Salesforce research identified 82% of customers expect they should be able to continue contacting customer service at the current rates, with 10% expecting to increase that contact. However, only 36% of service professionals feel fully prepared to handle surging service and support cases. Only 39% feel fully prepared to handle an increase in the complexity of customer service cases.

Salesforce today announced the launch of AppExchange Chat and AppExchange Trusted Reviews into its Salesforce AppExchange enterprise marketplace that contains 6,000 application and consultant listings. There have been over nine million customer installs of AppExchange solutions across businesses from all industries, including 90% of Fortune 500 companies.

These new features increase the ease at which customers can connect with partners, and in making smarter business decisions, without having to leave a partner’s listing.

Partners can use these features to add real-time chat to their AppExchange listings, allowing customers to pose real questions and receive detailed, helpful answers.

AppExchange Trusted Reviews will provide customers confidence in the reliability of a review by display a reviewer’s experience within the Salesforce ecosystem, including indicating Salesforce MVPs, Trailhead Rangers, and top reviewers.

“Customer expectations have changed drastically during the pandemic — and AppExchange is innovating to meet these expectations by enabling customers to connect directly, in real-time, with partners,” said Woodson Martin, general manager of Salesforce AppExchange. “In addition, with Trusted Reviews, customers can be more confident in their AppExchange install decisions.”