Salesforce to Enhance Service Cloud with New AI Tools and Broaden Automated Customer Conversations
Salesforce is set to roll out more Einstein 1 generative AI tools for Service Cloud users in June and October. But the big news? More places to deploy automated customer conversations are on the way.
Unified Conversations for WhatsApp and Line
Yesterday, Salesforce unveiled Unified Conversations for WhatsApp. This feature automates bot responses to customer queries related to targeted marketing messages on the popular messaging app. And that’s not all—later this year, Salesforce plans to support Line, the widely used messaging app in Japan.
These services leverage Salesforce’s Einstein 1 generative AI platform. The bots aggregate structured and unstructured CRM, product, service, and other data via Salesforce Data Cloud to generate personalized responses. The new features allow these conversations to be routed to the channels where a Salesforce user’s customers are most active online.
Expanding Channel Support
Salesforce also plans to introduce a “bring your own channel” connector to support digital channels not natively covered by the platform. Think TikTok, Discord, and South Korea’s KakaoTalk, said Ryan Nichols, chief product officer for Salesforce Service Cloud.
“It’s about getting data from all your conversations with customers from Service Cloud into Data Cloud and using that to not just do a great job of delivering customer service, but actually growing your business,” Nichols explained.
Conversation Mining and Revenue Opportunities
Salesforce Einstein Conversation Mining, currently in beta, aggregates conversations across customer channels to surface insights on the topics where customers need help. The goal is to turn inbound customer service from a cost center into a revenue center—a dream that speakers and vendors at conferences like Dreamforce and ICMI have been floating for years.
Traditionally, performance metrics such as time-to-answer and hold-time reduction have pushed agents to minimize call durations. However, the integration of generative AI could transform this dynamic. Constellation Research analyst Liz Miller, who has previously been skeptical, now sees generative AI as a potential game-changer.
Armed with data, bots, and their copilot counterparts, agents could save time and access the right information to up-sell customers during service engagements. Nichols hinted that Salesforce is working on up-sell automation features for contact center service bots, which might be unveiled later this year.
A Leap Forward for Contact Centers
Copilot-type technologies for contact centers could be the breakthrough needed to enable human agents to generate revenue during service interactions. “Contact center leaders have been trying to etch out a space of strategic importance for themselves in the business that isn’t just ‘how do we get angry people off the phone?'” Miller said.
Einstein Generative AI Added to Service Cloud
Generative AI tools can eliminate the mundane, repetitive tasks that consume much of contact center agents’ time. Miller added, “If they no longer had to summarize the call, and they could actually go to the next call? [Generating revenue] sounds really big, and it sounds really ridiculous, but if we took all the garbage off of these people’s plates that no one wants to do, we give them an awful lot of time to actually be better mouthpieces for their organizations.”
In short, Salesforce is gearing up to transform customer service into a more efficient, revenue-generating machine with a little help from generative AI. And who knows, maybe your next customer service bot will be better at upselling you than your favorite barista.
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