Small and medium-sized companies will be able to run their
customer contact applications online. This
follows yesterday's deal, struck between network equipment maker
Cisco and online customer relationship manager Salesforce.com, to
delivera complete contact centre in the
cloud.
The Customer Interaction Cloud combines Salesforce.com's
Service Cloud 2
CRM system with
Cisco's unified communications system.
This allows customers to use the salesforce.com CRM application
as their primary agent desktop while retaining full Cisco Unified
Contact Center capabilities to operate a customer care or support
centre in any industry.
Salesforce.com and Cisco said the move addressed a growing
demand for cloud computing-based customer service solutions in the
SME market.
Half of all service conversations take place online, the firms
said. These included social media, blogs, wikis, forums, and online
search, as well as call centres.
Aimed at firms with 30 to 300 telephone agents, the system needs
no new hardware, software, datacentres or telephony equipment.
Both firms will sell the service from 2010.
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