Customer Relations: More Than A ProductCustomer Relations: More Than A Product

Everywhere one looked at Salesforce.com Inc.'s Dreamforce user conference last week, chief executive and founder Marc Benioff could be seen talking with customers. Whether he was hobnobbing during the cocktail hour on the expo floor or holding a panel discussion at the tony San Francisco eatery Postrio, Benioff's affinity for connecting with customers and familiarizing himself with their stories was all too apparent.

Benioff has taken the concept of the customer-relationship-management application his company delivers as a service and turned it inward, making Salesforce a company that's built as much on customer service as it is on technology. That inclusive approach also is reflected in Salesforce's internal culture, in which employees work in a collaborative setting that emphasizes clusters of workspaces instead of offices or cubicles, and in which every employee is asked to be part of the process of managing the company.

To a certain degree, Benioff finds it perplexing that a laser focus on customers isn't more pervasive. After all, how else is one supposed to build a company that consistently delivers what customers want? "Other vendors are not thinking of things like this," Benioff says. "We have a different view, and I'll tell you how we got it--by talking to the damned customers."

Marty Taylor, CIO of Patient Care Inc., says Benioff's attentiveness to his customers played no small role in the home-health-care provider's becoming a more committed Salesforce customer. About a year ago, Patient Care had about 20 licenses and was interested in experimenting with spreading Salesforce throughout the company. Taylor, however, was struck by how limited the ability to customize the application was, preventing him from even changing the names of tabs.

Before turning elsewhere, Taylor sent an E-mail to Benioff, half expecting not to get a response. But Benioff responded within a couple of days, promising to pull together his executive team for a meeting with Taylor and his staff. The two sides spent 90 minutes on the phone hammering out Patient Care's needs and how Salesforce could meet them. Taylor emerged confident that the needed customization tools would be forthcoming. "It was that meeting that convinced us that these people knew what they're doing," he says. "They have no love of technology for technology's sake."

For the record, Salesforce this month rolls out Customforce, a set of customization tools that Taylor says he has every intention of putting to good use.

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