Forty years ago, rockers Queen released “We Are the Champions.” At the time, I didn’t know much about Freddie Mercury, the teamwork behind the music, or the tools of the trade—like the best guitars, mics, and amps. I know now. And if you bear with my musical allegory, I’ll walk you through how having the best tools and a seamless integration with sales critical systems like Salesforce enables you and your teams to do your best work. And how you too can be a sales rock star.
Harvard Business Review Analytic Services (HBRAS) surveyed 300+ midsize to large enterprises to learn more about the collaboration needs of today’s digital teams. This survey revealed that the aspects of collaboration most cited as being of increased value to teams over recent years are:
- 72% Effective team communication
- 68% Collaboration with external partners, customers, suppliers, and experts
- 56% Ability to quickly find experts and information
I’ll add one more that supports these three: Integration of tools. Trying to use collaboration tools that aren’t integrated can get in the way of great team performance.
Industry experts and organizations agree. HBRAS reports that the functions most desired in today’s new set of collaboration tools are:
- High integration with other business processes
- Better alignment with work styles
- Easier set up and use
So, want to bring everyone on your sales team into the same arena? Are you ready to turn team discussions into chart-topping hits? If you want to be a Salesforce rock star, then you and your band need the best collaboration tools and experience available today. Cisco Spark brings them all together in a seamless experience within the Salesforce environment.
Cisco Spark for Salesforce adds integrated and secure meetings, video calls, and messaging directly into the Salesforce experience. No more switching between apps to communicate. Connect face-to-face with others (including external contacts), reach decisions, and get answers fast, all without leaving Salesforce.
Integration is key. Collaboration tools that aren’t integrated get in the way of great team performance.
That’s effective, especially when compared to e-mail and calendaring, which are near the bottom of the list of solutions considered effective by HBRAS survey respondents. Among the top solutions: video conferencing and file sharing. Cisco Spark for Salesforce builds these right into your sales environment, along with team messaging, user presence, and the ability to save messages as Salesforce notes. These tools keep your band in time by making it easy to build on ideas and make them immediately available to bandmates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQlsnKx4Lz8
Never jammed with Cisco Spark before? No problem. You can start getting value out of the new experience now. First, sign up for a free Cisco Spark account, then ask your Salesforce administrator to turn on the integration. It’s built into Salesforce and takes a few minutes to enable.
Once it’s set up, you can hover over a user’s profile and send a message, or start a video call, or keep multiple conversations visible as you move through Salesforce tabs. And there’s so much more now and in the pipeline.
This is just the opening number of the Cisco and Salesforce global partnership alliance. We’re here to help you get your band together so you can start collaborating like a rock star!
If you’re new to Cisco Spark, go to ciscospark.com now to download the app and get started.
Leon- I helped out at Dreamforce 17 this year and it was a pleasure hearing users, team leads and Salesforce admins say let's turn it on" as they were leaving our booth. It definitely changes how you experience team collaboration when you have anyone available at your fingertips. Rock on!
The feedback from the launch at Dreamforce was wonderful! Collaboration should be this seamless.
Cisco Spark allows for the virtual closeness to work on issues, fine new inroads to solving business problems for customers. It is a fabulous easy to use tool. Rock on!
Right on, Roxanne! One customer we talked to plans to use this capability to coordinate sales specialists around key accounts. Cisco Spark + Salesforce makes it easy to engage your team for faster close.