Insight

How Agentforce Enhances Sales & Service Efficiency for Manufacturers

Andrew Gross

Starr Ruiz

Manufacturers today operate in an increasingly complex environment defined by global disruption, workforce constraints, rising costs, and accelerating digital demands. In this landscape, incremental improvements are no longer enough – organizations must embrace intelligent automation to remain competitive, not just in their production processes but in their internal operations.

Agentforce, Salesforce’s AI-powered platform, is purpose-built to help manufacturers meet this moment. By deploying autonomous and assistive agents that can work across systems, Agentforce enables sales and service teams to operate with greater speed, precision, and consistency to drive measurable improvements in profitability, customer experience, and operational agility.

The Efficiency Gap in Manufacturing

According to Salesforce’s Trends in Manufacturing Report surveying over 800 industry decision makers, 85% of manufacturers believe they must transform their operations to remain competitive. This urgency stems from a stark reality: only 38% of manufacturers are currently exceeding their profitability targets, revealing a significant performance gap.

This efficiency shortfall manifests in several ways. Field service teams spend excessive time on administrative tasks rather than value-adding service work. Sales representatives lack visibility into customer equipment performance and service history. Warranty claims process slowly through manual approval workflows. Meanwhile, maintenance remains largely reactive, with unexpected equipment failures causing costly downtime.

These operational inefficiencies underscore the need for more intelligent systems – ones that reduce administrative overhead and proactively resolve issues. Fortunately, Agentforce is built to address these challenges.

Agentforce: A Solution for Manufacturers

Agentforce agents are not simple chatbots or automation tools, but sophisticated AI-powered agents that act as trusted assistants to employees and customers. This digital labor platform empowers enterprises to create and deploy AI agents that operate continuously, resolve complex inquiries, and engage naturally with both customers and employees.

Learn more: Agentforce: A New Era of Agentic AI

According to Salesforce, Futurum Research found organizations using Agentforce can achieve ROI up to five times faster and with at least a 20% lower total cost of ownership, enabling them to outpace competitors and streamline operations at scale. Additionally, companies using Agentforce have reported 40% faster case resolution times and 25% higher lead conversion rates, directly affecting revenue and customer retention. (Salesforce)

Core Capabilities of Agentforce

Agentforce provides immediate value to manufacturers through several capabilities:

Service Agents provide 24/7 customer support for equipment inquiries, maintenance requests, and technical issues

Sales Agents help sales teams manage complex quoting processes, track agreements, and maximize pipeline opportunities

Autonomous Background Processing allows agents to monitor equipment telemetry and proactively identify potential issues without user prompting

Rich Interactive Experiences enable agents to display product specifications, diagrams, and troubleshooting guides directly within conversations

These features create measurable impact across service and sales functions while also enhancing the overall customer experience through faster, more intelligent engagement.

Transforming the Service Experience

For a service department, Agentforce transforms the daily experience. When a customer calls with an equipment issue, the Service Agent instantly retrieves the complete service history, warranty status, and known issues for that specific asset. It can automatically generate troubleshooting guides, schedule field service visits when needed, and ensure the technician arrives with the right parts in hand. For field technicians, the agent provides real-time guidance and documentation, freeing them to focus on technical work rather than administrative burden.

Empowering Sales Teams

Sales teams experience similar transformation. Agentforce Sales Agents proactively alert representatives about renewal opportunities based on contract end dates, equipment usage patterns, compile complex quotes, and identify missing products in a proposal or opportunity. They can automatically generate quotes for replacement parts, create personalized follow-up communications based on specific customer interests, and provide sales teams with comprehensive account intelligence drawn from across the organization.

Improving the Customer Experience

The impact extends to customers as well. Rather than navigating complex support systems, they interact with a knowledgeable assistant that understands their equipment, maintenance history, and service entitlements. For parts orders, warranty claims, or service scheduling, the experience becomes seamless and personalized.

