Salesforce’s Summer 09 release lets companies collaborate to answer complaints
Salesforce.com has been unveiling some big additions to its customer relationship management software and related products, including a scaled-down mobile application called Mobile Lite and the Service Cloud, a tool for addressing customer service queries across the web. The details of its just-announced Summer 09 upgrade (which will go live to the San Francisco company’s 55,400 customers in June) aren’t as groundbreaking, but there are still some cool new features.
At the top of the list is the ability to collaborate with other companies to answer customer service complaints. Salesforce already allowed information-sharing and collaboration between Salesforce accounts through a feature called Salesforce to Salesforce. The upcoming release will include a new shareable data type called a “case,” which is basically any kind of trouble ticket that comes in via customer service. For example, if a mobile phone maker is trying to address a question about its integration with a specific headset, instead of calling or emailing the headset-maker, it can just share the details in Salesforce. Then, as more information becomes available or the question gets answered, the case gets updated in real-time.
Another new feature involves Salesforce’s ability to manage the approvals process for a decision. Users could already create those approval chains within the service, but as the processes became more complex, it was harder for participants to understand exactly what was going on. In Summer 09, Salesforce will be able to automatically draw up a chart visualizing the entire approvals process. That should help some workers figure out which bosses they need to suck up to and help managers spot flaws in the process.
The last major improvement involves a facelift to Salesforce’s charts, including two new types of charts — funnel- and donut-shaped. Okay, I feel kind of silly just writing that, but Salesforce says improved charts were an overwhelmingly popular request in its IdeaExchange.
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About the Author, Anthony Ha
Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.