Our Relationships Are Everything: A Serviceblazer on Better Financial Coaching with AI

At Compass Working Capital, a national nonprofit that works with families with low incomes, our mission is to narrow the racial and gender wealth divides in the U.S. We do that through one-on-one, client-centered financial coaching paired with a savings account. Everything we do starts with the relationship between a coach and a client.

If you’re in the service business, you already know AI and AI agents promise a lot for productivity. Here’s what we’ve learned: the real payoff only shows up when you put the client at the center of how you adopt it.

A renewed focus on coaching, thanks to AI

Our challenges came down to three things: paperwork, knowledge transfer, and scalability. 

The admin overload

Coaching has always meant a lot of note-taking. We need consistent documentation as it’s how we track our impact and keep continuity when a coach changes. But when note-taking is slow and burdensome, that’s time coaches aren’t spending with clients.

The context gap

Between scheduling conflicts and coach turnover, our clients don’t always keep the same coach for the full 3-5 years they are enrolled in our programs. We’re the ones responsible for keeping that relationship – and the client’s progress – going. So what happens when the relationship, and all that note-taking, has to start over? Although clients generally report high satisfaction, coaching transitions are the most common pain point.

The strains of scaling and using AI for admin relief

Recently, we grew our coaches’ caseloads from around 75 clients to more than 150. The good news: we’re reaching a lot more people who need us. The hard part: that’s a lot more pressure on our coaches.

Our clients tell us that relationships are what matters most to them. So as we scale, we aren’t interested in AI that takes the coach out of the conversation. With the Agentforce Contact Center, we eliminate the handoff between our coaches and AI data flows. A call ends, and that’s the trigger: the AI processes the transcript and drafts the data entry. The coach reviews it, makes any changes, and submits it. That’s it.

We also needed a partner who would protect our clients’ financial data, and the frontier companies do not always make that easy. Salesforce’s approach (zero-history configurations, data masking, a trusted platform architecture) lets us use powerful AI without giving up control of client data.

Agentforce now has the full context it needs. Before, that context was scattered across different systems. Now it’s all in one place. When the next session starts, no matter who’s coaching, the system surfaces everything: the history, the progress, the context. It’s all there.

How we’re elevating the coaching experience with AI

One of the best moments in a coaching session is when a coach hands a client the right resource – something relevant that shows we’re paying attention to their progress.

But coaches couldn’t navigate away mid-call to go find it. So they’d say, “I’ll follow up by email.” And the momentum was gone.

What’s changed: We loaded more than 100 resources into Salesforce – tax prep guidance, credit-improvement tools, and the other topics clients ask about most. Now Agentforce Service surfaces the right one on the coach’s dashboard while they are still on the call.

If the client mentions tax prep, the coach can say, “I have something for that,” and shares it immediately. One click, and the momentum is preserved.

When coaches get their time back

With time back, our coaches get to do more of what they’re actually good at and enjoy.

• Proactive outreach: We aim to check in with every client at least every six months. With time back, coaches can reach out more often to clients who have drifted out of touch.

• Deeper expertise: Some coaches specialize in small business support, credit repair, or homeownership. Time back means they can go deeper into that expertise and give clients deeper support.

Removing friction at every touchpoint

We’re not using Agentforce to replace coaches or to rush clients through the system. We’re using it to remove friction at every touchpoint, so our coaches can be more present and our clients get more access and smoother transitions.

If you’re in the service business and thinking about AI adoption, here’s what we’ve learned: the promise of productivity is real. But the real value only shows up when you keep the client and the relationship at the center of how you build it.