Zoom, a video conferencing, online meeting and messaging provider, has announced integration with Salesforce.

“Zoom is committed to making the communication and collaboration experience as seamless as possible,” Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom, said. "With so many Salesforce users with their own customers spread across geographies, it is critical that they have the communications tools they need to conduct and grow their businesses readily available in the platform they use a substantial amount of the time."

Users can start a Zoom meeting within Salesforce with a lead, including videoconferencing. They can also email meeting information and log the session as an activity. They can also do this with other contacts, as well as create a Zoom meeting from a Salesforce calendar event.

Salespeople can view upcoming meetings in Salesforce without having to leave the application.

The integration could make converting to prospects into paying customers easier and cheaper. The primary advantage of videoconferencing is that it offers face-to-face meetings with people in distant locations without the travel costs. It emerged as a mainstream business technology in the wake of the 2007-08 financial crisis causing companies to slash travel budgets.

 Even as the economy recovered, conferencing turned out to be more convenient for connecting with potential customers and people in remote offices than booking flights and hotels.

Salesforce is also a major CRM solution and the CRM system for many companies. The Salesforce integration will make conferencing even more convenient for sales representatives.

 It’s not the only partnership that Zoom has made.  

The company announced a partnership with IP phone provider Yealink (News - Alert) in August, supporting its HD videoconferencing hardware. With the Salesforce integration, this could mean even more powerful ways to build customer relationship.

While conventional videoconferencing is already useful, HD video quality will give the conferencing an even more intimate feel, especially with large screen making it appear more like an actual face-to-face conversation. The increasing penetration of broadband is making these kinds of partnerships more feasible.