The Art of Service: How a Glass Blower Became a Salesforce Serviceblazer

It started with a degree in glass blowing (…yes, glass blowing) after he walked away from engineering school. Between prohibitively high gas bills to keep the furnaces running and a move back to New Jersey, Sean found himself transporting multi-million dollar paintings for the Philadelphia Museum of Art to make ends meet. He describes arts industry jobs as “a very fun way to starve to death in the long run.” After a few years, a chance conversation with a friend landed him at a small manufacturing company as a technical support rep. Four years of all-day phone support was a great experience, but when leadership didn’t listen to his warnings about risks to key accounts, Sean moved on.

His next stop? A technical support role at Vicasso, a Salesforce Independent Software Vendor (ISV). The catch: he had no idea what Salesforce was. “I figured I’d work it out along the way,” he laughs. “For the interview they sent me some Trailhead modules and I remember thinking, ‘Okay, this is either a lot to learn or just a bottomless pit. I can’t tell yet.’”

The accidental ecosystem

What started as an accidental entry into the Salesforce ecosystem quickly became something Sean couldn’t walk away from. He spent several more years doing AppExchange product support, working in and with Agentforce Service, before transitioning to an Account Executive role at the start of the pandemic — because, as he jokingly puts it, “how hard could sales be?”

Fifteen years and roughly 16,000 support cases later, Sean is still proud of his lifetime customer satisfaction score of 99.9%. He even remembers the name of the one person who gave him a bad review nine years ago.

Eventually, he found his way back to what he loved most: building long-term relationships. As Partner Director at Vicasso, he leveraged a skill he’d developed across his career: the ability to switch between business and technical conversations almost seamlessly.

A mission born at Dreamforce

After Dreamforce 2024, Sean found himself thinking hard about something that was keeping him up at night. “I started wrapping my head around what the implications of Agentforce really were,” he says. “And I got this really guilty feeling. Am I about to help automate five million people out of the same career opportunity I had?”

That question sent him straight to the Trailblazer Community team with a single message: 

“I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a faster response from anyone at Salesforce,” he says. 

The Serviceblazer Community is designed to make sure that people working in call centers and service roles have access to the skills, the knowledge, and the career path that Sean had to find the hard way.

“If you’re using AI just to eliminate service reps, you’re doing it wrong,” he says plainly. “There’s around 19% turnover in call centers every year. That headcount attrition can happen naturally. The people who stay are more skilled, they already have the experience — and now, with the right understanding of Agentforce Service, there’s a career path that opens up for them.”

The goal isn’t just efficiency. It’s empowerment, profitability, and a better customer experience.

The Customer Experience: One click that changed everything

There’s a moment Sean comes back to when he thinks about why this work matters.

A few years ago, he was demoing Field Service to an HVAC company that serviced hospitals across New York. The office manager interrupted him early on. “I don’t even know what any of this is doing.” she said.

Sean asked her to walk him through her current process for generating a work order. “She told me, ‘When we get a call, we open a case in Salesforce, then we go to the filing cabinet, pull the paperwork from the original boiler install, look up the model number, and manually type all of it into the work order.’” 

Sean paused. “I realized that everything she just described, 20 minutes of manual work, was completed on the very first click of my demo. And I hadn’t highlighted that to her at all.” When he explained that first click automated the frustrating process she outlined, her reaction was immediate. “Oh! I can automate my whole job,” she said. “Or at least most of it.” “She was looking at this software like it was going to make her life harder,” Sean says.

Helping people understand how Agentforce Service lets them be more impactful and valued in their role is central to Sean’s community focus because he’s walked that path, and experienced the benefits. 

Be the squeaky wheel

For anyone on a similar service path, Sean’s advice is simple: don’t wait for permission to improve your job. “Be the squeaky wheel,” he says. “Figure out how to solve problems to make your job and your team’s experience better. That’s where you start to learn new things, understand how software is put together, and create real impact.”

He’s also quick to flip the script on AI anxiety. “My SDR asked me once: is AI going to take my job? And I thought about it and said, “Can you make it take your job? Because if you can figure out how to automate what you’re doing, you already have a new job. A more valuable one.”

Earning experience as a service rep, which means really knowing what it’s like to be on the front lines with a customer, is, in Sean’s experience, the hard part. Everything else can be learned. “You can learn Agentforce Service and Salesforce Admin skills much faster than you can gain customer-facing experience,” he says. “Your experience is more valuable than ever. You’re less at risk if you’re willing to leverage it.”

Sean Lewis didn’t arrive in the Salesforce ecosystem with a plan. He arrived through a side door — a support queue, a stack of cases, and a willingness to figure it out along the way. Since then, his earning potential has grown 9x. Not 90%. Nine times.

“Customer service was where I started,” he says. “And it turns out, it was the best possible place to start.” Patience, problem-solving, and empathy are critical skills forged on the front lines of customer interactions, and are exactly what the next generation of Salesforce professionals will be built on. Sean has lived it. And he wants to make sure Service Reps know this career opportunity is bigger than ever. That’s the story Sean Lewis wants them to hear. In customer service, AI is not your replacement. It’s your blueprint for success.