Jive Software, provider of Java-based enterprise collaboration software, and salesforce.com, have announced the availability of Jive Software's Support Forums application on salesforce.com's AppExchange.

Jive Software's Support Forums for AppExchange extend the Salesforce self-service portal by adding valuable customer support forums that help companies quickly resolve their customer inquiries without burdening support resources. Small to mid-sized businesses using Salesforce can now dramatically reduce their support costs by a) allowing customers to support each other, b) allowing agents to quickly respond to forum requests from within Salesforce, and c) building a living knowledge base of support content for reuse.

New forum questions automatically generate a customer service case in Salesforce, as Jive's Support Forums are tightly integrated with salesforce.com's case management system. Forum questions that go unanswered for a specified period of time are escalated to support agents to ensure timely resolution, and cases are automatically closed when a question has been marked as answered.

"In the past, a lot of small to mid-sized organizations have had to put a basic forums application on their Website and hope that it would work," said David Hersh, CEO, Jive Software. "But it quickly becomes a management headache and a point of customer frustration since there's no accountability, workflow or integration with support cases. Now, with our integration into AppExchange, companies of all sizes can have an enterprise-class self-service support environment that works seamlessly with salesforce.com's extensive CRM services."

Additional features of Jive Software's Support Forums for AppExchange include:

-- Agent Notification -- The minute a customer enters a request in the forum, an agent is automatically notified of the new posting and can tend to the inquiry.

-- Knowledge Reuse -- As customers use the support forums, the archive of answers grows, providing valuable content for future users and further reducing the incoming support requests.

-- Advanced Reporting -- In-depth reporting creates valuable snapshots of the community and helps pinpoint issues. Reports are generated based on usage, traffic, members and open questions.

Jive Software's Support Forums for AppExchange is immediately available for test drive and deployment at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange .

"Nothing is more important to us -- and our customers -- than providing the highest level of service and support," said Matt Holleran, vice president, AppExchange partners, salesforce.com. "Working with Jive Software, Salesforce users now have a gold standard for community applications tightly integrated with their CRM environment, allowing them to offer a robust and elegant self- service experience to their customers."

Jive Software's Support Forums for AppExchange is one of more than 375 applications now available on the salesforce.com AppExchange, the world's first on-demand directory and sharing service, found at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange