Tag: agentforce

“If setting up an AI agent with Agentforce is as simple as Salesforce advertises – why don’t we just handle this internally?” It’s a valid question, and many companies might succeed in doing so. Setting up an Agent does require a skillset that can certainly be developed by leveraging learning platforms such as Salesforce Trailhead. Businesses must first workshop and define Agent roles; use cases that will deliver the best ROI, such as handling customer cases. They must then configure the technology with best practice prompts that ensure these AI assistants perform the exact action they were employed to execute.

What isn’t always emphasised is the depth of preparation, expertise, and testing required to truly unlock Agentforce’s full potential. Let’s break it down:

The Need for Data Readiness

Agentforce is only as good as the data it works with. This is because AI models learn patterns from data; if the data is incomplete, outdated, or biased, the AI will inherit and amplify these issues. Diverse and representative datasets are critical to ensuring fairness and broad applicability. Additionally, well-labelled and structured data enhances model training, while irrelevant or noisy data can downgrade performance.

Essentially: poor data in, poor results out. To set up an effective AI agent, you need:

• Clean, accurate, and relevant data: This means removing duplicates, filling gaps, and ensuring the data aligns with your goals.
• A robust knowledge base: For example, Salesforce recommends having at least 100 knowledge articles to provide a solid foundation for a service agent. Knowledge articles are pieces of content within the Salesforce Knowledge product that provide information to help users, customers, or employees solve problems, learn about products, or answer common questions. Without this, your AI’s responses may fall short of customer expectations.

This preparation step is critical, yet often underestimated, and it’s something that experienced partners are well-equipped to help with.

The Depth of the Testing Process

Implementing Agentforce isn’t just about flipping the ‘Activate’ switch; it requires rigorous testing to ensure it performs seamlessly. This involves:

• Time investment: Dedicated hours are needed to configure, test, and refine your AI agent. Don’t underestimate this phase of deployment, and always include it in your roadmap.
• Staff involvement: Engaging your team in the testing process is crucial. They know the business and customers best, and their feedback is invaluable. By involving them early, you also build excitement amongst your team and show how Agentforce can eliminate tedious, manual tasks from their workload.

Partners like us bring tried-and-true testing methodologies, ensuring nothing is left to chance.

In-House Skill for Prompt Engineering

Prompt engineering is at the core of Agentforce’s success, but it is, in many ways, a specialised skill. A good AI prompt is clear, specific, and concise, providing enough context for the AI to understand the task. It should outline the desired outcome, tone, or style, and avoid ambiguity or overly broad requests. Including examples or constraints helps guide the AI’s response. For instance, instead of asking, “Write something about technology,” a better prompt would be, “Write a 100-word summary on the benefits of renewable energy in technology.” Additionally, specifying the audience or purpose (e.g., professional, casual) ensures the output is relevant. A well-crafted prompt aligns expectations with the AI’s capabilities, leading to more accurate and useful responses. Prompt writing in an Agentforce context entails:

• Topic and Instruction Prompts: Carefully crafted to set consistent guardrails, ensuring repeatable, reliable outputs that perform the exact tasks you are expecting of the agent.
• Prompt Templates: These can span over 100 lines, designed for detailed, comprehensive results.

Having done this for multiple implementations, we’ve learned what works (and what doesn’t) through experience, saving you the steep learning curve.

Leverage Your Existing Automation Tools

Agentforce works best when integrated into your existing Salesforce ecosystem. This means:

• Using existing automation tools like Flow and APEX: These are essential for creating complex new actions that pull from real-time data, use complex logic, and ensure that your business has a future-proof architecture.
• Maximising your automation catalogue: Leveraging what you already have in place streamlines the implementation process.

These skills are vital, especially during the initial setup phase. A partner’s expertise ensures these elements are seamlessly incorporated.

While Agentforce has levelled the playing field for businesses, the time it takes to figure out how best to use the technology could leave you trailing competitors. Partners like us have already put in the work:

• We’ve made the mistakes, so you don’t have to.
• We’ve done the testing and trialling.

The promise of Agentforce is incredible, but our expertise helps you unlock its potential faster and with fewer headaches. We believe that there is certainly an early mover advantage here, so why not take the next step and take advantage of one of our complimentary Salesforce AI readiness workshops, where you can explore and develop your use cases for Agentforce, or even Salesforce’s excellent standard Einstein AI features.

To book your initial consultation, visit our agentforce page.

