What is Agentforce 360 for Small Business?

For small and medium business (SMB) owners, every minute and every dollar counts. With lean teams and ambitious goals, the challenge lies in delivering exceptional customer experiences while managing operations efficiently. In response, Salesforce has introduced Agentforce 360, a powerful addition to its ecosystem that redefines how humans with artificial intelligence (AI) enhance customer success together.

Agentforce 360 brings the power of autonomous, intelligent agents into the hands of small business owners, making AI not just accessible but incredibly impactful. Whether you’re handling customer service requests or creating personalized marketing campaigns, the agentic layer of your CRM helps you get the job done faster and with fewer headaches. This blog will break down how Agentforce 360 can help your business operate smarter, achieve better ROI, and create the kind of customer engagement that drives growth.

What you’ll learn:

• What is Agentforce 360 for small business?
• How small businesses can benefit from Agentforce
• Understanding how Agentforce works
• Key functionalities of Agentforce for small businesses
• How to implement Agentforce in your business
• Use cases of Agentforce to grow your small business
• Kickstarting your journey with Agentforce

What is Agentforce 360 for small business?

Agentforce 360 is the agentic layer of the Salesforce platform. Built right into the customer relationship management (CRM), it allows you to create and deploy AI agents that can handle tasks automatically across any business function — like resolving customer issues, qualifying sales leads, and improving marketing campaigns — all with needing limited human engagement.

According to the Salesforce Trends in AI For CRM Report, 41% of employee time is spent on repetitive tasks, and 65% of desk workers believe generative AI can help them focus on more strategic work. With too many tasks and not enough resources, many jobs are left unfinished. Agentforce 360 helps bridge this gap by taking on routine tasks, allowing teams to focus on more impactful and high-value work.

With Agentforce, you can build and customize your own AI agents using low-code tools. It also comes with pre-built skills that you can tailor to fit any industry and use case. For example, you can customize agents for order management and fulfillment or generating sales pitch. The best part? It works 24/7, meaning your business is always active, even after hours.

How small businesses can benefit from Agentforce 360

Impactful AI begins with well-organized customer data, and a CRM is key to making this happen. It helps you streamline and organize your data across sales, service, marketing, and commerce. If you’re just starting, Starter Suite for small businesses and Pro Suite for growing companies are great options to begin your CRM journey. Creating a single source of truth ensures your data is not just accessible but also actionable.

Having everything in one system means your teams can work better together. Everyone has the same 360-degree view of the customer data. For example, marketing campaigns can seamlessly integrate with sales follow-ups, and customer service teams can access the full context of a customer’s journey, making interactions smoother and more impactful.

This shared system is also what powers Agentforce 360. With all your business data in one place, it can use advanced reasoning abilities to handle routine tasks and suggest actionable recommendations. It also amplifies the impact of your small business CRM and empowers you to get more done with fewer resources. Here are some of the primary advantages.

• Faster customer interactions: According to Salesforce research, U.S. consumers spend up to nine hours resolving a single customer service issue. With 67% feeling frustrated by slow resolutions, nearly one-third of interactions are abandoned. Agentforce 360 enhances how you connect with your customers by using conversational AI to handle inquiries 24/7. Whether it’s answering common questions or resolving issues, these AI agents ensure your customers always receive prompt and helpful responses.
• Increased efficiency: Repetitive tasks like responding to routine inquiries or scheduling follow-ups can drain your team’s time. Agentforce 360 automates these processes, freeing up your team to focus on more meaningful work.
• Data-driven insights: With real-time analytics and reporting, you can monitor key metrics as they happen. Whether it’s customer satisfaction scores or agent performance stats, you can make informed decisions on the spot. 
• Scalable support for growth: As your business grows, so do customer demands. Agentforce 360 scales with you, handling increased interactions effortlessly. This ensures your customers continue to receive top-notch service without the need for extra hires. In fact, 1 in 3 customers prefer working with an AI agent over a person if it means faster service.
• Cost-effective operations: Hiring and training new staff can be expensive. Agentforce 360 helps manage a significant portion of interactions, reducing overhead costs while keeping your operations smooth and efficient.
• Customized for your needs: No two businesses are the same, and Agentforce 360 recognizes that. You can customize it to fit your unique workflows and customer needs. It enhances the customer experience by providing tailored responses and seamlessly integrating with your workflows.

Understanding how Agentforce 360 works

Agentforce 360 works by bringing together several core components to ensure efficient task execution. Here’s how these pieces fit together to deliver results.

