R. L. Polk & Co. Deploys Salesforce Service & Support and Reaps Increase in Customer Satisfaction and Customer Service Effectiveness

R.L. Polk has experienced a 64% drop in the time it takes to close an issue and customer-reported issues have decreased by 21% since deploying Salesforce Service & Support

Salesforce Service & Support solution helped earn R.L. Polk the Award of Excellence from the International Society of Performance Improvement

Company leverages Salesforce Platform to build custom applications that analyze root cause of customer issues and prevent recurrence leading to an increase in customer satisfaction

SAN FRANCISCO - July 26, 2007 - Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the market and technology leader in on-demand business services, today announced that R. L. Polk & Co., the premier provider of automotive information and marketing solutions, added Salesforce Service & Support to its existing Salesforce SFA solution and experienced a marked increase in customer satisfaction and customer service effectiveness.  The company also leveraged the Salesforce Platform to build two custom applications that analyze the root causes of customer issues and prevent recurrence of those same problems.

R. L. Polk & Co. is one of the 32,300 companies of all sizes, industries and geographies that comprised the salesforce.com customer base as of April 30, 2007. Revenue and subscribers will be recognized as the service is delivered.

"Since 2000, Salesforce SFA has helped our sales organization focus on customers and deliver incredible visibility into our business. To complete a 360 degree view of our customers, it was only natural that we implemented Salesforce Service & Support," said Wanda Dembeck, Vice President of Global Initiatives, R. L. Polk & Co.  "With the Salesforce Service & Support implementation, we're avoiding costs by avoiding repeat customer support issues. Overall, Salesforce Service & Support has increased our return exponentially, making it easier to log, track and resolve customer cases and increase customer satisfaction."

Before implementing Salesforce Service & Support, R. L. Polk didn't have an organized process for proactive customer support and also struggled with resolving the root causes of issues.  R. L. Polk deployed Salesforce to more than 400 employees across sales, support, operations and product strategy to support the company's customers in 10 countries around the globe.  The company also used the Salesforce Platform to create two custom applications:
  • Corrective Actions- Automatically initiates analysis of the root causes of customer issues once they are resolved
  • Preventative Actions- Initiates specific preventative process to proactively prevent issues from recurring   
With Salesforce Service & Support, Salesforce SFA, and the custom-built applications, R. L. Polk now has a centralized business solution that enables the entire organization to access and share all critical customer and product data.  After using Salesforce to establish escalation rules and workflows, the company was able to save an average of 15 minutes per case resolution and more than eight hours per week managing the corrective action process. By streamlining its support operation with Salesforce Service & Support, Polk can now resolve most customer issues within five days

About R. L. Polk & Co.

R. L. Polk & Co. is the premier provider of automotive information and marketing solutions. Polk collects and interprets global data, and provides extensive automotive business expertise to help customers understand their market position, identify trends, build brand loyalty, conquest new business and gain a competitive advantage. Polk helps automotive manufacturers and dealers, automotive aftermarket companies, media companies, finance and insurance companies, advertising agencies, consulting organizations, government agencies and market research firms make good business decisions. A privately held global firm, Polk is based in Southfield, Mich. with operations in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Salesforce Platform and the AppExchange

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The AppExchange economy continues to expand as thousands of salesforce.com customers have installed thousands of on-demand business applications available on the AppExchange, found at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange.

About Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). The company's portfolio of SaaS applications, including its award-winning CRM application, available at http://www.salesforce.com/products/, has revolutionized the ways that customers manage and share business information over the Internet. The company's Force.com PaaS enables customers, developers and partners to build powerful on-demand applications that deliver the benefits of multi-tenancy across the enterprise. Applications built on the Force.com platform, available at http://www.force.com, can be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's AppExchange marketplace available at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange.
    
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