[May 9, 2005]

WebEx, Salesforce.com Integrate

By David Sims, TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist

Web conference provider WebEx Communications has integrated its Sales Center service with that of hosted CRM provider Salesforce.com Inc, extending the range of the salesforce automation application.

This means Salesforce.com subscribers will be able to launch online sales calls from within Salesforce, and automatically populate the meeting with relevant customer and sales team data.

It will also mean customers can be supplied with personalized portals designed to help engage the customer during the sales process.

The two companies said the integration will enable organizations to unite customer data and interactions within the same application, allowing customer interactions to be managed as part of the sales processes. Previously, the remit of CRM applications meant users could manage their sales process and customer relationships from within the CRM system, but needed to go outside the application to interact with customers.

The WebEx Sales Center service also includes a "sales floor" management feature, enabling managers to track and analyze activity to help improve sales effectiveness.

WebEx has carried out the integration to link its backbone with the Salesforce.com sforce platform, using its partner's web services API to hook into sforce.

Access to the WebEx application is via a tab within the CRM service enabling the management functions to be accessed, but WebEx meetings can also be initiated directly from relevant Salesforce functions such as appointment or account screens.

“Customers want one solution for their sales problem, and we offer two complementary halves,” said Felix Litman, senior director of sales and product marketing at WebEx. “Salesforce.com is the system of record, we provide to the solution to act on the sales processes.”

He also said the drive to build the integration came from joint WebEx and Salesforce.com customers, and that there is no charge for the integration. The two vendors will continue to host their respective services and store related data, but some data will be shared between the two applications.

WebEx plans to deepen the level of integration over time, such as the ability to take notes during meetings and action items that could be stored in Salesforce.com activity records.

David Sims is contributing editor and CRM Alert columnist for TMCnet.

To discover how contact centers can save money and increase productivity by making the switch to IP Telephony, be sure to attend TMC's IP Contact Center Summit May 24-26, 2005, in Dallas, Texas. IP Contact Center Summit is co-located with the Speech-World conference, where you can get expert guidance in the deployment of speech technologies to strengthen customer relationships.