Salesforce.com Releases Salesforce Communities To Better Connect Customers And Channel Partners

In the age of social media, it is more important than ever for organizations to communicate with their partners and customers consistently regarding new product updates, partner programs and incentives, among other announcements. To help organizations make this transition to becoming a “social enterprise” more seamless, Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, has unveiled Salesforce Communities.

Salesforce Communities was designed to combine social networking features such as profiles, real-time feeds, trending topics, recommendations and influence measurement, along with business information and processes found in Salesforce.com. As a result, enterprises will be empowered to provide collaboration and productivity through custom communities.
“Today, more than ever, companies need to put customers at the heart of their business,” said Doug Bewsher, SVP of Salesforce Chatter, in a press release. “With Salesforce Communities, enterprises will be able to break the boundaries of their companies, connecting them much closer to their customers and partners.”

While organizations can currently connect internal teams via Salesforce.com’s Chatter platform, Salesforce Communities will help blur the lines between social dialogue and transactional updates and information found in partner portals. Channel-centric organizations, along with their partners, suppliers and distributors, can create custom communities to boost sales via seamless deal registration and access to sales tools, as well as other resources.

Salesforce Communities is scheduled to be available in a limited pilot during fall 2012, and available to all organizations during the second half of 2013. Pricing will be announced once the new solution is generally available.

• b2b
• channel
• cloud
• cloud computing
• communities
• community
• CRM
• data
• engagement
• loyalty
• salesforce
• Salesforce.com
• social community