Salesforce wants technicians and tradespeople to take AI agents on the road with them

Tradespeople and technicians spend almost a full day every week filling out paperwork and completing admin tasks, and it’s having a huge impact on productivity. Salesforce thinks its agentic AI tools could be the key to solving this.

A survey conducted by the firm showed respondents waste an average of seven hours per week inputting manual data, summarizing jobs, and other ‘low-value’ tasks.

Notably, the data showed these professionals spend as much time on administrative tasks and general information gathering as they do on using the skills they’re paid for.

Filling out job briefs, customer documentation, permit filings, and other tasks take up around 30% of a technician’s working hours. In contrast, they spend around 28% of their time actually delivering or performing services.

This barrage of administrative duties is having a major impact on the workforce, Salesforce found. More than four-in-five (81%) reported working overtime to finish admin tasks on a monthly basis, resulting in longer hours and higher rates of burnout.

In monetary terms, the impact is equally concerning. Based on the average US hourly wage, a company with 1,000 full-time technicians is losing over $260,000 as a result of admin work.

“Technicians and other workers in the field are the backbone of our economy. Yet amid a growing skilled labor shortage, a tightening economy, and rising materials prices, they are being stretched thinner than ever before,” said Taksina Eammano, EVP & General Manager of Field Service at Salesforce.

Naturally, Salesforce says AI agents could help alleviate the pressure and reduce workloads. The survey showed 81% believe agents can help them do their jobs more efficiently and cut down on administrative tasks.

Respondents highlighted the potential benefits of AI agents in a number of areas, specifically pointing to areas such as scheduling conflicts.

Automating this process could go a long way to cutting administrative strain, Eammano noted, and early use-cases show a clear enthusiasm among technicians.

“AI agents can autonomously schedule service appointments, optimizing scheduling and intelligently filling gaps, help technicians more efficiently troubleshoot issues onsite to keep their days on track, and reduce the number of return visits,” Eammano said.

While scheduling efficiency gains received a positive reaction from technicians, 80% of respondents also told Salesforce that AI agents would allow for “greater focus on the more fulfilling aspects of their jobs”.

Time savings for other tradespeople were also a key talking point, according to Salesforce. Contractors, plumbers, and electricians, for example, estimated that by using AI agents they could save up to 30% of the time spent on administrative tasks each week.

Salesforce is all in on AI agents

The survey results coincide with the latest expansion of the CRM giant’s agentic AI service, Agentforce.

Salesforce unveiled the launch of the service at its annual Dreamforce conference in September last year, and it’s become a key focus for the firm.

Customer service roles, particularly in retail, were in sharp focus at the Dreamforce conference, with the company highlighting a number of use-cases and real world examples of agents in action.

The new, expanded service, Agentforce for Field Services, appears centered around replicating the early use-cases in the retail sector to help reduce manual toil for technicians and tradespeople.

Through the service, agents can be programmed to manage tasks such as the aforementioned appointment scheduling, or summarization of contracts and permits.

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