Counter Culture Coffee Brews Success with Salesforce.com’s Cloud 2 Technologies

Specialty coffee roaster and wholesaler expands geographically by using Salesforce and Chatter to run its business entirely in the cloud

SAN FRANCISCO – November 8, 2010 – Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the enterprise cloud computing (http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/) company, today announced the success of Counter Culture Coffee in expanding its business by running its specialty coffee roasting and wholesaling operations by moving to Cloud 2, the next generation of enterprise cloud computing that is social, mobile and real-time. Counter Culture Coffee is using Salesforce CRM and Chatter to support its business of finding and bringing to market the best coffees in the world.

Counter Culture Coffee sells direct trade, certified organic, and shade-grown coffee to individual subscribers, cafes, natural grocers, and specialty food retailers around the country. Before deploying Salesforce CRM and Chatter, the company was using a legacy database system and tracking deals on paper, which limited its ability to expand operations geographically. Counter Culture Coffee selected salesforce.com’s Sales Cloud and Service Cloud with Chatter to streamline account management, support its customers, and improve employee collaboration. With salesforce.com’s Cloud 2 technologies, Counter Culture Coffee is able to strengthen ties to its customers and vendors and realize breakthrough collaboration within the company.

Sustainable, Community-Supported Business Builds Closer Ties to its Customers and Producers
Counter Culture Coffee is using salesforce.com’s Cloud 2 technologies to bring new efficiencies to how it runs its business focused on supporting customers and maintaining relationships with producers.
• Counter Culture Coffee uses the Service Cloud to manage inbound customer service and technical support inquiries ranging from details about particular heirloom varieties of coffee to questions about equipment, in-store demos, and tastings.
• The company’s sales department now automatically transfers inbound requests through its website to the appropriate salesperson using Sales Cloud. Previously a laborious process, it now takes just a couple clicks to respond to inquiries and assign leads to regional sales representatives.
• The company used the trusted Force.com platform, which is five times faster and half the cost of traditional software platforms, to build custom apps to strengthen ties to its producers, including:
o “Training Centers,” which manage the logistics of the many events the company holds around tastings and trainings; and
o “Producers and Coffees,” which maintains up-to-date information about producers so at any given moment an employee can link a coffee or activity to a specific farmer anywhere in the world.
• As a result, Counter Culture Coffee has increased overall efficiencies by having all customer information easily accessible in one place, and has deepened its organizational knowledge around everything from coffee and equipment sales to attendees at tastings and trainings.

With Chatter, Counter Culture Coffee Keeps Employees Connected and Engaged
Chatter, the industry’s first enterprise social collaboration app, has played a helpful role in supporting employee collaboration as the company has become more dispersed.
• Sales and support employees use Chatter as a way to keep each other up to date on what they are working on. E-mail inboxes have shrunk dramatically as a result since the majority of communications are now status updates and feeds in Chatter.
• Employees now follow accounts and updates are automatically broadcast to them in real-time via Chatter.

Comments on the News:
• “Salesforce.com’s Cloud 2 technologies are enabling us to meet our mission to ensure that our customers are brewing the best coffee they can, 24 hours a day,” said Brian Ludviksen, customer support manager, Counter Culture Coffee. “Thanks to Chatter, we’ve been able to maintain our company culture and sense of community even as we’ve expanded geographically.”

Additional Resources:
• For more information on Counter Culture Coffee’s success with salesforce.com, visit: http://www.salesforce.com/customers/distribution-retail/counter-culture-coffe.jsp
• To see an overview of Salesforce CRM, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r1H7OK8lzY
• To see an overview of Chatter, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puydh-ey_2k
• To find out more about the Force.com platform, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzE6haADxRc
• Follow @salesforce on Twitter

About Counter Culture Coffee
Counter Culture Coffee is a different kind of coffee company. Dedicated to finding and bringing to market the most exciting, authentic, and delicious coffees in the world, we approach our work with a passion for the ideal of coffee perfection, a dedication to real sustainability, and a commitment to cutting-edge education throughout the coffee chain. Learn more at counterculturecoffee.com.