Dreamforce 2012 is coming up fast and ReadyTalk is gearing up for an action-packed week. It has also been just over a year since we launched the first version of ReadyTalk for Salesforce - a seamless integration between our audio and web conferencing service and salesforce.com. One of the things I'm most looking forward to at Dreamforce (other than the nightly parties and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, of course) is talking one-on-one with hundreds of real-world Salesforce users to get ideas for enhancements that will help them get even more from their webinars, sales demos, and online training sessions.

Responding to Market Needs

Over the past year, ReadyTalk has attended Dreamforce as well as numerous Cloudforce and Cloud Essentials events and we've learned a ton about how companies want to tie audio and web conferencing data into Salesforce. This feedback led to a number of enhancements to ReadyTalk for Salesforce, including:

• The ability to schedule and start sales demos right from the Lead or Contact record
• Automatic capture of polling data from a webinar or online training in salesforce.com
• The option to build out Leads and Contacts with ReadyTalk registation data

We're continuing to invest in our integration with Salesforce to make it even more useful for marketing, training, and sales professionals. There are a few common themes we are hearing in the market ...

More Data, Please

Many users that I talk to want every piece of data captured in their conferencing or webinar platform to be easily accessible in salesforce.com. Today, ReadyTalk for Salesforce captures registration, attendance, and polling data, but people also want data from chat conversations, post-event surveys, and recording playbacks. 

Help Me Act on the Data

Automatically capturing conferencing data in Salesforce is just part of the equation. The real value is in what you can do with that data once it is in salesforce.com. A lot of people have asked for more visibility into the data once its in Salesforce - better dashboards and easier reporting. Some have also requested tools to help them drive workflows based on the data. For example, the ability to prioritize webinar leads for sales follow-up based on attendance status and an individual's repsonse to a specific poll question.

Close the Loop

Some users want do more than integrate their conferencing platform into Salesforce. They also want to tie into other key applications that play a role in their sales and marketing processes. For example, some people want upcoming online sales demos to appear in both their Salesforce and Outlook calendars and others want to schedule demos in Outlook and have the data automatically captured in salesforce.com.

Our team is listening to this input from our customers and from the Salesforce community and considering it as we prioritize future releases of ReadyTalk for Salesforce.

Are you a Salesforce users who conducts audio and web conferences? What would you like to see next in ReadyTalk for Salesforce? Leave a comment or come by booth #1429 at Dreamforce to share your ideas! And, don't forget to join us on Thursday night for an awesome party.