Salesforce brings Einstein GPT to Field Service Mobile
The CRM giant harnesses generative AI to let Field Service Mobile users create drafts and discuss customer problems on Slack and help them find self-service tools.
Salesforce on Tuesday unveiled new Einstein GPT capabilities for Field Service Mobile to help frontline service teams generate reports, collaborate on customer issues in Slack and locate self-service tools.
The Einstein GPT integration with Field Service Mobile is expected to be available in beta by December 2023, according to Salesforce.
As generative AI flows into many aspects of enterprise efficiency and customer experience tooling, it's only natural that it should end up in the field service segment as well, according to Opus Research analyst Dan Miller.
"I'm a big fan of companies employing conversational AI to support their front-line workers," Miller said. "It's one more step in the trend toward making Einstein an ubiquitous personal assistant."
Einstein GPT's advanced capabilities let field service workers instantly create an overview of their services for each client, including text and visuals proposed by Einstein GPT.
"Field service technicians have to summarize their work in a service report," said Taksina Eammano, Salesforce field service executive vice president and general manager.
Tasks like typing up a service report can be sped up through voice commands, which are available in multiple languages.
Creating written reports is a favored function of generative AI technology, which is programmed to excel in that area, according to Miller.
"Summarization is something that generative AI has been demonstrably good at," Miller said. "Employees are treating it like digital assistants that not only summarize the activities but also extract important commitments or next steps."
Generative AI for finding guides and swarming on Slack
In addition, Einstein GPT in Field Service Mobile can help customers locate how-to guides to solve common tech problems and interact with the service provider for tasks like rescheduling a service appointment.
I'm a big fan of companies employing conversational AI to support their front-line workers.
Dan MillerAnalyst, Opus Research
Einstein GPT also enables new Field Service Mobile integrations with Slack, letting service workers "swarm" customer issues.
This means service personnel can invite other service workers to contribute to the case by creating a channel-like conversation thread that is attached to the case rather than just sending direct messages to a group of personnel, Eammano said.
An example of a swarm would be a scenario in which a service worker is out in area city and needs a particular router to do a repair for a customer's Wi-Fi service. That worker can send out a swarm to everyone in a nearby radius to ask about borrowing the router, Eammano said.
Incorporating Einstein GPT into Field Service Mobile in this way is a logical step for Salesforce, given how Microsoft has integrated GPT-informed resources in Teams and Skype as well as how Webex and Google Meet have added generative AI, Miller said.
"It makes sense," Miller said. "Having a digital assistant on every online meeting is going to be routine. The caution that companies are taking is to keep 'humans in the loop' and treat much of the output as a draft."
Mary Reines is a news writer covering customer experience and unified communications for TechTarget Editorial. Before TechTarget, Reines was arts editor at the Marblehead Reporter.
