By better integrating its Inbox software with calendar apps, Salesforce aims to make it easier for sales and marketing professionals to access customer data during meetings and on the go.
Coming out in October, Salesforce’s new Inbox Calendar boosts the company’s existing email support by linking customer relationship management (CRM) data to a user’s calendar.
Announced earlier this week, Salesforce Inbox Calendar was developed to help sales professionals spend less time opening other apps and searching other data sources for relevant information about customers, the company said. The update will be available at no extra cost to existing Salesforce Inbox users.
Reducing Time Spent on Task Switching
Sales and marketing reps can spend up to 70 percent of their time on searches, updates and other administrative tasks, rather than selling, according to Salesforce. For example, Salesforce cited a study by CSO Insights that found salespeople might need to search up to 15 different data sources just to find relevant information about specific customers or prospects.
Salesforce Inbox Calendar is aimed at reducing the amount of time and effort spent on such tasks by bringing to the surface relevant CRM data when a rep opens an email or calendar invite.
“In the business of sales, we understand the daily pains of what sales reps have to go through in their day to day,” SalesforceIQ general manager Stephen Ehikian wrote Tuesday in a blog post about the new offering. “A lot of valuable time is wasted, simply from task and application switching — from emailing prospects and customers, logging activities, scheduling meetings, attending meetings, uploading notes and updating opportunities.”
Ehikian said responses from users show Salesforce Inbox has helped reps increase the amount of time spent on selling by 25 percent as well as speed up their sales cycles.
‘Enriched’ Meeting Invites
Salesforce said the new calendar integrations coming to Inbox will “enrich” meeting invites by automatically including CRM data about the relevant customers or prospects. For instance, Salesforce Inbox Calendar allows reps to update existing records and review past communications right from their mobile calendars.
Inbox Calendar will also integrate with Salesforce’s Lightning Sync, enabling reps to automatically add new information to Sales Cloud with their calendar updates. Users logged into Salesforce will be able to update their CRM records in real time from their calendars, which will help save time on administrative tasks, Salesforce said.
The new calendar update will also add support for one-click conference calling using services like GoToMeeting or WebEx. It will introduce a new feature called Meeting Notes that lets sales and marketing professionals quickly attach calendar notes from meetings straight into their Salesforce records.
Available for Android, Chrome and iOS users, Salesforce Inbox supports both Gmail and Outlook and is priced at $25 per user per month.
