales Cloud1, which it says will empowers sales reps to grow sales faster with new consumer-inspired mobile sales apps delivered on the Salesforce1 Platform.
In addition, salesforce.com announced a new agreement with Thomson Reuters, a source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, to connect sales reps to the content that matters to their deals.
Innovations in the Service Cloud1 include SOS for Apps, a smarter agent console, and instant service communities.
Salesforce SOS for Apps, similar to the Mayday button for the Amazon Fire Phone and Kindle Fire HDX tablet, is a mobile service solution that will provide in-context access to customer service with a live video connection to an agent, on-screen guided assistance, and screen sharing. It will enable any company to embed personalized service in any mobile app to deliver instant, anytime access to support.
The Smarter Agent Console is optimized to boost service agent productivity in fast-paced environments. The smarter Console pushes dynamic content to agents around known issues, highlights the resources most often used to resolve cases faster, and streamlines access to data.
Instant Service Communities, powered by the Salesforce Community Cloud, allow any company to create, brand, and deploy self-service communities where customers can connect with information, apps, and experts to find answers to their questions.
Desk Connect syncs data from support cases to Salesforce for a single, comprehensive view of the customer. As businesses grow and require more sophisticated customer service practices, they have an easy path to Service Cloud1 from Desk1 with Desk Connect.
"Today's consumers expect customer service to be easy and readily available with the swipe of a finger," said Mike Milburn, senior vice president and general manager of Service Cloud, in a statement. "Service Cloud1 takes the customer service experience beyond easy and instant, by enabling personalized, smarter, and faster customer engagements."
New Sales Cloud1 mobile apps, including Today, Tasks, Notes, Events and Sales Path, work seamlessly together.
Today is a Google Now-like app that is personalized for every sales rep. It displays top tasks, dashboards, upcoming meetings, weather, news, and more. Now sales reps can glance at Today before their next prospect meeting to find relevant details about meeting attendees, opportunities on the table, and recent activities within the account.
Tasks is a to-do app that helps reps manage priorities. Because it's connected to customer records within Salesforce, Tasks automatically links an action item, such as "Follow up with ACME on Oct. 26," to the ACME account within the rep's Sales Cloud1 deployment. In addition, sales reps can assign a to-do, defer an action item, or mark a task as complete with the swipe of a finger.
Notes allows sales reps to jot down notes to remember key details and take action later. Notes automatically links to contacts or accounts and is completely connected to customer records within Salesforce. And with the swipe of a finger, sales reps can immediately turn their notes into a to-do list within the Tasks app.
With Events, sales reps can now access and update all of their meetings and events in Salesforce directly from their mobile devices.
The new Sales Path app is a guide for sales reps to advance a prospect through deal stages in the sales cycle by coaching them and recommending sales engagement tools. When a deal reaches a certain stage, the app could proactively recommend sales reps share a certain presentation or bring in a product expert. With Sales Path, any change to a company's sales methodology is automatically reflected in the app.
With the new Skills and Rewards app, powered by Salesforce Work.com, sales reps can instantly identify teammates with the expertise needed to advance a deal. In addition, new Open Rewards lets sales reps reward teammates for their help in a deal by recognizing them with a gift card from leading stores and nonprofits via Tango Card.
New Sales Data will provide relevant third-party content on sales reps' top accounts, contacts, and industries directly in Salesforce. Brought to customers via the new partnership between Thomson Reuters and Salesforce Data.com, Sales Data will provide access to content from the Thomson Reuters content marketplace.
"We're excited about this opportunity to integrate Thomson Reuters powerful content with Salesforce to create a solution with enhanced and actionable sales intelligence," said Marika Vilen, senior vice president and head of partnerships, Americas, Thomson Reuters, in a statement.
"Sales reps often evolve their strategy based on news or significant events, and with the amount of information being produced today, access to relevant data has never been more important to sales reps," said Andy MacMillan, senior vice president and general manager of Data.com, in a statement. "The Thomson Reuters agreement will deliver the power of Reuters news, relied upon by Wall Street professionals, directly into Salesforce and the mobile devices of sales reps everywhere."
"The mobile phone has become the dashboard of our lives, all driven by the apps that make us more productive," said Linda Crawford, executive vice president and general manager of Sales Cloud, in a statement. "The new Sales Cloud1 takes productivity to a new level, empowering sales reps to sell smarter and faster from the palm of their hand."
Sales Cloud1 pricing starts at $65 per user per month. Salesforce Data.com pricing starts at $25 per user per month for Corporate Clean. Salesforce Work.com pricing starts at $10 per user per month for Work.com Motivate. Salesforce Sales Reach and Sales Path are planned to be available the first half of 2015. Salesforce Sales Data's enhanced research and analysis is planned to be available in the second half of 2015.