“If Agentforce Is So Easy to Use, Then Why Do I Need a Partner?”

“If setting up an AI agent with Agentforce is as simple as Salesforce advertises - why don’t we just handle this internally?” It’s a valid question, and many companies might succeed in doing so. Setting up an Agent does require a skillset that can certainly be developed by leveraging learning platforms such as Salesforce Trailhead. Businesses must first workshop and define Agent roles; use cases that will deliver the best ROI, such as handling customer cases. They must then configure the technology with best practice prompts that ensure these AI assistants perform the exact action they were employed to execute.

What isn’t always emphasised is the depth of preparation, expertise, and testing required to truly unlock Agentforce’s full potential. Let’s break it down:

The Need for Data Readiness

Agentforce is only as good as the data it works with. This is because AI models learn patterns from data; if the data is incomplete, outdated, or biased, the AI will inherit and amplify these issues. Diverse and representative datasets are critical to ensuring fairness and broad applicability. Additionally, well-labelled and structured data enhances model training, while irrelevant or noisy data can downgrade performance.?

Essentially: poor data in, poor results out. To set up an effective AI agent, you need:

• Clean, accurate, and relevant data: This means removing duplicates, filling gaps, and ensuring the data aligns with your goals.
• A robust knowledge base: For example, Salesforce recommends having at least 100 knowledge articles to provide a solid foundation for a service agent. Knowledge articles are pieces of content within the Salesforce Knowledge product that provide information to help users, customers, or employees solve problems, learn about products, or answer common questions. Without this, your AI’s responses may fall short of customer expectations.

This preparation step is critical, yet often underestimated, and it’s something that experienced partners are well-equipped to help with.

The Depth of the Testing Process

Implementing Agentforce isn’t just about flipping the ‘Activate’ switch; it requires rigorous testing to ensure it performs seamlessly. This involves:

• Time investment: Dedicated hours are needed to configure, test, and refine your AI agent. Don’t underestimate this phase of deployment, and always include it in your roadmap.?
• Staff involvement: Engaging your team in the testing process is crucial. They know the business and customers best, and their feedback is invaluable. By involving them early, you also build excitement amongst your team and show how Agentforce can eliminate tedious, manual tasks from their workload.

Partners like us bring tried-and-true testing methodologies, ensuring nothing is left to chance.

In-House Skill for Prompt Engineering

Prompt engineering is at the core of Agentforce’s success, but it is, in many ways, a specialised skill. A good AI prompt is clear, specific, and concise, providing enough context for the AI to understand the task. It should outline the desired outcome, tone, or style, and avoid ambiguity or overly broad requests. Including examples or constraints helps guide the AI’s response. For instance, instead of asking, "Write something about technology," a better prompt would be, "Write a 100-word summary on the benefits of renewable energy in technology." Additionally, specifying the audience or purpose (e.g., professional, casual) ensures the output is relevant. A well-crafted prompt aligns expectations with the AI's capabilities, leading to more accurate and useful responses. Prompt writing in an Agentforce context entails:

• Topic and Instruction Prompts: Carefully crafted to set consistent guardrails, ensuring repeatable, reliable outputs that perform the exact tasks you are expecting of the agent.?
• Prompt Templates: These can span over 100 lines, designed for detailed, comprehensive results.

Having done this for multiple implementations, we’ve learned what works (and what doesn’t) through experience, saving you the steep learning curve.

Leverage Your Existing Automation Tools

Agentforce works best when integrated into your existing Salesforce ecosystem. This means:

• Using existing automation tools like Flow and APEX: These are essential for creating complex new actions that pull from real-time data, use complex logic, and ensure that your business has a future-proof architecture.
• Maximising your automation catalogue: Leveraging what you already have in place streamlines the implementation process.

These skills are vital, especially during the initial setup phase. A partner’s expertise ensures these elements are seamlessly incorporated.

While Agentforce has levelled the playing field for businesses, the time it takes to figure out how best to use the technology could leave you trailing competitors. Partners like us have already put in the work:

• We’ve made the mistakes, so you don’t have to.
• We’ve done the testing and trialling.

The promise of Agentforce is incredible, but our expertise helps you unlock its potential faster and with fewer headaches. We believe that there is certainly an early mover advantage here, so why not take the next step and take advantage of one of our complimentary Salesforce AI readiness workshops, where you can explore and develop your use cases for Agentforce, or even Salesforce’s excellent standard Einstein AI features.?

To book your initial consultation, visit www.performa-it.co.uk/agentforce/.

Agentforce is powerful, but with the right partner, you can truly transform your team’s capabilities. Let’s make it happen together.