Agentforce is powerful, but with the right partner, you can truly transform your team’s capabilities. Let’s make it happen together.

Human employees typically take 6 months to get fully up to speed in an organisation, and Agentforce is similar – it just happens to be a virtual one! Similar to a real employee, agents take time to learn your brand, your expectations, your colleagues and your customers.

However, while hiring a human employee involves interviews, visual, auditory and kinesthetic training, and integration into company culture, onboarding an Agentforce Agent demands a strong data foundation, extensive testing, and in-house expertise in prompt engineering and automation tools. Here are the top considerations, or prerequisites, before an AI agent joins your team.

1. Data Readiness: The Fuel for AI

AI thrives on high-quality, structured data. Just as a human employee needs training materials and business knowledge, an Agentforce Agent needs access to accurate and relevant data to function optimally.

Why It Matters

Your digital employees, or agents, are grounded in your Salesforce data, meaning that they rely on data to complete their tasks, such as answering customer questions, processing transactions, and generating insights. If your data is incomplete, outdated, or poorly structured, the agent may provide inaccurate responses, leading to inefficiencies and frustrated users.

How to Prepare

• Audit your existing data sources to ensure consistency and accuracy.
• Centralise relevant data in a structured format, leveraging CRM tools, knowledge bases, and customer interaction history.
• Define clear security guardrails to protect sensitive information while allowing the agent access to necessary datasets – this is an essential part of building your agent.

By ensuring your data is clean, structured, and accessible, you set up your digital employee for long-term success.

2. Depth of the Testing Process

Onboarding a digital employee is not a “set it and forget it” process. Yes, Agentforce is user-friendly, and much of the set-up can be done declaratively (e.g.point-and-click, rather than coding). However, extensive testing is crucial to ensure that Agentforce Agents perform tasks as expected and improve over time. In many Salesforce implementations, there is a danger of the testing process being overlooked – but this is the part of the process that determins the outputs, ensuring that the results are exactly what your team expect and desires. Think of it like an employee review process, you need to consistently check their work in order to give them room to improve.

Why It Matters

AI learns by interacting with data, and using generative AI means that you will get slightly different outputs each time – even from the same input! Therefore, this makes it necessary to thoroughly test and refine its responses before deployment. An improperly tested AI agent may misinterpret queries, provide incorrect information, or fail to escalate issues to human employees when needed.

When it comes to AI, trust is a big factor – for customers just as much as employees. When done properly, testing ensures that your customers get the best possible experience and reinforces the trust in your brand.

How to Prepare

• Conduct rigorous testing before deployment, running 30-40 different test scenarios at a minimum.
• Simulate real-world interactions to validate responses and identify gaps. The best way to do this is get the whole team on board, as they are best placed to determine the quality of the outputs. When we implement Agentforce for our customers, we ask users to do everything in their power to make the agent give a poor or incorrect response. If they can’t break it, then it’s ready to deploy!
• Continually refine responses based on feedback and performance analytics.

Thorough testing ensures your digital employees can handle a variety of scenarios with accuracy and efficiency.

3. Skills for Prompt Engineering

A key factor in optimising digital employees is the ability to craft precise prompts that guide their behaviour. Prompt engineering is an essential skill that defines how AI understands and processes information. In essence, a good prompt is a clear and detailed instruction with strict perameters, enabling AI to produce accurate and relevant outputs by providing good context and desired task details.

Why It Matters

Just as human employees follow training guides and workflows, AI-driven employees depend on well-structured prompts to operate within predefined boundaries. Poorly engineered prompts can lead to inconsistent outputs, while well-crafted prompts ensure repeatable, reliable results.

How to Prepare

• Develop repeatable prompt templates to create consistent, detailed responses aligned with your business needs – these can be over 100 lines long to cover complex workflows.
• Lean on internal experts to create prompts according to best practices, and leverage Salesforce’s free learning platform, Trailhead, to upskill your team. It is hugely advantageous for all team members to have at least a basic understanding of how the AI technology works.
• If you lack internal expertise, seek a skilled partner with real-world experience implementing Agentforce and Salesforce AI technologies successfully.

Companies that invest in strong prompt engineering practices get the most out of their digital employees by ensuring reliable and predictable AI behavior.

4. Leveraging Your Existing Automation Catalogue

Agentforce Agents don’t operate in isolation; they integrate with and pull from existing automation tools to streamline operations. Businesses that harness their existing automation infrastructure can deploy digital employees faster and more effectively.

