Salesforce Desk Benefits SMB Customer Service

Tips for Increasing Customer Loyalty in the ‘Age of Experience’

When your small to midsize business (SMB) begins to grow, you don’t want to slack off on the quality of customer service that clients have come to expect. While it is important to bring in new consumers to increase business, it’s just as important to keep repeat customers happy. That’s the idea behind customer service management and the impetus for Salesforce’s latest edition, Desk.com Business Plus.

This new edition of the popular customer support app from Salesforce gives SMBs the power to continue to meet the demands of current customers while scaling up to bring in additional business. Desk.com provides SMBs with a flexible, personalized customer service solution to help drive growth. Salesforce’s updates include innovative additions such as:

• Customer Health Monitor—Tracks potential issues and dissatisfaction among current customers and gives possible solutions to help prevent loss.
• Canvas—Gives SMBs the option to “embed third-party apps directly into the Desk.com console,” to provide agents with a user interface built for productivity and service.
• Custom Controls—Places case management in the hands of the service managers where they can assign cases, govern access and edit files.
• Embed—Is a mobile software development kit by which SMBs can “insert mobile support directly into any app, so customers can seamlessly access customer service” without leaving the app.

By using Desk.com Business Plus, SMBs will be able to provide the same level and style of customer service that their clients have come to expect throughout the company’s growth, which may include adding mobile apps, new sales agents and automated systems. Desk.com helps SMBs find ways to continue interacting with customers on a personal level while still bringing business up-to-date with current technologies.

According to TopTechNews, the new solution fits right in with the type of customer service SMBs are known for—in fact, Benjamin Christie, founder and president of Gourmet Ads, believes it has been a huge reason for his company’s expansion:

“Having a scalable customer service tool is a key factor in our company’s growth. With customers and support staff across the globe, Desk.com helps us help our customer find what they need, when they need it. And, if additional support is required, we can seamlessly manage cases from report to resolution. Since switching to Desk.com, we’ve seen an 80 percent reduction in case volume. Desk.com enables us to realize our vision of being a one-stop shop for our customer; it’s a game changer for us.”

And Pund-IT Principal Analyst, Charles King, says that Desk.com Business Plus can help even novice SMBs set up CRM that works to grow business while helping agents really get to know their customers:

“In essence, Desk.com is designed to enable and systematize CRM for small businesses that may be inexperienced or entirely unfamiliar with those processes. These new additions, particularly the Canvas, Custom Controls and Embed features, should help Desk.com clients take their customers’ relationships to the next level in terms of supporting new/custom apps and mobile technologies. All in all, Desk.com Business Plus looks like a valuable extension of Salesforce’s SMB strategy that should be attractive to both existing and prospective Desk.com customers.”

Kim Mays has been editing and writing about IT since 1999. She currently tackles the topics of small to midsize business technology and introducing new tools for IT. Follow Kim on Google+ or Twitter.