August 14, 2012

Salesforce.com Unveils Salesforce Communities

Salesforce.com today unveiled Salesforce Communities, which will enable enterprises to create private social communities to connect with customers and partners in entirely new ways.

Salesforce Communities will combine social networking features such as profiles, real-time feeds, trending topics, recommendations and influence measurement, with the business information and processes in Salesforce. With Salesforce Communities, enterprises will be empowered to deliver completely new levels of collaboration and productivity through custom, branded communities.

"Today, more than ever, companies need to put customers at the heart of their business," said Doug Bewsher, senior vice president of Salesforce Chatter, in a statement. "With Salesforce Communities, enterprises will be able to break the boundaries of their companies, connecting them much closer to their customers and partners."

with the new Salesforce Communities, companies will be able to do the following:

Connect with Customers: Salesforce Communities will help social enterprises combine knowledge-driven, peer-assisted and agent-assisted customer service communities into a single unified experience giving customers better and faster service, every time. Companies will also be able to create a variety of marketing communities around events, campaigns or even spin up focus groups on the fly.
Connect with Partners: Companies, along with their partners, suppliers and distributors, can create custom communities to drive more sales through seamless deal registration, access to proven sales tools and collaboration with the right experts.
Connect with Any Community: Deploy communities to support any business process - from franchises sharing best practices, to high-end retailers delivering custom shopping experiences, to universities looking to connect students with alumni.
Quickly build and deploy branded communities within minutes,
Move seamlessly across multiple communities with a single identity; and,
Scale instantly to support communities of all sizes - from a few people to communities with millions of members.

Salesforce Communities is currently scheduled to be available in limited pilot in the fall. The general availability is scheduled for mid-2013.