Salesforce.com rolled out an integration between Sales Cloud and Work.com this week. The integration is currently available in pilot and will be made generally available to all Salesforce.com customers in the first half of 2013.
To understand the value-add the integration offers, one first has to become acquainted with Work.com, a social performance management platform Salesforce.com introduced this fall. It provides tools around such activities as goal setting, feedback, recognition, and dialogue with sales and marketing staff.
Embedding Management Behavior
The integration with Salesforce Sales Cloud and Work.com means sales teams will be able to access these tools from within Salesforce.com. For example, users will be able to see a colleague’s goals — an element from Work.com — inside Salesforce Chatter or within a Sales Cloud opportunity record.
In short, the integration is embedding management behavior directly into the application, Linda Crawford,EVP with Sales Cloud, told CRM Buyer.
“That, in fact, was the whole point of this,” she said. “We wanted to make the manager’s job as easy and effortless as possible.”
A Manager’s Task List
The integration takes aim at several tasks sales managers must handle, Daniel Debow, SVP of Work.com, told CRM Buyer.
For instance, the integration allows onboarding a new rep with a few clicks, he said, by creating a new sales performance profile and setting new goals within the Sales Cloud.
Another alignment focuses on one-on-one coaching. The integration allows managers to quickly click into their coaching notes and create a shared private work space to keep track of issues that have been discussed.
“Managers always make time on a regular basis to have one-on-ones with their staff and encourage personal development,” noted Debow. “Those are the managers that have the most results with their teams.”
Another function revolves around giving sales reps real-time feedback.
“We have baked into the functionality the ability of managers to create custom badges or trophies,” said Debow, describing it as a fun and lightweight gizmo in what otherwise is a sophisticated feature line-up.
The integration was built with an eye to getting the best performance possible out of a sales team, emphasized Crawford.
The Behavioral Piece
Technology has addressed many aspects of the sales process, such as advanced analytics, sophisticated dashboards and higher-end forecasting tools, she said. However, none of it matters much if the behavioral piece isn’t in place.
Hence the integration, which “doesn’t focus just on building up one rep at a time,” Crawford said, “but also on the team as a whole.”
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