Scaling Success: How Salesforce is Transforming Customer Support with Empathy and AI

Conversation with Sanjeev Balakrishnan, EVP of Customer Support at Salesforce

By Omid Razavi

During Dreamforce 2024 in San Francisco, I had the opportunity to sit down with Sanjeev Balakrishnan , the EVP of Customer Support at Salesforce . Sanjeev shared insights on scaling customer support, integrating advanced technologies, and fostering meaningful customer relationships. With Salesforce’s growing customer base across multiple products, Sanjeev has steered his team through complex challenges while maintaining the human touch that defines exceptional customer service.

Leadership in Support at Scale

Sanjeev began by discussing the vast scope of Salesforce’s customer support operations: “My team manages over 25 products, 24/7, globally. It's all about scalability. When handling this complexity, it's not just about technology integration but also about people and culture.” One of the key challenges he highlighted was the seamless integration of acquired products like Mulesoft and Tableau into the Salesforce support ecosystem. Though Slack is still transitioning, Sanjeev remains focused on providing a unified customer experience across all products.

Salesforce's support strategy is grounded in success plans—standard, premier, and signature—ensuring that customers receive the right level of service. “The challenge is delivering consistent support across a diverse product portfolio,” Sanjeev noted.

Evolving the Support Model: Self-Service and Empathy at the Core

When asked about industry trends, Sanjeev emphasized that companies must prioritize self-service as the foundation for scalability. “Nobody wakes up wanting to contact customer support,” he explained. Self-service strategies, such as knowledge-centered support (KCS), are vital for reducing the volume of customer queries. Sanjeev pointed out that although KCS and search-based self-service seem promising, they weren’t enough for Salesforce’s specific needs. They had to adjust their approach, focusing on improving their knowledge strategy by making it more engaging and valuable for both support agents and customers. This involved a deeper look into how knowledge is accessed, gamified, incentivized, and maintained beyond just relying on a search engine-style method.

Salesforce’s vision has always been to provide an “easy and expert” experience for customers. “By ease, we mean low effort and high speed – ensuring familiar design of always-on availability,” Sanjeev shared. “Expertise involves deep product knowledge and user context.” Beyond self-service, Sanjeev highlighted the importance of fostering a culture of empathy within his team. “We lead with empathy,” he shared. “We receive issues with empathy, handle them with a smile, and resolve them with expertise. That’s part of our DNA.” This combination of empathy and technical expertise is a cornerstone of Salesforce’s approach to support.

Telemetry: Driving Proactive and Preventive Support

Sanjeev highlighted the importance of telemetry in shifting Salesforce's support model from reactive to proactive and preventive. By continuously monitoring product performance and detecting issues early, telemetry enables Salesforce to address problems before customers even notice them. Combined with AI, which processes telemetry data in real-time, Salesforce can deliver a seamless support experience where many problems are resolved automatically.

Sanjeev envisions a future where preventive support is the norm—where customers rarely need to reach out because systems self-correct before issues arise. By focusing on proactive support powered by telemetry and AI, Salesforce aims to offer a more personalized, efficient, and invisible customer support experience.

A Technology-Driven Approach to Support

Sanjeev also emphasized the importance of being technology-driven, especially at Salesforce’s scale. His team handles nearly 7,000 cases daily, requiring automation and AI efficiency. “We’ve moved to a tierless support model,” he explained. “Instead of passing cases through multiple tiers, we use swarming with Slack—assigning the right expertise to a case from the start.”

Agentforce Service Agents play an increasingly vital role in this approach. Sanjeev shared impressive statistics: 30% of Salesforce’s cases are resolved via chat, with 70% of those being solved in under 30 minutes. But he quickly points out that AI tools are only part of the solution. “The future is about blending AI with human expertise. Agentforce Service Agents can handle initial interactions, but humans are there to provide higher-level support when needed, and the handoff needs to be seamless.”

A Vision for Customer Success

Looking ahead, Sanjeev envisions customer support evolving from reactive to proactive and preventative. “The best support is no support at all,” he remarked. By investing in telemetry and customer journey mapping, Salesforce aims to predict and resolve issues before customers notice them. AI plays a crucial role here, helping to integrate proactive service into customer journeys seamlessly.

However, despite the focus on technology, Sanjeev believes building relationships remains fundamental to effective support. “Don’t run support as a transactional business,” he advised. “Think beyond the case and build relationships with your customers.”

A Personal Touch in Leadership

Sanjeev’s leadership balances cutting-edge technology with the human element. His mantra—empathy, expertise, and technology—guides his team through complex transformations and a growing customer base. As he reflected on his personal journey, Sanjeev emphasized the importance of balance, especially while supporting his daughter, who recently began college. “At the end of the day, it’s all about people—both our customers and our teams,” he said.

Sanjeev’s leadership exemplifies what it takes to manage customer support at a global scale while staying focused on what truly matters—creating value for customers through empathy, innovation, and cutting-edge technology. As Salesforce continues to lead in customer success, it’s clear that Sanjeev’s forward-thinking strategies will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of support.

Speaking at the CSS Executive Forum

Sanjeev graciously accepted my offer to speak at one of our Customer Service and Support (CSS) Executive Forums. I look forward to continuing the conversation and learning more about Salesforce’s customer success and support journey in the months ahead.

About Sanjeev Balakrishnan:

Sanjeev Balakrishnan is the Executive Vice President of Customer Support at Salesforce, overseeing the company’s global support organization. With about 18 years of experience at Salesforce, Sanjeev is renowned for driving customer experience transformation by leveraging advanced technologies such as AI while fostering a culture rooted in empathy and deep expertise. His leadership focuses on scaling support operations, driving innovation, and creating a unified customer experience across Salesforce's diverse product portfolio.

For more insights, subscribe to the CCO Perspectives newsletter.