Salesforce.com Sets the Standard for Social and Mobile CRM - Unveils Next Generation of Salesforce Chatter

SAN FRANCISCO, March 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced the next generation of Salesforce Chatter – the leading enterprise social network – setting the standard for social and mobile CRM. Salesforce.com is building upon its mobile CRM leadership with new innovations to transform the way customer companies sell, service and market to their customers. For the first time ever, now companies will be able to access, create and act on customer information within Salesforce – all in the Chatter feed, from any device. And because Chatter is built on the Salesforce Platform, salesforce.com is the only company that can deliver social and mobile innovations that enable companies to connect with their customers, partners and employees in entirely new ways.

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Comments on the News

• "Companies are grappling with the new business world where every customer has a voice through social and mobile technologies and expectations for immediate engagement," said Nasi Jazayeri, EVP and GM of Salesforce Chatter, salesforce.com. "The new Salesforce Chatter delivers the next generation of social and mobile CRM to customer companies, transforming the way they connect with their customers in entirely new ways. Now every company employee can put the customer first to deliver amazing sales, service or marketing experiences right from the feed."
• "Vodafone Australia's thousands of retail employees — spread across hundreds of stores throughout the country — are mobile users. Chatter helps them stay connected to one another and provides a bridge to our corporate office functions and information," said Murray Elliott, social systems manager, Vodafone Australia. "With a few quick words and a tap, employees can access up-to-date information, opinions, and expert help for optimizing customer sales and service interactions. Chatter has helped us create a real sense of community internally and has given us the ability to stay in touch and up-to-date like never before."
• "We receive customer requests that require rapid turnaround - around the clock. Salesforce Chatter takes accessibility to the next level," said Dave McDermott, director of Sales Enablement, Kelly Services. "Employees around the world can collaborate on activity crucial to our clients wherever they are, on any device."
• "The industry is moving toward social and mobile sales, service and marketing much more quickly than many realize," said Frank Gens, SVP and chief analyst, IDC. "Companies that are not putting their competitive energy into arming their employees for these areas will be trapped in the legacy portion of the market."

Become a Customer Company
The shift to social and mobile cloud computing has empowered companies to connect with their customers in entirely new ways and become customer companies. Customer companies listen to every customer, engage on every channel and deliver great customer service everywhere. They sell as a team, connect products to the network and deliver apps on any device. By connecting everything – customers, employees, partners and products – customer companies revolutionize the way they sell, service, market and innovate. Salesforce.com is the only company delivering a next generation customer platform that gives companies the power to create deeper connections with their customers and unlock greater levels of growth, innovation and success.

New Salesforce Chatter: Sell, Service and Market From Within the Feed, From Any Device
The proliferation of mobile devices has changed employee expectations – they want the apps they interact with at work to be like the apps they use in their personal lives – easy to navigate and use from any device. At the same time, the rapid adoption of social networks means more than a billion people are engaging in entirely new ways, all through the feed. Legacy CRM software was built for an era of desktops and siloed departments, but today's customer companies know they need the power of social and mobile technologies to connect with customers, partners, employees and products.

With the new Chatter, for the first time, from any device users will be able to:

• Access all customer information stored inside Salesforce including customer accounts, campaigns, cases, leads, opportunities and custom apps built on top of the Salesforce Platform. Now, users can get real-time updates – such as a quote approval, service inquiry or social conversation – to connect with customers in entirely new ways.
• Create and edit information and notifications from the new publisher that lets users seamlessly scroll through a variety of actions including files, photos, polls, tasks, thanks and more. In just a couple of taps, users can now create a task, edit a contract or even create a custom action.
• Act on updates around contacts, accounts, opportunities, campaigns and custom records directly from the feed. For example, a sales rep in a taxi can see a deal update in the feed and send the necessary files to close the deal – making every moment actionable.

Salesforce Chatter: The Enterprise Social Network of Choice for Customer Companies
Chatter is the global standard for enterprise social networks, driving new levels of innovation with more than 195,000 active social networks. Chatter combines social networking features such as profiles, real-time feeds, trending topics, recommendations and influence measurement, with the business information in Salesforce. Leading brands such as Design Within Reach, Kelly Services, Virgin America and Vodafone Australia are realizing success with Chatter today.     

• Design Within Reach selected Chatter to help employees quickly get answers for product-related questions – like dimension details, available finishes, or when a backordered item will become available – via mobile devices so reps can use it to get answers anytime.
• Kelly Services selected Chatter to allow employees to collaborate and participate in conversations across functions, geographies, and operations, thanks to a private employee social network.
• Vodafone Australia selected Chatter to unify conversations with business processes across geographies, teams, product lines and retail stores. Teams from marketing to technology will take advantage of the mobility of Chatter to collaborate from virtually anywhere.
• Virgin America selected Chatter to create a wall-to-wall employee social network to align, motivate and drive performance across its entire workforce.

Chatter is integrated across all of the Salesforce apps and is extended through custom and partner apps built on the Salesforce Platform, enabling employees to be more productive in their everyday work. In fact, according to a recent salesforce.com-sponsored survey of 5,500 Chatter customers, companies have reduced meetings by an average of 25 percent, reduced email by an average of 26 percent and generated an average of 29 percent more ideas through collaboration. In addition, they have increased employee connections by an average of 31 percent and seen an average of 34 percent increase in employee engagement.

Pricing & Availability

• Salesforce Chatter is optimized for Android phones and iOS devices. It is generally available now and included with all Salesforce editions.
• Salesforce Chatter create and edit record capabilities is currently scheduled to be available the second half of 2013.
• The Salesforce Chatter mobile application is free for all salesforce.com customers.

Additional Information

• Like Salesforce Chatter on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Chatter
• Learn more about Chatter: http://www.salesforce.com/chatter/overview/  
• Follow @Chatter and @Salesforce on Twitter

About salesforce.com
Founded in 1999, salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing leader. Salesforce.com's social and mobile cloud technologies enable companies to transform into customer companies by connecting with their customers, employees, partners and products in entirely new ways. Based on salesforce.com's real-time, multitenant architecture, the company's apps and platform revolutionize the way companies sell, service, market and innovate.

• Grow your business with the #1 sales app, Salesforce Sales Cloud
• Deliver amazing customer service with the #1 service app, Salesforce Service Cloud
• Listen, engage, advertise and measure social marketing with the #1 social marketing app, Salesforce Marketing Cloud
• Build and deliver social and mobile apps with the Salesforce Platform, and extend success with the world's leading enterprise app marketplace, the AppExchange

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information please visit http://salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

SOURCE salesforce.com