Small Steps for Big Impact: CMR’s rapid Agentforce adoption improved client support

AI: An Extension of the Team

Prior to 2020, CMR relied on RingCentral and Service Cloud for case management, with a team of 15-20 representatives handling 200 to 500 calls daily. Post-2020, when events started to come back in full force, their business boomed, and their costs to serve their customers was slowly creeping up as well. Brian Roy, CEO of CMR and a seasoned leader in the convention and trade show industry, recognized the need for change as the company’s traditional support model grew increasingly unsustainable.

“We realized we needed to up our game, especially with new corporate clients that required a more sophisticated support approach at scale.”

-Brian Roy, CEo of

That’s when Brian turned to Plative to help CMR implement Agentforce to transform CMR’s approach to AI customer service. For Brian, AI wasn’t a threat—it was a powerful tool to empower and augment the capabilities of CMR’s people.

“I sometimes get asked, ‘Are we going to lose our jobs?’ Every time, I say, ‘No, we’re not going to lose our jobs’. We’re going to be able to work in a much more efficient way so that we can take on new clients without upsetting our day-to-day operations.”

– Brian Roy, CEO of CMR

Starting Simple with AI

The implementation strategy for Agentforce, guided by Plative, was deliberately agile and aimed at delivering value quickly. CMR started with simple, low-risk use cases, prioritizing four strategic AI use cases to immediately improve their customer’s experience:

• Convention information retrieval provided attendees with access to event details, reducing support staff workload by eliminating manual searches through Salesforce Service Cloud articles.
• Hotel booking confirmations transformed how the company handled reservations for complex events, enabling instant verification across 5,000 to 50,000 participant conferences.
• Booking modifications streamlined reservation changes, allowing customers to add or remove nights without staff intervention, dramatically improving the customer experience.
• Automated communication ensured consistent, immediate responses to basic inquiries, freeing human agents to handle more complex interactions.

Business Impact: Beyond Technology

While the financial impact of CMR’s AI implementation is still unfolding, the time saving benefit is clear. By automating routine inquiries and booking modifications, support staff can focus on complex customer needs that require nuanced understanding and personalized service.

The long-term vision extends far beyond current use cases. Brian and the CMR team are exploring AI applications in critical business processes, including proposal generation, complex data reconciliation, and advanced reporting.

“What excites me most is how AI can help us compare lists, resolve inconsistencies, and ultimately save our team countless hours of manual work.”

-Brian Roy, CEo of

CMR is committed to a customer-first philosophy. The AI is designed with multiple communication pathways, ensuring that customers can always connect with a human whenever needed. This balance of technological efficiency and human touch could become a significant competitive differentiator in the professional services landscape.

Plative played a crucial role in this transformation. Their technical team worked seamlessly with CMR, helping integrate APIs and design a user-friendly solution. By partnering with Plative, they transformed their customer service from a potential bottleneck into a strategic advantage.