Salesforce has launched two new solutions aimed specifically at the retail sector: Agentforce for Retail and Retail Cloud with Modern POS. These innovations are designed to increase the productivity and sales of store employees, customer service workers and online commerce professionals, while offering more personalized shopping experiences.
Agentforce for Retail introduces a library of predefined agent skills, making it easy for retailers to create AI agents. These agents can automate time-consuming tasks like order management and appointment scheduling, as well as quickly personalize the buyer experience. New pre-built skills include order management, guided shopping, appointment scheduling, and creating loyalty promotions.
This scalable, digital workforce enables retailers to reach new levels of productivity, answering customer questions in real time, modifying orders, managing inventory, and coordinating with transportation providers without the need for human intervention. This frees employees to focus on bringing value to the business.
Retail Cloud with Modern POS: Unifying Data and Customer Experience
Retail Cloud with Modern POS is a cloud-based system that integrates online and physical shopping data into a single platform. It offers users a unified entry point to serve customers better and faster, with functionalities such as mobile points of sale, clienteling, infinite aisle, mixed cart, omnichannel and inventory management.
The mobile-first design and secure offline mode allow employees to manage payments anywhere, even offline, thanks to transaction encryption and storage. Integrations with Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Order Management and Service Cloud, along with a code-free CMS, facilitate rapid implementation and customization of interfaces, ensuring an efficient experience tailored to the needs of each retailer.
Retail Cloud includes cloud-based point-of-sale and clienteling features, infinite aisle, omnichannel approach and more to deliver personalized shopping experiences in physical and digital environments.
Boosting Productivity in the Retail Sector
A Salesforce study reveals that 81% of retail executives believe that ineffective processes and technology reduce employee productivity. Store workers log into more than 16 different apps and systems every day, leaving nearly 78% without a single, actionable view of shoppers, resulting in lost productivity and fragmented shopping experiences.
Agentforce’s new skills are designed for workers to better serve buyers, reduce costs, and increase customer conversion. These skills complement the roles already available to merchants, salespeople and customer service representatives, improving the customer experience in the digital environment.
Benefits of Automation and Digitalization
Commerce’s robust solutions, with advanced order management and guided purchasing features, are designed to improve the customer experience in the digital environment. Teams can update key details conversationally, manage returns and inquiries on their preferred channels, and offer product recommendations based on inventory data and user preferences.
The new Field Service and Marketing functions enhance customer service and loyalty. AI-powered intelligent appointment scheduling makes it easy to manage visits for deliveries and installations with real-time updates. In the Marketing area, the creation of loyalty campaigns is optimized through personalized and segmented messages, achieving more relevant and lasting interactions with customers.
Availability
- Commerce Skills for Guided Shopping will be available in March 2025.
- Commerce capabilities for order management will be available in March 2025.
- Field Service capabilities for appointment scheduling will be available in February 2025.
- Marketing functionalities for creating loyalty promotions will be available in February 2025.
- Retail Cloud with Modern POS will be available in April 2025.
