SAP readies collaborative CRM app

SAP is working on an on-demand CRM application that will also incorporate social collaboration tools, reports BusinessWeek.

The product, Sales On Demand, is being built with a combination of technologies from SAP's Business ByDesign on-demand ERP suite, as well as StreamWork, its recently unveiled 'virtual war room' collaboration platform, says John Wookey, executive vice-president of large enterprise on-demand. It will have a “very Facebook-like" feel, according to Wookey.

SAP unveiled the application at its Sapphire Now conference in hopes of convincing some customers to join an early-adopter programme, which will help the vendor fine-tune the software before releasing it as a product, Wookey adds.

Customer experience management firm RightNow Technologies has updated its on-demand software offering designed to enable businesses to extend customer support capabilities to the mobile channel, states Computing.co.uk.

The firm's May 2010 customer experience suite features RightNow Mobile, which lets businesses reach out to customers across any mobile device with an offering integrated tightly into their Web, contact centre and social channels, said the firm.

The suite features three main elements: Web Self Service, Mobile Web Chat and Mobile Guided Assistance. Web Self Service extends RightNow's experience in the self-service space to the mobile channel, allowing end-users to search for help, view and rate answers, see related questions, and submit an e-mail inquiry from a mobile device.

Interactive Intelligence, a contact centre and business process automation solutions provider, has added workforce management and dialler applications to its communications-as-a-service (CaaS) offering, as well as a new Web-based administrative interface allowing for client control over configuration and billing, writes TMCnet.

The company claims since it transitioned its hosted service over to CaaS architecture about a year ago, it has seen subscriptions increase by about 55%.

An advantage of upgrading to CaaS architecture is that it allows for simpler and faster uptake of solutions, since they are now completely Web-based and thus require no client-side software.