The application enables all Salesforce CRM customers to link mobile voice communications with their existing Salesforce CRM account for increased sales productivity.
Already available in the US, the application is the first UK service utilising the Ribbit communications technology following BT’s acquisition of the Silicon Valley startup last year, and signals the company’s entry into the enterprise cloud services market.
Awarded ‘Best Mobile App for 2008’ by US Salesforce CRM users, the application features voice to text conversion to allow users to dictate notes and memos verbally on their mobile phones. The notes flow directly into Salesforce CRM and into the user’s email inbox, eliminating the need to type updates and helping support better productivity in the downturn.
The latest data from the Office of National Statistics showed that the UK economy shrank by 1.6% in the last quarter of 2008 as spending continued to dip across all sectors. Industry figures from Gartner show that 20% of enterprises plan to implement industry specific or CRM applications on mobile devices in the next 18 months to better support their remote workers. These reports signal that firms are looking to increase productivity to retain and compete for new customers in a challenging market.
Delivered as a cloud computing service, Ribbit for Salesforce can be implemented quickly without infrastructure costs or the management overheads associated with on-premise software. Users can therefore be immediately set up and see benefit for their business.
Ribbit for Salesforce is available exclusively from BT Business to all new and existing UK Salesforce CRM users through a free trial now and will be commercially available later this year.
Chris Lindsay, general manager at BT Business applications, said: “As the first supplier to integrate voice services with Salesforce CRM through a cloud computing platform, BT is providing its customers with a huge competitive edge in today’s highly dynamic environment. Helping to improve business processes, the application will help firms make the most of every customer opportunity during the recession and put them in a strong position to thrive when it ends.”