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Cloud Reportby Jeffrey Schwartz, Executive Editor
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Salesforce.com Launches Mobile, Social Help Desk Service
Salesforce.com on Tuesday launched a cloud-based help desk offering conveniently called Desk.com.
Based on Salesforce.com's September 2011 acquisition of Assistly for $50 million and its procurement of the Desk.com domain earlier this month, the subscription-based help desk service will let businesses offer customer support from mobile devices and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
Founded in 2009, Assistly was primarily aimed at small businesses, and that appears to be the focus of Desk.com, which will keep the $49 monthly subscription price per agent, but will also introduce in the future a fee for part-time agents starting at $1 per hour. This is not a traditional help desk offering, but rather one that is targeted at employees that use social networks to track their businesses and have support people who may not always be at their desks. The company estimates that 72 percent of small businesses use mobile apps.
"We built Desk.com so that every company can deliver personal customer service in a social and mobile world," said Alex Bard, Assistly's CEO and founder and now VP and general manager of Desk.com, in a statement. "Desk.com is social at its core; its mobile app instantly lets any employee, anywhere, deliver awesome customer service; and it can be deployed quickly and easily."
According to the Desk.com Web site, the service can link directly to a company's social network account to its customer help desk in five clicks. The Desk.com mobile app works with any HTML 5-compatible smartphone.
The company said it intends to offer analytics and reporting.
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on January 31, 2012