Telstra strengthens team communications – uses Salesforce to include staff in innovation process

Staff at Telstra can now submit, discuss and monitor company initiatives through a new Salesforce forum based internal communication tool, rolled out in record time.

Telstra has identified almost 300 new company initiatives since it went live with Salesforce Ideas (known as T[ideas] at Telstra) exactly one year ago today. T[ideas] is Telstra’s company-wide, real-time online opinion forum that was launched to encourage staff interaction as part of its commitment to grow the business through technology leadership and improved customer service.

“When David Thodey came on board, they looked at new ways to engage with staff but struggled to find the right way to have effective two-way dialogue with such a huge number of people. There are a lot of social media tools that work well for consumers, but nothing that seemed appropriate for a business environment – particularly one of Telstra’s size and scale,” Salesforce.com Asia Pacific & Japan Executive Vice President Lindsey Armstrong said.

Salesforce Ideas allows Telstra employees to submit, discuss and vote for ideas in an open forum. Employees can monitor the progress of their suggestions while Telstra assesses each idea against its popularity, viability and how well it aligns with existing plans and strategy.

Phase one of the project was rolled out to Telstra’s full time staff in just 12 days. In March 2010, the application was extended to include contractors, partners and retail staff who now are able to have their say about Telstra.

Salesforce Ideas has allowed Telstra to better engage with its staff, contractors and front line employees to unlock their rich understanding of the business and capture ideas that can drive the company’s innovation and growth.

Telstra already has almost 300 new initiatives in the pipeline, with several implemented as a result of this engagement.

Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company. Based on Salesforce.com’s real-time, multitenant architecture, the company’s platform and CRM applications (http://www.salesforce.com/au/crm) have revolutionized the way companies collaborate and communicate with their customers.