Panasonic transforms service with assistive and autonomous AI.

While Panasonic Appliances Marketing Asia Pacific traditionally sells through dealers, it wanted to get closer to the end customers who use its products each day. MuleSoft and Agentforce have helped the business activate its data to empower employees and deliver superior customer service.

The company provides the whole range of the brand's products and solutions across the Southeast Asia and Pacific region. The region has 27 manufacturing sites and is a key hub for Panasonic’s global production activities supporting the consumer, solutions and components and devices business.

Panasonic is committed to delivering quality products and services that enrich people’s lives and contribute to a sustainable society. Within Asia Pacific, Panasonic’s products have traditionally been sold through dealers and partners, who procure a large volume of goods such as air conditioners, home and kitchen appliances and then sell on to their own customers. 

While maintaining and strengthening its relationships with dealers, Panasonic wanted to get closer to ‌the customers using its products. As interactions with these customers were limited to customer support, this became a starting point for the business’ digital transformation. 

Panasonic’s vision was to create a seamless and personalised experience for customers by using cutting-edge technology and empowering teams to deliver superior customer service. 

The business first needed a foundation to connect its employees, systems, data and customers, to speed up customer engagement, and then unlock the benefits of AI. Solving this challenge has paved the way for seamless and efficient customer engagement underpinned by Agentforce.

Panasonic has turned to MuleSoft to accelerate its transformation and bring together the information employees need to deliver better customer experiences. MuleSoft’s unified integration, automation and API management platform supports 350 interfaces across systems, including Salesforce, SAP, and Panasonic’s e-commerce and third-party logistics solutions. 

The reuse rate of APIs is 37.2%, and Panasonic can now seamlessly integrate data from any system and automate workflows across its IT environment. This has set the business up to take full advantage of generative and agentic AI and carry out its SAP S/4HANA migration, which involves three instances of SAP across 39 different companies.

MuleSoft also provides a single unified platform to support the entire software development lifecycle and allows for easy reuse of APIs, increasing the speed of development by 53%. It has also improved API management and governance, enabling a 70% reduction in maintenance effort and a 34% reduction in support tickets. 

Panasonic’s service team - called customer advisors - now have everything they need to provide seamless and efficient support. Customer inquiries and cases are now managed in Service Cloud, and teams use Einstein for Service for AI-generated conversation summaries, service replies, and automated case wrap-ups. 

Customer advisors also use Visual Remote Assistant to effortlessly connect to customers via live video so they can troubleshoot and solve issues. This has contributed to reducing ‘no part used’ repair costs by USD 10,000 in FY23 and FY24 in the pilot country of the Philippines.

When required, technicians can be dispatched using Field Service and have access to information at their fingertips to speed resolution. For example, they can see a history of the customer’s interactions and any previous issues with their products. If troubleshooting identifies a specific problem like a broken air conditioning condenser, the technician can ensure they have the right tools and parts to resolve the issue on their first visit. 

Panasonic is now using Agentforce to provide even more efficient support. An AI agent works alongside customer advisors to triage customer requests and recommend solutions. The agent uses Retrieval Augmented Generation to search across structured and unstructured data in Data Cloud, including product manuals and troubleshooting instructions. So, the agent can then provide accurate answers and recommendations to help team members resolve issues fast.

On top of these enhancements, Panasonic has launched an AI agent on its store website in the Philippines. The agent converses with customers in natural language, offering always-on support and autonomously resolving routine inquiries. Employees also benefit from a reduction in manual, repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on complex customer needs and higher-value interactions.

Salesforce provides Panasonic with a deeply integrated platform that supports its ambition to get closer to its customers. MuleSoft provides a foundation for Panasonic’s transformation by accelerating development and allowing the business to transform the customer experience using all its data, both inside and outside Salesforce. 

Einstein for Service and Agentforce support Panasonic’s approach to AI with assistive and autonomous solutions that provide always-on support to customers and employees. 

Building on its transformation, Panasonic is using Sales Cloud to manage and strengthen relationships with dealers. The business is also starting to automate and personalise engagement with Marketing Cloud, helping make every customer touchpoint more seamless and efficient. 

With all its sales and customer interactions now in Salesforce, Panasonic can also harness CRM Analytics for actionable insights on how to keep growing and enhancing the customer experience. CRM Analytics provides the team with contextual insights and AI-powered predictions to drive engagement and focus directly in the flow of work. 

David Wong, Regional Change & Transformation Director at Panasonic Asia Pacific, highlights the impact that CRM Analytics provides, giving real-time, actionable insights, which empower teams to make smarter, faster decisions, enhance customer engagement, and drive sustainable growth. He emphasises that it’s not just about improving efficiency; it’s about transforming how Panasonic understands and serves its customers.

With AI at its fingertips, the Panasonic team is now positioned to further drive outcomes at scale, deepen customer engagement, and transform employee support, ultimately delivering an even better experience for its customers.