Quip, the document collaboration platform owned by Salesforce, recently announced a deeper integration into the Salesforce core Sales Cloud and Service Cloud products.
No doubt that this is an exciting news, as the move to root Quip into Salesforce could be considered overdue. Since the acquisition in 2016, we have been left to wonder: what was Salesforce going to do with their $750mil purchase?
Now we have an answer. Quip for Sales and Quip for Service signal a next-generation Quip. This post will run along two threads: interface and automation, as these elements set new Quip apart from the Quip we have become familiar with:
- Interface: puts Quip directly in the Salesforce console interface,
- Automation: enables Quip to leverage Salesforce Workflows, Approval Processes, or Lightning Flows that admins have configured.
Above: A Quip ‘Living Document’ alongside a Lightning Flow in the Service Console.
For more background information, you can take a look at our “Introduction to Quip”.
Quip for Sales
Communicating with clarity internally will help sales teams stay focused on the strategy and appear professional to the external eye.
Static sales strategies are flawed, and agile sales teams stay competitive. Too many important strategy documents (like those listed below) are relegated into the shadows, a truth spoken by Quip: “[documents are] a once-a-year activity…that die as soon they’re presented”, yet, with Quip, a document becomes “a living plan, constantly updated with live data, adjusted by the team in the context of the account”.
Use Cases
Sales-specific use cases include:
- Account / Territory Plans
Above: An account plan embedded directly in the Account Lightning Record Page.
- Account hand-offs
- Proposal/Quote Feedback, connected to approval processes
- Pipeline Stage Required Documentation, connected to the Sales Process
Above: An error is thrown when a sales rep tries to progress an opportunity without the required documentation.
Quip for Service
There’s a heightened interest in customer service transformation, as Quip for Service coincided with the Einstein for Service announcement. The work of service agents is becoming more demanding, both from the product side – with diversifying portfolios, and on the customer side – with loftier expectations to fulfil.
Collaboration for service is a pressing need, because cases are becoming less ‘black-and-white’; there’s more context surrounding complex cases that needs to be weighed in and discussed.
Use Cases
Service-specific use cases include:
- Agent ’Swarming’: groups of agents working on a single, complex case can have digital discussions.
Above: how swarming looks in action, a conversation on a document, without leaving the case itself.
- Agent ’Swarming’: groups of agents working on a single, complex case can have digital discussions.
- Knowledge Article Editing: gain feedback from subject matter experts or the marketing department, to ensure the content and messaging is on-point.
- Guided Actions for Case Resolution: a good example of Lightning Flows popular in Service scenarios, is a Guided Actions flow:
Above: A Guided Actions flow that triggers a review process, which takes place within a Quip document.
Summary
This post has covered Quip for Sales and Quip for Service, two parts of the next-generation Quip. By looking at interface and automation – the two elements that set new Quip apart from existing Quip – we have seen how Quip will cater to sales- and service-specific use cases.
In terms of licenses, Quip will retain its current status as a standalone product.
Could this be the big push into a reality of collaborative and connected CRM documents? The very nature of Quip carries a ‘wow factor’ that traditional document collaboration misses, and with the deeper integration, I predict it will grow from strength to strength.