In a move to improve customer service strategies in the cloud, Salesforce has revealed its acquisition of Assistly, a provider of built-in social capabilities on a help desk solution for the cloud. By merging Salesforce’s leading cloud computing solutions for the enterprise with Assistly’s instant customer service help desk applications, Salesforce will be able to extend its Service Cloud reach to millions of small and medium-sized businesses.
The appealing aspects of Assistly’s service include zero-touch onboarding, instant sign up, and pricing and capabilities scaled to the needs of a small business. Salesforce’s executives are calling this a “democratization of the cloud,” as its acquisition of Assistly will broaden the arm of the cloud CRM reach to the SMB.
Alex Dayon, executive vice president, applications for Salesforce stated, "We're committed to making the Service Cloud number one for the smallest to the largest companies in the world. We are excited that with Assistly's innovative technology and business model, the Service Cloud will now enable even the smallest companies to become a social enterprise."
"We started Assistly with the goal of bringing awesomely responsive customer support tools to the millions of small businesses struggling to serve customers in today's social world," said Alex Bard, CEO, Assistly. "As part of salesforce.com and the Service Cloud family, Assistly can continue to deliver and improve one of the world's most-innovative customer-service applications. For our customers, this will be an unbeatable combination."
More than 17,000 companies are using the Salesforce Service Cloud to manage customer relationship strategies, and Assistly’s flexible pricing will make this merging of software providers appealing to those businesses who could not afford to take advantage of Salesforce’s world renowned cloud computing before.
Marc Benioff (News - Alert), chairman and CEO for Salesforce commented, “Salesforce has spent over a decade democratizing enterprise applications in the cloud. The Assistly acquisition doubles down on that strategy by putting us at the heart of the new trend of customer service help desk applications that have instant sign up and zero-touch onboarding, expanding the potential reach of the Service Cloud to millions of companies around the world."
Juliana Kenny graduated from the University of Connecticut with a double degree in English and French. After managing a small company for two years, she joined TMC (News - Alert) as a Web Editor for TMCnet. Juliana currently focuses on the call center and CRM industries, but she also writes about cloud telephony and network gear including softswitches.
Edited by Stefanie Mosca