Intro to new technology: Alexis Casares

So far in our leaning in this course we have discussed Web 2.0 technologies created for the consumer. Companies then use those web technologies to market to a target audience in the hopes of growing incremental revenue. I am going to be discussing a web application developed for businesses to accelerate market share growth and, in turn, provide better customer service. The technology is called Salesforce.com. It is a technology that allows team members, in large companies, with multiple channel offerings to stay connected to each other.

What are companies with multiple channel offerings? These are companies which have local branches, phone customer service, and an eCommerce solution. How did companies with multiple channels do business before? Before companies had solutions like Salesforce.com team members would be uninformed to daily activities of their customers. For example, if a customer called in for product support and then called back five minutes later there would be no record of the technical call resulting in the new customer service agent having to start all over again. This was not only a waste of time, but it was also an annoyance to the customer. What companies have done is to listen to their customers and implement a solution to alleviate many of the annoying experiences customers go through. The implementation of this solution results in faster growing sales.  

Salesforce.com works to unify the workplace to a common mission of providing the best customer service, and to allow team members to have the information necessary to capture more business. Salesforce.com works by recording every time a team member contacts a customer in every channel. This interaction is recorded to find useful information on a later interaction and/or to capture information that could result in incremental sales.

Salesforce.com also has a chatter function that is almost exactly like twitter. This chatter function allows team members around the world to communicate relevant business information as well as the ability to any team member to forward a potential sales leads to the customer’s account manager. With the account manager being more informed of the customer’s needs, they can offer a more relevant solution and close the sale.