Salesforce.com Tops 300,000 Customer Base

By ROBERT LIU
TMCnet Wireless and Technology Columnist

On-demand customer relationship management (CRM) provider, Salesforce.com, continued to show momentum despite the summer doldrums, announcing on Monday that chemicals giant Air Products & Chemicals has chosen its enterprise-wide solution to help the sales processes, track customer interactions, and coordinate campaigns across multiple businesses.

The news shows the company has made considerable progress in dispelling speculation that its on-demand platform wasn’t made the customization and integration necessary for wide-scale enterprise deployments.

"Salesforce.com's product suite offered the fastest deployment time available," said Doug Timmel, Sales Process Manager of Air Products. "Numerous alternate approaches and vendors were considered, but we are very pleased with the functionality, support and upgrades that salesforce.com has given us."

Air Products is using Salesforce, Supportforce and Customforce to directly map to its unique products, services and sales planning strategies. The deal, which adds more than 1,000 new subscribers, comes as the company celebrates its customer base has surpassed the 300,000 mark. In the second quarter alone, the company added 41,000 net new subscribers.

But the quarterly results also revealed that, with the high volume enterprise customers like the Merrill Lynches of the financial services world, Salesforce.com is also susceptible to high volume discounting to win the larger contracts. To be sure, the company’s supporters are quick to point out that, although salesforce.com’s own sales force may be missing out on key revenue by deep discounting, it is better positioned to take advantage of future margin opportunities from much more stable customer base.

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