CNBC Work

Salesforce Service Cloud CEO Clara Shih on where Google Maps and AI chatbots meet

Key Points
  • Salesforce's Clara Shih thinks of its Einstein chatbot technology as a tool which does for work what Google Maps does in optimizing routes for drivers.
  • Unloading mundane tasks and allow customer service representatives to focus on higher-order problem solving is the key.
  • "It's absolutely critical. I mean, right now, so many employees feel burned out, they're overloaded," Shih said at the recent CNBC Work Summit.

In this article

Salesforce's Clara Shih on how chatbots are easing employee burnout
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Salesforce's Clara Shih on how chatbots are easing employee burnout

You have heard it before, but the idea is only becoming more critical in the world of work: artificial intelligence can take over many of the mundane tasks weighing down human workers.

"It's absolutely critical," Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce Service Cloud, said at the recent CNBC Work Summit. "I mean, right now, so many employees feel burned out, they're overloaded, their their days are filled with mundane tasks."

She thinks of Salesforce's "Einstein" artificial intelligence as a Google Maps for customer service.

"What we can do is use automation to offload those mundane tasks, so that the agents can really focus on higher-order, more fulfilling problem solving. ... kind of like how Google Maps helps us optimize our routes, we have Einstein help optimize service professionals during their work," Shih said.

Automation helping workers be their most productive and successful every day is becoming a part of the approach at firms across industries, such as L'Oreal.

"We all know and love their skincare and cosmetic products. ... They have a ton of customer interactions and customer support requests," Shih said. "And at a time when it's really hard to hire new service agents."

Salesforce partnered with the iconic cosmetics company to deploy chatbots and offer self-service options to customers. It also deployed service clouds so customers agents would have one place to go to handle all of the customers information, resolve issues quickly, "and be able to connect with those customers and really have a chance to display their empathy," she said.

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