• Agents: The AI agent that interacts with users, interpreting their natural language queries and providing responses.
• Topics: Predefined areas of focus or expertise that guide the agent on what it can handle (like sales inquiries, customer support, or task automation).
• Actions: The specific tasks agents can carry out, such as answering a customer query, generating a lead, or updating a sales record.
• Reasoning engine: This is the logic that processes user inputs, analyzes data, and decides the best course of action based on the situation.
• Large language model (LLM): LLM is the AI model that powers the agent’s ability to understand and respond in natural language, making interactions intuitive and human-like.

The agentic layer is seamlessly integrated into the Salesforce Platform. It uses data, AI, and the full Salesforce suite of CRM apps to create a unified experience. This deep integration empowers agents to take proactive actions across every role and channel, offering a complete context of each customer interaction. Here’s a simple breakdown of how it works.

Access to your data

Agentforce 360 connects to your existing business data (like customer details, sales records, and product information) and uses AI to analyze this data as it updates in your systems. Data 360 gives Agentforce 360 unified access to customer data from all sources, including emails, transcripts, and PDFs. With real-time insights, agents can quickly adapt to customer needs and take actions like automating follow-ups or finding relevant knowledge articles. For example, if a customer’s order status changes, the agent can immediately pull that updated info and provide an accurate response.

AI-powered reasoning

The Atlas Reasoning Engine is what makes Agentforce 360 so smart. It breaks down tasks into smaller steps and continually adapts its actions based on the data and goals. For instance, if a customer asks a question, the agent not only looks for an answer but evaluates multiple options and refines its response until it finds the best one. This process ensures that tasks are completed accurately, even if the situation changes.

Executing actions

Once equipped with the necessary data and reasoning, the autonomous agent takes action. This might involve answering a customer query, automating a workflow, or creating a new sales lead. Every step is designed to save time and improve efficiency.

Key functionalities of Agentforce 360 for small businesses

Agentforce 360 is fully integrated with Salesforce’s suite of products, meaning it can access all the customer data and insights you already have. It utilizes the entire Salesforce ecosystem to provide intelligent, personalized actions. For example, Agentforce could identify an upsell opportunity by reviewing a customer’s past purchases and then automatically send a personalized email to the customer, all within the same workflow.

Agentforce operates securely within the Salesforce environment, adhering to standard access controls like licenses and permissions. It includes AI guardrails to ensure ethical standards and is integrated with the Einstein Trust Layer, making sure that all operations are secure and compliant.

You don’t need advanced coding skills to create a custom Agentforce agent. With low-code tools like Agent Builder, Model Builder, and Prompt Builder, you can deploy an AI agent that fits your business’ unique challenges. You can define tasks, set up topics, and write natural language instructions to guide your agent’s actions. It’s a quick and easy way to build an agent tailored to your business needs, whether for customer service, sales, or internal processes.

Interacting with Agentforce 360 is simple as well. Both your team and customers can engage with it naturally, like chatting with a person (no confusing menus or steps to follow). It responds in a clear, conversational way and keeps track of ongoing conversations, allowing for follow-up questions or updated instructions without starting over. It’s designed to keep every interaction smooth and simple.

How to implement Agentforce 360 in your business

Successfully implementing Agentforce in your small business involves thoughtful planning and execution. These five steps will help you get the most out of your AI-powered assistant while ensuring it seamlessly integrates into your operations.

1. Assess your business needs

Before implementing Agentforce, identify the specific challenges it can help solve. You can clearly define the areas where it can deliver the most value. This clarity helps in setting goals and measuring success post-implementation. Consider areas like:

• Customer service: Are your agents handling repetitive queries that could be automated?
• Sales processes: Are your agents missing out on follow-ups or struggling to prioritize leads?
• Marketing: Are your campaigns lacking personalization or insights into what works?
• Commerce: Are you struggling to create targeted promotions that drive sales?

2. Get Sales Cloud with Foundations

The next step is to get started with Agentforce Sales. It helps you manage leads, track customer interactions, and close deals more efficiently while delivering a seamless experience to your customers. But that’s not it.

Once you have Agentforce Sales, you can activate Salesforce Foundations. It is a free upgrade designed to supercharge your CRM with features from Customer 360 suite, including Agentforce Sales, Marketing, Service, Commerce, and Data 360. Foundations equips your business with the essential tools to get started with Agentforce, offering an integrated, AI-powered platform for managing customer relationships efficiently.  Here are some of its key features.

