Young Drivers gears up to expand globally with Agentforce.

Young Drivers, the largest Canadian driver training school, teaches proactive skills like risk perception to reduce collisions and empower safer drivers for life.

Rising demand, manual scheduling, and global expansion plans push Young Drivers to innovate and scale service operations. 

Canada’s largest driver training organization, Young Drivers, has been a trusted name in driver education for over 50 years, training more than 1.4 million drivers since 1970. They specialize in creating safer drivers through personalized programs that teach proactive skills like risk perception, emergency braking, and collision avoidance. With the number of motor vehicle fatalities in Canada on the rise, their mission to change driver behavior, reduce collisions, and save lives has never been more critical.

Over the past year, Young Drivers’s courses have been more sought-after than ever. Call volume has surged by 50%, fueled by a growing demand for quality driver training, insurance discounts, and growing public concerns over road safety. Additionally, their reinvigorated marketing programs significantly boosted the company's visibility. During the peak summer surge, customer service representatives were suddenly handling over 600 calls a day, most of which focused on scheduling courses. However, Young Drivers' manual scheduling process, reliant on disparate datasets across every instructor and location served, struggled to keep up with the growing demand.

And Young Drivers doesn’t just want to meet demand for driver training experiences at home in Canada; they want to fulfill their mission on a larger scale by expanding globally, starting with the US. As Young Drivers moves into new markets, they will need to adapt to diverse customer needs, support multiple languages, and modernize systems to handle increased demand.

“Young Drivers’s mission is to save lives by teaching essential driving skills,” said Andrew Marek, Chief Growth Officer of Young Drivers. “We need a technology platform that can scale and extend our reach — helping us deliver more efficient, accessible training today and into the future.”

Agentforce is expected to resolve 70% of inquiries with autonomous support and scale personalized enrollment with 24/7 customer assistance.

With its 1:1 instructor to student in-vehicle training model, Young Drivers helps students become confident, proactive drivers by teaching them to develop habits to spot and avoid potential hazards. Currently, the scheduling team works directly with customers over the phone to match their availability with an instructor. To scale this process without needing to hire and train a large number of new staff, Young Drivers is turning to Agentforce, the agentic layer of the Salesforce Platform.

As Maria Bagdonas, COO of Young Drivers, explained, “One of the biggest time suckers in the driver training industry is scheduling in-vehicle lessons. It’s always been a very manual process, matching the student’s availability with the instructor’s schedule. My vision is that through Agentforce, students will be able to interact with an agent, provide their availability, and have the agent handle all the scheduling for us, freeing up time for our team and simplifying the process for the students.”

Agentforce is expected to resolve 60-70% of customer requests and booking needs without the need for a service rep. It will integrate seamlessly with Young Drivers’s existing Structured Query Language (SQL) system, which connects to various databases containing information about the curriculum. This integration will enable the system to retrieve critical course details such as availability, pricing, and scheduling. Agentforce will then provide accurate answers and help students to quickly book, cancel, or reschedule training and tests in a fully autonomous, conversational experience. This will help Young Drivers scale operations without onboarding additional resources — a huge win as demand continues to grow.

“I’m so excited that we’ll be able to scale this to whatever magnitude that we need,” says Bagdonas. “We’re going to provide our customers the help, assistance, or knowledge they need at whatever time of the day or night, in whatever language.” 

Agentforce will play a key role in efficiently managing these inquiries, providing 24/7 automated support online, tapping into case histories and a robust knowledge base. It will be able to independently handle even complex questions, such as how fleet safety courses can help lower insurance premiums. This ensures students get accurate, personalized responses to their questions and can schedule their courses quickly. Agentforce’s multilingual support, including French and Spanish, will ensure Young Drivers can meet the needs of a diverse and international audience. Students will have access to assistance in their preferred language, making it easier to navigate course options and scheduling across regions. This is an exciting change from ‌previous support, which was only available via phone during work hours.

With Agentforce handling course selection, scheduling, and customer service through the website, Young Drivers expects their overwhelming call volume to drop significantly. They already switched from Outlook to Salesforce Scheduler to streamline the booking process, giving students the ability to book or cancel their driving classes and appointments and get notifications about who their driving instructor is. Agentforce will further simplify the process by syncing with Scheduler and consolidating key information — such as course options, pricing, and instructor availability. Additionally, Agentforce will guide reps through each step, ensuring a smoother experience for both students and staff.

Digital labor will boost revenue with personalized upselling and self-service options.

Looking ahead, Young Drivers plans to use Agentforce to turn personalized service into a powerful revenue driver with intelligent cross-selling and upselling. For example, when students book their driving test, Agentforce will suggest tailored add-ons, such as additional lessons to build confidence in specific skills. A new, integrated purchasing page on the website will also simplify scheduling. Young Drivers uses MuleSoft to connect their internal data management system, BMS, so Agentforce can guide students through the process with the latest course options. Students can easily self-serve by purchasing courses and scheduling training with instructors whose availability aligns with theirs. This streamlined approach will be more convenient to students and boost sales.

“Agentforce is the digital labor platform that will transform Young Drivers,” says Marek. “It will bring us into the next 5 to 10 years, position us where we need to be to stay competitive, and increase returns for both our customers and the company.”

With smarter scheduling, seamless customer service, and personalized recommendations, Young Drivers will connect with new audiences, empowering even more drivers with life-saving skills.

Agentforce is the cornerstone of Young Drivers’s growth strategy, enabling the company to scale its customer service and reach new global markets without compromising the personalized experience its reputation is built on. By integrating with Salesforce’s powerful suite of tools, including Salesforce Scheduler and MuleSoft, Agentforce is projected to resolve 70% of routine inquiries and elevate the service experience with streamlined scheduling and tailored, real-time recommendations.

After testing various solutions, Young Drivers chose Salesforce for its ability to connect systems and make the most of data from Young Drivers' existing infrastructure. This ensures that they can manage a growing, diverse customer base efficiently while maintaining high service standards. “Salesforce wants to do new things, and they want to be innovative – and so do we,” says Bagdonas, “It’s almost like they'll be able to tackle problems that we haven't even thought of yet." With multilingual capabilities and intelligent upselling features, Agentforce will drive revenue and improve customer experience, priming Young Drivers for global growth.