Salesforce Applies AI to Field Service

For some time now, Salesforce has been making a push into adjacent areas to customer relationship management (CRM) such as field service. Salesforce this week is now making good on a promise to apply the Einstein artificial intelligence (AI) technology it has developed to its field service application.

Mark Bloom, senior director for strategy and operations for Salesforce Service Cloud, says the Salesforce Field Service software-as-a-service (SaaS) application that Salesforce makes available as part of its Service Cloud portfolio has now been imbued with AI and analytics technologies designed to advance what is regarded as one of the most inefficient functions within any organization.

“Today the technology resources most field service organization rely on is spreadsheets and white boards,” says Bloom.

Bloom says, as a result, it’s not uncommon for field service representatives to show up at customer sites to discover they don’t have the right expertise to address any issue or that a critical part needed to complete the task is still back at the warehouse. There’s nothing quite as annoying to a customer than being told they will need to wait for a second visit from a field service representative.

Adding AI capabilities into the mix will not only optimize those engagements with customers. Bloom says capabilities such as image recognition will enable Salesforce Field Service to diagnose issues before a field service representative ever gets dispatched.

Naturally, Salesforce is not the only IT vendor applying AI to a multi-billion-dollar field services industry. But as a provider of a broad range of SaaS applications that are being infused with AI capabilities, it is clear that Salesforce has identified field service as an area where AI could fundamentally improve the customer engagement experience for all concerned.