Chatter is the collaboration software solution from the Salesforce platform. Companies use it to connect every employee with the data, files, and experts they need, anytime and anywhere. Effective use of Chatter can boost productivity by connecting, motivating, and engaging employees regardless of their role in the company.

Innovation can be accelerated by having users share insights and suggest new ideas through Chatter’s forum approach. A product team can be connected directly to customer feedback. Creation of polls offers a channel for instant feedback on new ideas. The mobile feed allow for social tracking of teams and important projects to stay up-to-date on progress across the company or the work an individual user is involved in.

Pros

Users all seem to find the document and information sharing capabilities of Chatter very robust. They also appreciate how well it integrates with email. Users note that anyone who uses Twitter or Facebook will intuitively understand how Chatter works, and how it can be leveraged for greater collaboration in your company.

Cons

Besides a significant percentage of users who think the interface needs improvement, the thing most talked about in a negative way has to do with adoption. While Chatter does what it does very well, it may not be the collaborative panacea you’re hoping for. However, this tends to have more to do with whether or not people take advantage of it and use it. Once the novelty of the system wears off, if people stop using it or use it less, then it’s simply not going to solve much of anything for your company. Other users note that while Chatter is brilliant for internal company collaboration, it’s not geared towards also allowing or managing inter-company collaboration, which would be a nice feature.

The Chatter collaboration software solution does do exactly what it promises in terms of providing a social media platform that can be used to foster greater collaboration in an organization. The big problem seems to be getting people to use it. Although most seem to say that this is not the fault of the software itself, I’m not convinced. Yes, clearly widespread adoption within a company depends a lot on the culture of the organization, but when more than 50% of user reviews all highlight this adoption problem, then it seems the company ought to be doing something to address this very common problem. One way to boost greater adoption might be through the introduction of some kind of gamification features that would incentive people using it. Considering the ubiquitous nature of such social media platforms as Twitter and Facebook, figuring out the mystery of why Chatter flops at so many companies would be important both for Salesforce and any companies considering making use of it. Many users have described it as “white noise.” The challenge is to figure out how to take it from being white noise for so many to a critical tool that helps everyone do their jobs better each day.

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