Salesforce.com Unveils Service Cloud For Customer Service

Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, has announced the Service Cloud, its next generation solution for customer service. Built on the Force.com platform, the Service Cloud transforms customer service through the power of cloud computing, and brings together cloud computing platforms like Google, Facebook and Amazon.com to capture every conversation and leverage every community expert in the cloud.

By capturing these conversations, the Service Cloud empowers companies to deliver the expertise of the community to customers, agents and partners regardless of location or device - ensuring that the quality of customer service is consistent across every channel. The Service Cloud represents the future of customer service, where more than two-thirds of all service conversations will take place in the cloud.

“The Service Cloud is the first customer service solution that empowers companies to join and manage all service conversations happening in the cloud,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. “This has been made possible through the emergence of native cloud computing platforms like Force.com that are built to harness the power of other clouds like Facebook, Google, and Amazon.com.”

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Michael Maoz, vice president and research fellow, Gartner, said, “The new generation of consumers trusts content created by peers. This consumer expectation that they can create answers and content as part of a community will lead businesses and other organisations to adopt similar techniques to succeed. Ultimately, organisations will have to change their singular emphasis on tools for agents, to a broader strategy that also supports the role of community experts.”

“Increasingly, people connect with organisations and products through the trusted friends and communities of experts that are part of their online social network,” said Elliot Schrage, VP, communications, public policy and platform marketing, Facebook. “Organisations need a powerful way to become part of the conversations about their products, and we believe Force.com for Facebook and Facebook Pages enable companies to engage with customers on a more personal level.”

The Service Cloud - The Future of Customer Service

Traditionally, contact centre technologies have been removed from the experts and knowledge found in the cloud. Yet already 50 percent of all service conversations are taking place in the cloud. The Service Cloud unites these two disconnected, yet vitally important, worlds to establish the new model for customer service. Capturing and funneling information from inside the enterprise and in the cloud into the knowledge base is at the heart of the Service Cloud. The Service Cloud is made up of seven main components around the knowledge base to gather, distill and disseminate the expert knowledge found in the cloud to customers, agents and partners:

- Community: Developing an online customer community is an integral part of the Service Cloud. The Service Cloud represents a fundamental shift in how companies approach their online presence - its not just a place to post information, but a community where customers can interact with each other and have conversations with the company at large.

- Social: The Force.com platform enables the Service Cloud to connect to leading social networking sites such as Facebook, community forums, blogs and more. Through these connections, companies will be able to funnel this information directly into their knowledge base.

- Search: More times than not, customers begin with a Google search to find answers to their questions. By creating an active online community with the Service Cloud, companies can ensure that their site is one of the top results returned in a customer’s search.

- Partners: Using the Service Cloud, companies can now share all of the information in the knowledge base quickly and easily with their partners.

- Phone, e-mail and chat: The Service Cloud will give agents access to knowledge in the cloud, regardless if they use phones, e-mail or chat to service customers. By providing the contact centre with the same knowledge found in the community, the Service Cloud ensures that the quality and cost of service across every channel is strengthened by the expertise of the community.