Enhance, Integrate, and Secure Manufacturing Operations with Agentforce

Build Intelligent, Custom Manufacturing Agents

Agentforce’s true power lies in its extensive customization capabilities. Manufacturers can tailor agents to their specific workflows, terminology, and business processes:

Industry-Specific Intelligence: Create agents that naturally understand your manufacturing terminology, processes, and workflows through simple language instructions

Data-Driven Precision: Ground agents in proprietary manufacturing data models for responses that accurately reflect exact product specifications, equipment capabilities, and service protocols

Streamlined Process Automation: Develop manufacturing-specific actions using intuitive flows, Apex, or templates that automate complex sequences – from warranty validation to predictive maintenance scheduling

Brand-Aligned Experience: Design agents that embody your company’s voice and service standards in every interaction, strengthening your brand identity

Seamless Multi-Channel Deployment: Implement the same intelligent agent across your entire ecosystem – from internal team collaboration to customer-facing portals and mobile interfaces

Continuous Performance Optimization: Refine your agents using the Testing Center with real manufacturing scenarios to steadily enhance accuracy and efficiency

Seamlessly Integrate with Your Manufacturing Ecosystem

Agentforce creates a unified intelligence layer across your entire technology stack:

Connect with leading ERP systems like SAP, Oracle, and Infor to provide real-time insights on orders, inventory, and production planning

Link directly to MES platforms to surface critical shop floor data and trigger intelligent responses to production events

Access your PLM systems to deliver precise product specifications, engineering change notifications, and bill of materials (BOM) details instantly

This comprehensive integration ensures your agents operate with complete context, dramatically improving relevance and effectiveness.

Secure Sensitive Data

Built on Salesforce’s trusted infrastructure, Agentforce provides the robust security essential for manufacturing environments:

Granular Data Governance ensures proprietary manufacturing processes and data remain protected

Advanced Access Controls maintain strict information boundaries across departments and suppliers

Comprehensive Compliance Framework supports ISO 27001, GDPR, and SOC 2

Complete Audit Visibility provides transparent monitoring and validation of all agent activities

This level of protection provides comprehensive peace of mind, enabling teams to deploy with confidence knowing that intellectual property and sensitive data remain secure.

What’s on the Horizon: Future Agentforce Capabilities

Salesforce continues to expand Agentforce capabilities, including innovations designed specifically for the manufacturing sector. Here’s a look at what’s arriving in 2025 – and what it means for forward-thinking organizations:

Expanded Autonomy

Agentforce Invocable Actions (available now): Enables autonomous background processing triggered by equipment telemetry, inventory changes, or other data

Developer Enablement

Agentforce Developer Edition: A free environment where teams can experiment with custom agents tailored to specific workflows

AgentExchange Marketplace: Provides pre-built templates and actions designed for a variety of manufacturing use cases

Industry-Specific Agents

MuleSoft for Agentforce (available now): Allows manufacturers to connect agents to manufacturing systems using natural language to create topics and actions

AI Assist in Agent Builder (available now): Helps teams quickly create agents for specific production, quality, or service workflows

Agentforce Interaction Explorer (Fall 2025): Will provide detailed analytics on agent performance across manufacturing operations

Specialized Manufacturing Agents (late 2025): Including Employee Assistive Agents for staff and Partner Agents for channel collaboration

As Agentforce evolves, manufacturers can expect a growing array of applications and tailored use cases. While integrating AI-powered agents may seem complex, organizations that begin now will be best positioned to capture early value and build lasting competitive advantage. A pilot implementation can be completed in just four weeks, allowing teams to quickly iterate and demonstrate ROI.

Embracing AI-Powered Manufacturing Operations

For manufacturers, the shift toward AI-powered operations is not a distant vision – it is happening now. With Salesforce Agentforce, organizations can begin making immediate improvements in efficiency, customer experience, and profitability, while laying the foundation for long-term innovation.

The journey begins not with a complete overhaul, but with strategic implementation of current Agentforce capabilities – creating measurable efficiency gains while building toward manufacturing’s AI-powered future.

About Acquis

Acquis is an award-winning Salesforce consultancy and partner organization. Acquis’ Salesforce experts accelerate digital innovation and elevate human experiences in manufacturing, healthcare and life sciences, and nonprofit organizations to help our clients maximize their investment and execute their vision. Learn more