Why It Matters

Ensuring smooth integration with Salesforce automation tools like Flow and APEX is essential for scalable and future-proofed AI implementation. And why not leverage the great work that has already been done to make your agents even better?

How to Prepare

• Map out your existing automation catalogue and identify where AI can enhance workflows.
• Use Salesforce Flow and APEX to create new AI-driven actions while maintaining architectural consistency.
• As mentioned in the prompt engineering section above, ensure that your team has the necessary expertise in automation tools to maximise efficiency.

By integrating digital employees into your existing automation framework, you create a seamless, scalable AI-powered ecosystem.

Final Thoughts

Successfully onboarding digital employees requires a shift in mindset from traditional human hiring processes. To get the best results from your Agentforce Agents, you need to:

• Ensure data readiness so your AI has accurate information to work with.
• Conduct extensive testing to refine responses and improve performance.
• Leverage in-house and partner expertise in prompt engineering to create precise, repeatable AI behaviours.
• Maximise existing automations to streamline workflows and future-proof your AI implementation.

By following these four key prerequisites, you can confidently onboard digital employees that enhance productivity, drive efficiency, and seamlessly integrate into your existing operations.

Are you ready to onboard your first digital employee? Reach out to our team for expert guidance and a complimentary readiness session to kick-start your AI journey!

More on Agentforce and the Digital Workforce:

The Digital Workforce: Which Agent Should I Employ?

How Agentforce Can Drive ROI

‘If Agentforce is so easy to use, why do I need a partner?’

More and more companies are turning to AI-driven solutions to enhance operations, streamline workflows, and improve customer experiences, with 78% of respondents in the latest McKinsey Global Survey on AI (2025) confirming that their organisations use AI in at least one business function. Salesforce’s digital labour platform, Agentforce, offers a suite of prebuilt digital employees designed to handle various tasks autonomously. Whether you need support in sales, customer service, marketing, or internal operations, there’s an Agentforce agent ready to work for you.

By leveraging Salesforce AI, businesses can automate tasks, enhance team productivity, and ensure seamless customer interactions across various channels. But with so many digital agents available (and more on the way), how do you know which one best suits your needs? This guide will help you understand the capabilities of each ‘out-of-the-box’ Agentforce agent and the specific use cases they address, allowing you to choose the right digital employee for your business.

SDR (Sales Development Rep) Agent

The SDR Agent is designed to enhance your sales team’s efficiency by autonomously answering product questions, handling objections, and booking meetings or appointments. This agent is perfect for businesses looking to engage leads proactively and convert them into opportunities. With responses grounded in your business data, you maintain accuracy and consistency while ensuring the best customer experience. Employing an Agentforce SDR Agent essentially multiplies your Sales efforts, giving your sales reps access to their very own BDR.

Use Cases:

• Engaging leads on their preferred channels, such as SMS or WhatsApp, in any language.
• Deftly answering frequently asked questions about products or services whilst interpreting the varied nuances and dialects in natural language or speech patterns.
• Qualifying leads before passing them to human sales representatives by confirming pre-determined qualities.
• Scheduling meetings and follow-ups whilst navigating circumstantial factors
• Nurturing leads at different stages of the funnel, recognising their individual needs and offering the right resources, such as webinars and white papers, to help make that vital buying decision.

Who Should Use It? Companies with inbound sales inquiries looking to enhance lead conversion rates without overburdening human sales reps.

Sales Coach Agent

A high-performing sales team is built on continuous training and feedback. The Sales Coach Agent provides real-time coaching, enabling sales reps to practice their pitches, handle objections, and refine their negotiation strategies through interactive role-playing sessions. This AI has access to a breadth of intelligence as to what actions convert deals best in your organisation, and it can help turn every sales rep into a pro.

Use Cases:

• Providing deal-specific coaching tailored to individual sales reps.
• Delivering consistent feedback on strengths and areas for improvement.
• Tracking progress and assessing ROI through win/loss analysis of deals.

Who Should Use It? Sales teams aiming to improve their performance and negotiation skills with structured, data-driven training.

Customer Service Agent

Providing 24/7 customer support can be challenging, especially for small or medium businsses, but the Customer Service Agent ensures organisations can engage with customers anytime, anywhere. This AI-driven agent autonomously resolves customer queries with accurate, data-backed responses, improving customer satisfaction and reducing operational costs. It has the power to reason, and will serve the customer in exactly the way you want it to, matching your brand voice and only operating within the strict parameters you set for it.

