Only days after introducing the ability for enterprises to embed its popular support delivery service into their mobile applications, Saleforce.com Inc. hopes to extend the same benefits to customers of the slimmed-down edition for small- and medium-sized businesses. Except, that is, the other way around.

The update to Desk.com brings the option to  embed partner-developed functions from the complementary store that was inaguarated at the end of last year directly into the dashboard through which care representives interact with end-users. That can come handy in all kinds of scenarios.

A retailer could integrate a package tracking service into the main view to save support personnel the hassle of looking up the shipment status  on their own and sparing the customer the delay with the same stroke, while a company with several different businesses might embed a call management solution such as Twilo. Supplementing that third party functionality are new controls that allow managers to specify which agents can access what features to avoid cluttering their interface and ensuring customer privacy.

Rounding out the update is what Salesforce describes as a first-of-its-kind retention system that goes a step further than alternatives and narrows churn risk down to individual users. That’s accomplishing using a set of pre-determined metrics, such as the number of support requests in a given time frame, which are automatically brought to the attention of the agent in charge.

The new capabilities join the embedded implemention of Desk.com that made its debut last week in conjunction the update to Salesforce’s enterprise offering. The launches reflect a shift of focus towards the lower echelons of the market that has also swept up the competition and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.

Photo via CS Bites