Webinar about the future of customer service with salesforce.com was conducted by eVelopers on 26 May, 2011. This was the third webinar in the series of webinars about cloud computing and Salesforce CRM. Webinar recording can be accessed here.

Abstract:

Twenty years ago, customer service was all about picking up the phone and having a conversation with an expert to resolve your issues. Since then, companies have spent billions of dollars building out phone trees, self-service portals, and outsourced call centers. It was cheaper but what was the impact on service? Although this investment gave customers more ways to contact a company, it made it much more difficult to have a meaningful conversation or find the right answer.

Today’s customers are turning their backs on the old world of service and looking to the Internet — the “cloud”— to access information and find answers to their questions. The cloud connects people with experts they’d never meet otherwise. In fact, your customers are probably already having conversations about your company on the Internet in social communities like Facebook and Twitter, in online discussion forums, or in enthusiast blogs and Web sites. Companies are finding themselves locked out of these conversations, unable to leverage the expertise of the cloud and losing touch with what really matters to their customers. You can’t deliver service for today’s customers with yesterday’s technology. Too much cost, too much complexity.

It’s time for a new model. One that aligns with the way today’s customers are looking for service. If you want to provide faster, more responsive service across every channel — from the call center to the social Web, Service Cloud is what you need. The Service Cloud is the next-generation platform for customer service, featuring everything you need to amaze your customers from “knowledge as a service” to Twitter integration. The payoffs to you include more informed agents and customers, plus real-time service conversations. And when you can serve up answers anywhere your customers want them, you’ll watch customer satisfaction climb.

The best part? The cloud-computing model means the Service Cloud is less risky and gives you a faster time to value than the previous generation of on-premises software. Perfect for times like these, when everyone is expected to do more with less. Salesforce.com has been the leader in enterprise cloud computing since 1999 and services more than 90000 companies among world. Such industry giants as Comcast, Corporate Express, Qualcomm, and Orange Communications trust salesforce.com to help them deliver the next generation of customer service and support.