Salesforce has named a slew of CCaaS heavy hitters as partners in the company’s new Foundations program.
The ‘launch partners’ include Webex by Cisco in the Chat and Video Conferencing category, with Genesys, Talkdesk, RingCentral, and Aircall all listed as Telephony collaborators.
But what exactly is Salesforce Foundations?
Originally announced at the beginning of the month, the free upgrade provides Sales Cloud and Service Cloud customers with additional cross-department features, which the company claims will enable them to “get more out of their existing Salesforce investment.”
These new capabilities are available across Sales, Service, Marketing, Commerce, and Data Cloud, with features such as opportunity management, case management, and secure payment links outlined by Salesforce.
The program also includes access to free extended trials from over 25 ‘launch partners,’ through Salesforce’s AppExchange.
These pre-built integrations support a wide range of functionalities, including document generation, contract management, and sales tools, which will help customers to enhance productivity and reduce costs.
Speaking at the launch of Foundations, David Schmaier – President and Chief Product Officer at Salesforce – discussed some of the key aspects of the upgrade:
With Salesforce Foundations, businesses of all sizes and industries can now automate sales, service, marketing, and commerce with unified customer data on a single platform, empowering them to integrate their entire front office and deliver real time, personalized customer experiences to drive revenue, answer service issues, create marketing campaigns, set up payments, and more.
Foundations Benefits
In providing more details on how the Foundations program will actually help companies and users to deliver a more effective experience, Salesforce outlined the following four benefits:
More Revenue Opportunities
Salesforce claims that Sales teams can use Foundations to drive more revenue by having access to service and marketing tools in one place.
With this integration, they can monitor service cases to keep opportunities on track and add customers to nurture campaigns created by the marketing team without needing separate platforms.
Sales processes are further streamlined with the ability to convert closed deals into payments quickly.
Secure payment links can be generated directly from quotes or opportunity records, easily embedded into invoices or emails, eliminating the need for an external payment system.
Boosting Customer Loyalty
As well as improvements in the Sales department, the company also believes that Service teams will benefit by improving customer loyalty through enhanced onboarding journeys.
The system allows them to add customers to marketing campaigns and, when suitable, upsell them using access to sales quotes and secure payment links, all without leaving their service platform.
Superior Personalization
Unified data across applications, powered by Data Cloud, enables more personalized customer experiences.
Marketers and Sales teams can access insights that were previously siloed, enabling the creation of targeted campaigns and segmentation based on service case data or sales stages, improving the overall customer journey.
Enhanced Efficiency
Foundations features an updated user interface, with a new left-navigation bar and customizable homepage cards, which Salesforce argues will help to boost efficiency.
The tools help users to access the apps they need more quickly and organize their top priorities, such as open cases and opportunities, for a more productive workday.
The benefits of being a launch partner for Salesforce Foundations were also mentioned in a company blog by Webex:
“We are thrilled to announce that Webex has been selected as a launch partner for Salesforce Foundations.
This integration increases awareness of Cisco solutions among Salesforce users, making it easier than ever to unlock the full potential of both platforms.
More News from Salesforce
Last week, Salesforce announced its acquisition of Zoomin, a provider of knowledge unification and data management solutions, in a deal reportedly valued at $430 million.
The two companies had previously collaborated to launch Salesforce Unified Knowledge, which integrates third-party data into Salesforce, enhancing AI performance across the platform.
With this acquisition, Salesforce aims to bolster its Data Cloud, extending knowledge unification to support AI deployments beyond its Einstein AI.
This includes advancing Agentforce, the autonomous AI agent platform introduced at Dreamforce 2024, allowing for more personalized, data-driven AI interactions tailored to individual customer needs.
Elsewhere, earlier this month, Salesforce unveiled Tableau Einstein, a new AI-powered visual analytics platform designed to enhance data-driven workflows.
The launch is part of Salesforce’s ongoing effort to integrate various solutions into its CRM platform to improve customer-facing operations.
Tableau Einstein connects with other Salesforce tools, such as Agentforce and its privacy infrastructure, allowing data experts to create real-time semantic models.
The platform also features a marketplace where professionals can share analytical assets within their organizations.
Its drag-and-drop interface and APIs promote seamless collaboration across teams, enabling them to work with data sources, models, and dashboards.
While some Tableau Einstein services are available via Tableau+, the full product and Salesforce-integrated version does not yet have an official release date.
