Salesforce touts Service Voice Cloud as the future of the contact centre
Service Cloud Voice
Salesforce has used the first day of Dreamforce in San Francisco to make another batch of announcements, with one centred on the company's idea of defining the contact centre of the future and making it "intelligent, unified, and fast".
Service Cloud Voice, the company said, unifies phone, digital channels, and CRM data in real-time, and in one centralised console.
It offers a single console, instead of multiple windows, and transcription capabilities to minimise data entry. But it also will leverage artificial intelligence-powered agent recommendations.
Salesforce
"With call transcriptions surfacing in real-time directly in the Service Cloud console, Einstein AI can now provide recommended solutions and next best actions for the agent in the background, reducing average call time and improving both the agent and customer experience," Salesforce said.
The company said Service Cloud Voice customers will have a "bring-your-own-telephony option" that allows for the customers' choice of provider and for customers looking for an "out of the box solution".
Salesforce also announced on Tuesday it will be partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to integrate and offer Amazon Connect inside of Service Cloud.
Salesforce has touted its Amazon Connect integration as providing contact centre agents with a complete set of tools in their agent workspace to deliver "enhanced customer service support".
Salesforce already relies on AWS as its primary public cloud provider, and said through this partnership it has chosen Amazon Connect as its preferred contact centre technology.
In addition, Salesforce and AWS are making the latter's content available on Salesforce's free online learning platform Trailhead.
During the keynote on Tuesday, Trailhead evangelist and senior director at Salesforce Leah McGowen-Hare said it's the responsibility of the tech industry to ensure there is inclusion and opportunities for everyone.
"As a tech industry we're constantly innovating and this is developing new professions," she said. "And if the tech industry has the freedom to innovate, they also have the responsibility to create ... create pathways that are accessible by everyone.
"It's going to take all of us to fix the skills gap and change the ratio in tech."
Salesforce said it is also exploring ways to make Einstein Voice Skills compatible with Amazon Alexa, among other voice assistants and devices.
"Delivering great customer service consistently can be challenging for companies, especially when call volume is extremely high and queries are becoming increasingly complex," Service Cloud EVP and GM Bill Patterson said.
"These latest Service Cloud innovations will help companies meet these rising demands, and empower phone agents to focus on the human side of service -- solving difficult problems for customers, and doing it with empathy."
Salesforce founder and co-CEO Marc Benioff said during the keynote his company is aware customers have more than just Salesforce within their organisation. Pointing to the partnership with AWS, he said the industry intends to operate as one community as a result.
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