Salesforce.com Unveils Service Cloud 2

Salesforce.com has announced the availability of Service Cloud 2 to further enhance customer service management. The Service Cloud, announced in January of this year, is the next-generation solution for customer service – it increases the quality of service, while lowering the cost, by leveraging the expertise of the community.

The Service Cloud will now deliver entirely new product innovations for the customer service industry by introducing a knowledge base designed for cloud computing - Salesforce Knowledge; a 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.

Salesforce Knowledge – delivering Knowledge-as-a-Service

Knowledge-as-a-Service is a multi-tenant knowledge base designed for cloud computing. The core Service Cloud knowledge base built on Force.com will allow companies to deploy their knowledge base in a matter of days and extend the technology to mobile devices and public websites. Companies will be able to deploy Salesforce Knowledge without having to install and manage hardware or software. With the knowledge base, customer service agents will be able to offer their customers an integrated customer service experience. The base is also open to customisation to meet a company’s specific needs. Salesforce.com plans to release product enhancements automatically three times a year.

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Salesforce Answers – Crowd-Sourced Knowledge

For years, customer service centres 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.

Utilising the Service Cloud, Salesforce Answers will deliver a unique online experience that will help companies leverage the expertise in the cloud to bring the right answer to their customers. Salesforce Answers will enable companies to create a complete, customisable website that facilitates question/ answer style conversations between customers. Companies can also filter the appropriate knowledge created on Salesforce Answers directly into the Service Cloud’s knowledge base, ensuring that customers, agents and partners will all have access to the best knowledge available. Companies can also set up a Salesforce Answers community directly on a Facebook company fan page, allowing the company to harness knowledge from Facebook members.

Salesforce for Twitter – Join Real-Time Conversations on Twitter

‘Tweets’ can cover any topic area, including specific companies, brands and products. Salesforce for Twitter will offer companies an easy way to join the real-time customer service conversations happening on Twitter by enabling them to search Twitter in real-time to find the most relevant customer service conversations. After identifying an appropriate tweet, a company can capture and monitor a service conversation in the Service Cloud and track the conversation.

Companies can also establish a Twitter support channel wherein customers can tweet their customer service issues and instantly create a case within the Service Cloud. Once the case is created, companies can leverage internal business processes to route cases to the most effective service representatives.

Salesforce for Twitter will also facilitate the delivery of expert knowledge back into the Twitter community by posting tweets directly from the Service Cloud’s knowledge base.

Pricing and Availability

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 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.