Salesforce.com today uncovers its Service Cloud 3, which the enterprise cloud computing company claims to be the next generation of social contact centers. Organizations of all sizes can now communicate and get involved with customers across social communities such as Twitter, Facebook, and several others, via Radian 6. Operations will also come off fast and easy to manage, despite high levels of service issues including real-time influx of conversation data. Tackling real-time data in this manner is a very important factor for Salesforce, as its been at the forefront of shifting customer relations in our current technology era.  It also has built-in social analytics in order to rank up interaction according to importance, as well as implement strategies to cope with the social web’s irregularities and changes.

“The explosion of social technologies has changed the game for customer service,” said Alex Dayon, executive vice president of CRM, salesforce.com. “Facebook and Twitter taught consumers to expect social customer service in real time. Service Cloud 3 is the next-generation social contact center that lets companies prioritize and manage a high volume of customer issues over any social channel.”

Service Cloud 3 immediately monitors activities and conversations about brands on people’s most visited social media networks (aka Facebook and Twiter) and with the help Radian6, can monitor blogs, forums and discussion groups as well. Engagement with this new offering is possible across any device, including the iPad 2. With the massive rise of communication gadgets, social interaction has also gotten intense resulting to insane amounts of social data.

As such, Service Cloud 3 is designed to handle high volumes of social interactions and give agents the ability to engage with them real-time. A seemingly harmless question that remains unaddressed could spur into a disaster that’s capable of destroying decades and decades of brand equity in a mere 24 hours. This makes real-time customer engagement very important.

“Social customer service presents a challenge to contact centers dealing with high-volume, publicly visible interactions with their customers that require near-immediate response times,” said Denis Pombriant, principal analyst, Beagle Research. “Service Cloud 3 will enable companies not only to monitor, but manage, resolve, and respond to issues in real-time, delivering the kinds of positive customer service experiences that can create champions of your brand.”

Finally, brands and companies are also given the chance to interact across any channel –phone, e-mail, chat and social communities– conferring with the built-in social analytics. It will impart companies the ability to resolve the best possible way on responding to customers using social analytics, social communities and live agents.

Service Cloud 3 currently has over 15,000 customers leveraging with its social, mobile and open customer service which includes Ally Bank, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Nikon Instruments. A third-party survey reveals that 41 percent of the agents increased productivity, 34 percent increased first call resolution, 35 percent increased customer satisfaction and 85 percent said they improve customer service and support.

“We decided to make social media an important component of our overall KLM customer service strategy after handling stranded customers via Facebook during the volcanic ash cloud that struck Europe in May, 2010. Leveraging the Service Cloud 3 is going to enable us to recognize patterns, handle cases via social media throughout different teams, and discover commercial opportunities. We believe this will allow us to pro-actively build a strong and loyal relationship with our customers and fans and enhance our service to them,” said Martijn van der Zee, vice president, E-Commerce of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.

Other recent dealings by the company include the Salesforce.com Foundation, which partnered with non-profit organization Playworks in providing safe and play-inclusive physical activities in school. Playworks is now a beneficiary of the Foundation’s 1/1/1 model. It has also funded Seesmic $4 million to develop socially-oriented management tools which it has embedded on its Service Cloud 3.