Cloud Extend for Salesforce.com Boosts Sales Team Productivity

WALTHAM, MA, April 16, 2011 (Press-News.org) Boosting sales team productivity, Cloud Extend for Salesforce.com delivers intuitive, user-driven customization to sales managers, sales operations, and product marketing. Natively integrated with Salesforce.com, Cloud Extend enables sales organizations to now capture sales knowledge, replicate successful sales patterns and enforce data consistency.

Leading a new wave of companies that are consumerizing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Active Endpoints, Inc., the process automation company, today announced early access to the first in a series of Cloud Extend products for SaaS applications: Cloud Extend for Salesforce.com. A video tour is available at http://bit.ly/CloudExtend. To apply for the Early Access Program, please visit http://bit.ly/CloudExtend.

There is a huge rush to take advantage of SaaS applications, like Salesforce.com, by large companies and SMBs, and virtually all of the over 90K Salesforce.com customers customize the application to some degree. However, business people are limited in their ability to make major modifications that incorporate their unique sales process or methodology, and as a result, they often require help from IT or third party system integrators.

"Sales managers want to get things done faster and under their own control, so how are we going to drive overall adoption of Salesforce.com? Customization made drop dead simple and at the center of their universe — right inside the Salesforce.com environment," explains Mark Taber, CEO of Active Endpoints. "Cloud Extend is pushing the envelope for what business users can do on their own to customize SaaS applications."

No Technical Training Required

Cloud Extend for Salesforce.com is built on the Force.com platform of Salesforce.com. It is based on a unique technology foundation that makes it so intuitive to visualize, create or modify guidance trees and screenflows that it requires no training.

Cloud Extend takes all the normal inefficiencies of relying on memory, written notes, and training manuals out of this vital sales process. The use of sales guides improves sales team productivity and achieves important sales executive goals — enforcing data consistency and successful sales patterns that can drive new revenue for the company.

Feature highlights of Cloud Extend for Salesforce.com include:

• Natively Integrated with Salesforce.com - Embrace Salesforce.com functionality for clean, natural, native integration.

• Drop Dead Simple - Create and modify custom interactive sales guides with an intuitive, web-based user interface that requires no formal technical training.

• One Click to Publish - Share sales guides with the entire sales team with a single click of the publish button.

• Sample Guides - Get up and running in minutes using sample playbooks that provide lead nurturing, sales qualification, and call scripting.

• Scales with the Business - Scale Cloud Extend as business grows with a high performance, multi-tenant platform from Active Endpoints.

• Social and Mobile Support - Drive social and mobile collaboration into the sales methodology with support for iPad, iPhone, Android and Salesforce Chatter.

Three Steps to Sales Team Productivity

An example of the power and simplicity in Cloud Extend for Salesforce.com is the process a sales manager would follow to create an outbound call script. Using the new Script Designer feature embedded in the native Salesforce.com menu structure, a sales manager would:

1) Create the screens that contain the questions and possible answers ("guide") for the call script. Based on the answers to specific questions, they create additional screens and related text to enhance the guide. Screenshot: http://bit.ly/Screenflow

2) Insert pre-defined automated services as needed, such as adding a task to the lead record to demo the new product the following week. Cloud Extend for Salesforce.com adds this sales call to the lead activity history and can create a Salesforce Chatter (private social network) message automatically.

3) Publish the call script for use by sales representatives when making calls to prospects. They can view the call script embedded within the Salesforce.com UI itself. They never leave the lead record. The script is viewed in context of the specific task. Screenshot: http://bit.ly/GuidanceTree

Go-to-Market Plan

Cloud Extend for Salesforce.com is currently available to a limited number of early access customers and partners. To apply to the Early Access Program, please visit http://bit.ly/CloudExtend.

Partners are an important part of the Cloud Extend go-to-market plan. Business consultants, such as sales productivity experts, can utilize Cloud Extend to help their clients develop the most effective sales guides.

Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) can utilize Cloud Extend to create even more complementary value-added extensions, such as integrating to other SaaS-based CRM applications.

For more information on Cloud Extend for Salesforce.com, please visit http://bit.ly/CloudExtend, and follow us on Twitter at @CloudExtend. For more information on Active Endpoints, please visit http://www.activevos.com, subscribe to the RSS feed at http://www.activevos.com/blog, email us at info@activevos.com or call us at 1 (781) 547-2900.

About Active Endpoints, Inc.

Active Endpoints, Inc. delivers a unique suite of cloud-based and on-premise process automation products and related services to develop, integrate and deploy custom applications quickly and easily. The company's products — Cloud Extend, Socrates and ActiveVOS empower business users and IT project teams to collaborate more effectively. The company has hundreds of customers worldwide from large enterprises to SMBs, spanning multiple industries such as telecommunications, government, financial services, and media and entertainment. Active Endpoints is headquartered in Waltham, MA with development facilities in Shelton, CT.