• Enhanced customer insights: With Data Cloud integration, Foundations unifies customer data across your business to power automation and AI insights.
• Agentforce-ready tools: Foundations includes configurable sales and service agents, Prompt Builder, and 1,000 conversations to get started with Agentforce.
• Partners and AI apps: Expand Agentforce 360 with partner-built agents, actions, and AI apps to simplify complex tasks, streamline actions across different systems, and increase productivity.

3. Train your team

A well-trained team will ensure Agentforce delivers consistent, reliable results. Introduce the core features of Agentforce. Explain how it retrieves data, suggests actions, and autonomously completes tasks.

Tailor the training to each team’s specific needs. Customer service reps can focus on using Agentforce to resolve tickets more quickly, while sales teams can explore lead nurturing and automating email outreach. Offer ongoing support with online resources, tutorials, and regular training sessions to help your team master Agentforce over time.

4. Engage customers wherever they are

Agentforce 360 can interact with your customers directly. You can embed agents in web chat, email, SMS, and even Slack, allowing you to meet your customers where they are. Whether a customer needs help troubleshooting a product or is looking for information on a new service, your Agentforce agents are ready to step in and assist. And if the agent can’t solve the problem, it seamlessly hands off the issue to a human agent, ensuring that the customer experience remains smooth and uninterrupted.

5. Focus on continuous improvement

Agentforce 360 is designed to adapt to your evolving business needs, but that requires regular attention and updates. Evaluate how it’s performing against your goals.

• Are response times improving?
• Is automation reducing workload? 
• Are my chat responses intuitive enough?

As your business grows, adjust the agentic workflows and prompts to address new challenges or opportunities. You can also use A/B testing to explore different strategies, such as new customer engagement approaches or sales processes, and refine it’s performance accordingly.

Use cases of Agentforce to grow your small business

Agentforce 360 is designed to help small businesses simplify operations, improve customer service, and boost productivity. Here’s how it can make a difference across various industries.

Billing and customer support

Handling billing disputes can be a drain on your team’s time. With Agentforce 360, you can quickly analyze past bills, spot discrepancies, and resolve customer concerns. When a customer has a question about a charge, it automatically validates claims and provides accurate resolutions.

Education

Answering questions from prospective students can take up your staff’s valuable time. Agentforce 360 responds to queries about financial aid, programs, and deadlines instantly. It provides tailored advice, ensuring students get the information they need. 

Banking and Financial Services

Boost customer experience with your AI-powered banking CRM by automating tasks and streamlining service. You can automate tasks like transaction disputes. If a customer flags a charge, Agentforce 360 retrieves transaction details, identifies unauthorized charges, and notifies merchants  without any human intervention. It even issues provisional credits when needed, ensuring faster resolutions and saving your team hours of manual work.

Retail and ecommerce

Running an online store or a retail business requires seamless customer experiences. Agentforce 360 acts like a digital personal shopper. It helps your customers find products using natural language searches, offers personalized recommendations, and even streamlines checkout. For example, if someone’s browsing your site for a specific product, AI agents can guide them, suggest complementary items, and help them complete their purchase quickly.

Insurance services

Agentforce 360 analyzes your clients’ coverage, identifies potential gaps, and recommends plan adjustments with an AI-driven insurance agency software. It sends proactive reminders for renewals, helping you maintain strong relationships and reduce churn.

Healthcare

Responding to patient inquiries and scheduling appointments can be overwhelming. You can build healthier connections with Agentforce 360, enabling personalized engagement in Healthcare & Life Sciences across providers, patients, and members. It helps you match patients with the right physician, review coverage benefits, and generate medical history summaries. This ensures faster service for patients and gives you more time to focus on care.

Manufacturing and maintenance

Agentforce 360 tracks manufacturing performance data from your machines in real time. It flags potential failures early, notifies your customers, and schedules service appointments. It also gives your technicians detailed summaries, so they can fix issues faster and keep operations running smoothly.

Media and advertising

Agentforce 360 helps you suggest the best ad formats, audience targeting, and placements based on campaign goals. You can deliver well-thought-out media plans faster, giving your clients a great experience while saving your team’s time.

Kickstarting your journey with Agentforce 360

Agentforce 360 offers small businesses an opportunity to streamline operations and enhance customer service without the need for extensive resources. It simplifies day-to-day tasks, allowing you to focus more on growing your business. If you’re looking to improve efficiency and reduce the workload on your team, Agentforce could be the solution. See how it can make a difference for your business. Watch a demo now and explore its potential. 

Already a Salesforce customer? Activate Foundations and try out Agentforce 360 today.

AI supported the writers and editors of this article.