It’s official. Salesforce.com has made Chatter.com publicly available to every company in the world. Any company can now create a free, private social network to collaborate and drive productivity across the enterprise.
Chatter.com offers a familiar social-networking experience because it leverages the social features made popular by Facebook and Twitter, like profiles, status updates, and real-time feeds. Chatter lets employees “follow” documents, people and groups. By breaking down department and organizational barriers, Salesforce hopes to make it easier for workers to connect with each other.
“Over the years, an endless onslaught of e-mails and meetings has built a barrier to creativity and productivity,” said Denis Pombriant of Beagle Research. “That’s why Chatter.com is so exciting: It drives employees to share knowledge and expertise, close more deals, and solve customer problems.”
Increasing Productivity
Salesforce offered a slew of tasks that Chatter facilitates, including connecting with experts, collaborating with remote employees, sharing large files, preparing for sales presentations, managing team projects, discussing confidential topics, getting answers, sharing important information with coworkers, solving customer issues, and brainstorming marketing ideas.
In a recent customer-satisfaction survey of more than 6,000 global Salesforce customers, executives reported that Chatter is making employees more productive, with 28 percent fewer meetings and 32 percent less e-mail. In addition, nearly 50 percent of the users surveyed said they could find information faster than ever before.
“We are always looking for tools to increase employee productivity and collaboration within our company. Chatter.com is an entirely new technology that we cannot wait to get our hands on,” said Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen, a vice president at Trumpet Technologies. “By connecting our employees across departments, Chatter.com will help us close more deals, serve our customers better, and increase productivity throughout the entire business.”
The Whole Meal
Chatter may also help Salesforce close more deals. Offering Chatter for free is sort of a like…