What you’ll study:
The vitality of Dreamforce is unmatched, however making certain that vibrant expertise reaches each attendee requires relentless dedication and innovation. That’s the mission of the Dreamforce Incapacity Assist Desk.
The Incapacity Assist Desk origin story: Constructing a central hub for accessibility at Dreamforce
The Incapacity Assist Desk was not an in a single day creation. It grew from a easy, essential recognition: accessibility is non-negotiable, and it’s good for enterprise. Attendees with disabilities or medical wants demanded a central, dependable place to get assist that was free from confusion or friction.
This mission is powered by a important reality: 1.3 billion folks on the earth have a incapacity – that’s 1 in each 6 Dreamforce attendees – and practically 70% of these are invisible.
The Incapacity Assist Desk, run by Salesforce’s Workplace of Accessibility (OoA) and Salesforce staff, was established in 2019 to deal with this want by:
- Offering a single level of contact for accessibility questions, wants, or lodging requests.
- Guaranteeing real-time problem-solving, from discovering accessible seating to coordinating mobility assist.
- Creating a way of group for employees and attendees enthusiastic about entry.
This 12 months, the OoA challenged itself to go larger. They weren’t simply fascinated with the present occasion — they had been innovating the way forward for occasion accessibility.
The answer: implementing Agentforce in Slack by making a Slack Channel Professional to enhance the assistance desk’s human employees.
Creating higher merchandise — for all.
We’re agency in our dedication to product inclusion. Uncover our product accessibility efforts and inclusive design requirements.
The problem: The way to ship assist to visitors shortly
Since 2019, the Incapacity Assist Desk workforce has supplied personalised, real-time assist for a whole bunch of Dreamforce attendees. Annually, they create a Slack channel for inside communication and to escalate questions that staffers can’t reply to extra senior accessibility leads on the occasion.
The OOA Incapacity Assist Desk gives important, high-touch companies, together with:
- Onsite Lodging: Providing sighted guides, motorized scooters, earplugs for sensory assist, accessible seating, quiet zones, guardian rooms, and in-person assist for inquiries.
- Occasion Steerage: Offering detailed employees coaching and visitor data on find out how to entry the lodging, shuttles, and companies like Aira navigation.
- Assets: Distributing the important Accessible Information to Dreamforce – an annual touchdown web page with detailed descriptions of the occasion from begin to end.
However even an inexpensive quantity of questions requires around-the-clock availability from the choose few consultants, and easy, repetitive inquiries can tie up priceless human time – not just for our employees, however for the visitors looking for solutions.
With historic response occasions stretching from 5 minutes to six hours, and every inquiry taking over common 10 messages backwards and forwards earlier than resolving, the OoA noticed a possibility to innovate. Their aim: to offer fast and environment friendly assist, 24/7.
The answer: Constructing a channel skilled agent in Slack
The OoA workforce was impressed by their very own success with an inside assist agent. They realized they might deliver that very same effectivity to Dreamforce, permitting their employees to give attention to really high-touch, advanced care whereas nonetheless delivering distinctive service to everybody who had an inquiry.
The OoA outfitted their agent to deal with inquiries via:
- Knowledge Curation: The workforce gathered and rigorously organized and up to date documentation, occasion data, and data articles from previous inquiries.
- Data Base Construction: This data turned a complete, simply searchable data base.
- Automated Escalation Course of: If the Channel Professional was stumped or its response was not passable, the agent would shortly tag our extra skilled OoA members to offer the reply inside the thread, protecting the whole lot organized and environment friendly.
- Rigorous Testing: The workforce spent a number of weeks testing the agent to make sure the responses had been detailed, in addition to testing its means to interpret the identical query written in numerous methods.
Outcomes and classes realized
The Incapacity Assist Desk Channel Professional’s expectation was to reply 40% of inquiries obtained – and it surpassed that aim. The agent immediately took on repetitive questions like: “What time does the Accessible shuttle depart for Dreamfest?” or “The place is the quiet space in Moscone South?” answering 43% of inquiries instantly and efficiently.
This meant human employees weren’t caught routing messages and ready for responses; they had been capable of present correct data to visitors and assist them benefit from the expertise as shortly as attainable.
Human escalations that the agent couldn’t deal with – solely 15% of all inquiries – had been reserved for advanced, real-time coordination requests, equivalent to: “Can we have now a sighted information assist a visitor to the Agentforce Keynote?” or “I simply gave away the final set of earplugs – the place are we storing the extras?”
The important thing takeaway: Success is iterative, and requires human oversight and judgement.
The agent wasn’t good at first, typically giving imprecise or overly generic responses, largely as a consequence of a restricted and loosely structured data base. It additionally had problem dealing with alternative ways customers phrased their questions. To deal with this, the workforce adopted an iterative refinement strategy: repeatedly enhancing the agent via testing and updates to the data base.
Ally Inexperienced, Salesforce Senior Supervisor of Accessibility Innovation & Workforce Packages, shared of the method: “We strengthened the data base for higher accuracy and readability, and used Google Gemini to generate and check a variety of curated questions, serving to us fine-tune responses and shut data gaps.”
The long run is accessible: Increasing agentic AI for everybody
The success of Agentforce on the Dreamforce Incapacity Assist Desk is a transparent indicator that Agentic AI isn’t nearly effectivity — it’s a instrument that helps empower a extra custom-made expertise for all.
Chief Accessibility Officer Catherine Nichols shares:
[Image credit: Catherine Nichols / Salesforce]
“Agentic AI has the potential to remodel accessibility service by proactively anticipating wants and offering personalised assist.
Instruments like Agentforce will equip groups with the facility to streamline requests, regulate digital experiences to particular person preferences, and supply empathetic help in actual time.
We’re really optimistic in regards to the integration of AI into the workforce as a possibility for everybody to thrive.”
The Workplace of Accessibility is already increasing the Agentforce integrations throughout the enterprise:
- Workforce Navigators: Implementing an agent to information job seekers on mentorship packages and certification vouchers.
- BaseCamp Agent: Coaching a Neurodiversity Job Teaching agent to help with worker circumstances whereas protecting delicate data safe.
- Future Occasions: Scaling the Occasion Workers Slack agent past Dreamforce to make sure seamless accessibility assist in any respect main Salesforce occasions.
By utilizing Agentforce, the Workplace of Accessibility didn’t simply meet a aim — they created the muse for a future the place occasion assist is instantaneous, personalised, and accessible for all. That’s the facility of people with brokers working collectively!