Use Cases:

• Handling customer inquiries across multiple channels (email, chat, social media, etc.).
• Resolving support tickets efficiently by providing instant, accurate solutions.
• Escalating complex and critical cases to human representatives when needed.

Who Should Use It? Companies looking to enhance customer service response times and improve self-service options while reducing support costs.

Marketing Campaigns Agent

Marketing teams are constantly under pressure to deliver compelling campaigns, and the Marketing Campaigns Agent helps lighten the load. This agent assists in campaign brief generation, audience targeting, content creation, and performance analysis, ensuring marketing efforts are both strategic and data-driven. Your very own digital marketing assistant!

Use Cases:

• Automating campaign planning and execution.
• Generating creative content, from advertising copy to email templates.
• Analysing campaign performance and recommending real-time improvements.

Who Should Use It? Marketing teams seeking to optimise campaign efficiency, personalise customer engagement, and maximise return on investment.

Personal Shopper Agent

The new Personal Shopper Agent functions as a virtual stylist, engaging customers with personalised product recommendations. By analysing shopping behavior and preferences, this agent enhances the eCommerce experience in a personable, unique and engaging way – boosting conversion rates by satisfying online shoppers.

Use Cases:

• Offering tailored product suggestions based on user preferences.
• Assisting with search queries to find the perfect products.
• Providing shopping assistance via chat or messaging apps like WhatsApp.

Who Should Use It? Retailers and eCommerce businesses looking to enhance personalised shopping experiences and drive sales.

Internal Agent (Think Einstein Copilot)

The Internal Agent is a customisable digital assistant designed to support internal teams. While not an ‘out-of-the-box’ agent as such, businesses can configure it to handle various tasks, including HR functions, content generation, and information retrieval.

Use Cases:

• Automating recruitment processes by gathering and analysing data from applicants.
• Generating reports, summaries, and other business content.
• Sending communications to different customer segments.
• Providing employees with quick access to company knowledge and resources.

Who Should Use It? Organisations seeking to improve internal operations and empower employees with AI-driven assistance.

Other Salesforce Technologies

Slack Agent

By integrating Agentforce with Slack, businesses can turn AI agents into digital teammates. Employees can use natural language commands to complete tasks, retrieve information, and collaborate more efficiently.

Tableau Agent

This ‘data’ agent helps users prepare and visualise data, offering a trustworthy Q&A service and delivering proactive insights on patterns and trends. Read more on how Tableau and Agentforce work together here.

Our Advice for Implementing Agentforce Agents

1. Start Small & Scale Gradually Focus on one to three solid use cases before expanding. Looking at the admin burdens and bottlenecks in your organisation is a great place to start. Make sure you identify skills gaps and resource availability before implementation.
2. Ensure Data Readiness AI is only as good as the data it relies on. Prioritise clean, correct, unduplicated data to ensure accuracy and efficiency.
3. Get Team Buy-in Educate employees on the benefits of AI-driven agents to encourage adoption and inspire confidence in the technology – create internal advocates! Once employees understand that these agents are there to augment, rather than replace, they can become the key to really getting the most out of your new technology.
4. Prioritise Testing A successful Agentforce launch requires rigorous testing. We don’t expect a new employee to nail every task from day one, so we can’t ask the same from a digital one. Aim for 30-40 test scenarios to refine accuracy and performance.
5. Lean on Your Agentforce Partner Take advantage of our complimentary Agentforce readiness sessions to ensure a smooth AI adoption journey and faster time to value.

Agentforce offers an array of digital employees to meet various business needs, from sales and marketing to customer service and internal operations. By selecting the right agent(s) and following best practices for implementation, businesses can enhance productivity, drive revenue, and improve customer experiences. Start small, refine your approach, and let AI empower your team to focus on what matters most.

The exciting thing is, we anticipate that we have only just scratched the surface of what these agents can achieve. Early adopters are training and iterating on the first wave of Agents, allowing them to complete tasks unique to their businesses, and it won’t be long before there is a full catalogue of digital employees with different skills and capabilities. Health agents, recruitment agents, quality assurance agents – we can’t wait to see what comes out next!

Are you ready to build your digital workforce, read more on onboarding your digital employee or contact us today to get started!

References

McKinsey (2025) McKinsey Global Survey on AI. Available (online) at https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai [Accessed 12/03/2025].