We love hearing how
our customers are
succeeding with
Salesforce, and we've got a
great one on tap for
you. Let's learn how one
of the largest
telecommunications providers
in New Zealand is
transforming into an
AI-first telco with
AgentForce and enhancing
their customer
journeys. I'm Lee Price,
joined by David
Phan, SVP and GM of
Communications, Media
and Energy at Salesforce,
and Jason Parris, CEO
of One New Zealand.
Welcome to you both.
Welcome to Dreamforce.
Thanks, Lee. Very
exciting to be here.
Thanks, Jason. It's
a bit of a down-under
takeover today. All
right. Well, David,
we'll start with you.
We're always updating
our tech to make sure
that customers are
getting what they
need right now. So I'm
interested to hear some
of the announcements
around Agent Force
for Communications
we've had at Dreamforce
this year. Yeah,
sure, sure. I think
techs is ever-changing
and innovations is
happening really quick.
The way that we want
to make sure that our
customers are getting
the time to value
that they're looking
for, it's really for
leveraging the Agent
Force for Communications.
delivering pre-built
industry agents
so that these agents
understand the
industry context,
understand what actions
they need to take,
and that will help our
customers to adopt
those agents quicker.
And these agents
are built on top
of our industry
platform so they
understand the
industry language,
the data model,
the product
as well as based on
the industry standards
so that it can
integrate to
the rest of the
IT landscape.
Wonderful. Well, Jason,
you're a customer
who's hands-on tools
with all this new
innovation. So I'd love
to hear a little bit more
about some of the
business priorities you
were looking at at
One New Zealand that
eventually caused you
to look at Agent Force.
Yeah, so for those of
you who don't know,
we're Vodafone and
now One New Zealand.
And so for about four
or five years, we really
improved every aspect
of our business,
connectivity service
value and then we were
looking for the next
gain and this is where
Salesforce came it came
along so Salesforce
other communications
platform that was the first
step and that's gone
brilliantly for us
and then on top of that
we've added the agentic
layer so I was here at
Dreamforce 12 months
ago didn't even really
know what agentic
meant but to be fair
not many people did yeah
with Salesforce's help
we built our first
agent in eight hours
took us two weeks to
deploy it. And so now
we're getting those service
and sales gains on
top of the Salesforce
CRM platform. Yeah,
that's great to hear.
It's wild. I think
this was just 12 months
ago. We're all
just starting this
conversation, but it's
great to see how quickly
all this innovation's
taking place. And
I'd love to dig a
little bit more into
some of those sales
and service use cases.
So are there any
highlights that come to
mind that had a
particularly big impact?
Yeah, well, I'm super
excited about what
everyone's seeing here
this week. So it's
a prepaid migration
and upgrade path.
Anyone who's in
telecommunications
understands that
moving a customer
from a plan they're
really happy with
to a new plan is
a business risk.
That's a
reconsideration moment,
and you want to
make sure that it's
as seamless as
possible for them.
And so we're
talking about this
as kind of one
agentic AI tool,
but it's actually
probably seven.
It's everything from
looking at what the
customer cohort looks
like, to identifying
the customer to presenting
plans to provisioning
it and making sure
that there's a record
of the conversation
that we've had with
the customer and the
customer has had with
us we're seeing four
times 400 percent
greater engagement on
our ai agentic uh tool
than we are through
our normal channels and
that's a game changer
for us across service
across sales uh and
just for the business
and for our teams in
general yeah and i
imagine you're doing this
across a few different
channels as well. We
are. Again, working
with Salesforce, we
want to deploy agents
across every part of
our business. We want
agents in sales and
service, of course, but
also our partnership
with Salesforce and
marketing. We want
to roll it across our
back office as well
and HR and finance. And
the beauty of the
technology is that it works.
Actually, it's off
the shelf. Telcos
don't need to think that
they should be building
or shaping or even
customizing this for
themselves. You just
need to get your
business ready to take
the Salesforce agent force
technology as fast
as you possibly can.
Yeah, that's
great to see. It's
wonderful to
hear about that.
I want to go
back to something
Ultimately, you landed
on Salesforce. There
is a lot of competition
out there. So I'm
curious to hear for One
New Zealand in particular,
what was the, I
guess, the key reasons
why Salesforce felt
like the right choice?
Well, the first one
is the partnership
and it's built on
trust. That's the core
value, number one
value of Salesforce.
Second, the technology
works. You would
not believe how many
companies pitch me
and our team every
single day about AI.
As I mentioned, we
built our first agent
in eight hours, deployed
it within two weeks.
Our last one, which
is a game changer,
five weeks with the
support of Salesforce.
So, yes, secondly,
the technology is
real. So just be ready
to take it. And then
it's the support
that you get around
from Salesforce across
the professional
services team, making
sure that you've
got the right
capability, the best from
around the world to
help you to implement
this technology fast
and successfully.
Wonderful. We love
to hear it. I really
do think if you are
watching and you do
have a chance to look
on Trailhead, our
free learning site, I
do find the real aha
moment for folks
seeing how quickly and
easy it is to set up
an agent is you can
actually get hands
on in these tools and
see for yourself. So
on that note, David,
you mentioned there's
some great new
functionality coming
out for communication.
So for companies
like One New Zealand,
what are some of the
features coming out
that you're most excited
about? Well, first,
I think we are
fortunate to have
customers like One New
Zealand who we can work
with and continue
to push the limit of
the technology and
advance the industry.
Like Jason said,
we look forward to
leveraging the AI
technology to be embedded
in every step of the
customer journey.
you will find us
investing in across the
sales service and few
service helping the
sellers to get the
quotes out faster
especially in the b2b
space yes as well as
getting deeper into
the service domain so
that we can help the
service as well as
the technicians to get
the job done faster
so we are looking
really excited about
those capabilities to
bring to the market
yeah Yeah, really
exciting to hear. Just
very quickly, what has
been the big highlight
for you both at
Dreamforce this year?
introduction
of voice. Yeah.
And then how the
Salesforce ecosystem
makes Agentic
work even better.
Yes. So those two
things I think
are going to be
game changers,
especially in an
agent-to-agent world.
I loved hearing about
voice and A2A and
the ecosystem and
how it's working
better together. Love
it. Well, we will
need to leave it
there, but it was great
to hear from you
both. Thank you so
much, Jason and David,
for your insights.
To learn more about
Agent Force for
Communications and
how it can help
your organization
right now, scan
the QR code on your
screen or go to
salesforce.com slash
communications.
