Salesforce Launches Desk.com App Hub, Empowering Fast-Growing SMBs to Leverage Customer Service to Accelerate Growth

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the Customer Success Platform and world's #1 CRM company, today launched the Desk.com App Hub, empowering fast-growing SMBs to leverage customer service to accelerate growth. The new App Hub is a one-stop shop for SMBs to easily access more than 50 partner apps that help them enhance the customer service experience and accelerate growth. Utilizing partner apps that manage everything from e-commerce and email marketing, to telephony and text messaging support, Desk.com customers can deliver greater levels of customer engagement and have a single, comprehensive view of the customer. With the App Hub, SMBs now have a single, trusted location where they can quickly deploy apps that enhance customer service, without the cost and hassle of building one-off integrations. Desk.com, the all-in-one customer support app, allows fast-growing companies such as HotelTonight, SoundCloud and ZenPayroll to deliver awesome customer support and connect with customers in a whole new way.

Comments on the News

• "Fast-growing small businesses that succeed today are the ones that place customer service at the heart of their business," said Leyla Seka, GM and SVP of Salesforce Desk.com, Salesforce. "The Desk.com App Hub will help SMBs jumpstart their growth and leverage customer service as a competitive advantage."

• "SMB sized firms already drive more than half of global cloud consumption, since they recognize the benefits of using low cost, effectively hosted applications," said Chris Chute, vice president of SMB Cloud and Mobility Practice, IDC. "IDC forecasts global SMB cloud revenue growth of 22 percent over the next five years*¹, as more SMBs utilize a wider set of cloud apps. However, they will quickly realize they need cost effective ways to integrate and manage these alongside their existing environments. Desk.com App Hub will help SMBs focus on growing the business, rather than dealing with these integration hassles and the high IT costs to manage them."

• "Consistent and personalized customer service is what's demanded by today's consumer, so businesses must evolve to meet these expectations," said Jonathan Gale, CEO, NewVoiceMedia. "The combined power of Desk.com and NewVoiceMedia's ContactWorld solution delivers an enhanced level of customer engagement and personalization through Salesforce, enabling companies of all sizes to positively differentiate themselves through world-class customer service."

• "The future of online customer service is already here. It's just not everywhere," said Ben Congleton, CEO and Co-Founder, Olark live chat. "We're proud to join Desk.com's App Hub on their mission to empower excellent online customer service. We champion a brighter future for live chat. Customers who've used Olark live chat fall in love with it because it connects them instantly to the people behind the website and that's when the magic happens. The customer and company move forward, happier together."

Customer Service at the Heart of the Business Drives Growth for SMBs
Many SMBs are realizing that putting customer service at the heart of their business is a catalyst for growth. But the challenge that most SMBs face is that customer service is often disconnected from other areas of the business—shattering any hope of an accurate single view of the customer. In fact, a recent survey found that only 21 percent of SMBs integrate their apps without the help of a third party². This signals the industry need for SMBs to have a trusted and centralized location to quickly access apps that help them grow the business.

The new App Hub is the one-stop shop where SMBs can quickly access apps from an ecosystem of more than 50 partners that help them enhance the customer service experience. App Hub allows SMBs to deploy apps to deliver greater levels of customer engagement and have a single, comprehensive view of the customer through new integrations, including:  

• New Canvas Technology Creates a Window Into Third-Party Apps—New Canvas Technology will display third-party apps directly in the Desk.com agent console for a single, unified view of all customer data needed to resolve cases. This eliminates the need for agents to toggle between different apps. For example, a popular shipping app integrated into the Desk.com console allows an agent to view and search package tracking data without ever leaving the help desk app. With the new Canvas Technology integration, apps from partners such as Harvest, JIRA, MailChimp, Olark, Shopify and Twilio can now be accessed directly within Desk.com.

• New Telephony Integrations Deliver Multi-Channel Support—Now SMBs can complete the cycle of multi-channel support by adding telephone support, leveraging new integrations from leading telephony vendors such as Five9, NewVoiceMedia, OneReach, RingCentral and TalkDesk. Now incoming service calls appear directly in the Desk.com agent view, allowing customers to receive help in any format. Desk.com provides the industry's most comprehensive multichannel support, allowing customers to deliver amazing customer service on every channel, including chat, email, self-service, social media, web and now the phone.

• New Desk Connect Completes the 360-Degree View of the Customer—New Desk Connect enables SMBs to create a single, comprehensive view of the customer by seamlessly syncing data from Desk.com support cases to Salesforce. As businesses grow and have more sophisticated customer service requirements, they now have an easy path to Salesforce Service Cloud from Desk.com with Desk Connect. In addition, App Hub partners can seamlessly integrate with Salesforce.

Fast-Growing Companies Succeed with Desk.com
Desk.com is the all-in-one customer support app that empowers fast-growing companies to instantly deliver awesome customer support and get a help desk up and running in hours or days. Fast-growing companies such as HotelTonight, SoundCloud and ZenPayroll, are using Desk.com to deliver amazing customer support. Desk.com customers on average experience a 42 percent faster response time, 38 percent increase in agent productivity, 36 percent increase in customer satisfaction and 27 percent decrease in support costs, according to a Desk.com commissioned research. The full report, "Desk.com Customer Survey: Results & Analysis," is available here.

Pricing and Availability

• Salesforce Desk.com is generally available today and pricing starts at $30 per user per month.
• Desk Connect and telephony integrations are available in the Desk.com Plus plan with pricing starting at $50 per agent per month.
• Canvas technology is expected to be available in early 2015 and pricing will be announced at the time of general availability.

Additional Information

• Learn more about Desk.com at: http://www.desk.com/why.
• Learn more about the Desk.com App Hub at: http://www.desk.com/features/apps.
• Follow @Desk on Twitter.
• Like Desk.com on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Desk.

About Salesforce
Salesforce, the Customer Success Platform and world's #1 CRM company, empowers companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way. For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit:www.salesforce.com.

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¹ Worldwide and U.S. SMB Public Cloud Revenue 2014-2018 Forecast (IDC#251967, October 2014)
² SMB Group, 2014 Small and Medium Business Routes to Market

SOURCE Salesforce

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