2021 Talkdesk Pitstop: Your Guide to Talkdesk

A cloud-based contact centre, AI, and communications solution, Talkdesk promises companies of all sizes an innovative path to digital transformation. Celebrating its tenth anniversary in 2021, Talkdesk is a forward-thinking organisation with a strong focus on customer and agent experience.

According to the company, Talkdesk emerged a decade ago when its founder (Tiago Paiva) was inspired by the way Salesforce had transformed and reinvented the CRM world. Tiago believed that a similar revolution was necessary in the contact centre.

Today, Talkdesk represents a powerful part of the industry-wide contact centre transformation, bringing more companies towards the scalability of the cloud, with all the innovation required for meaningful business investments.

Here’s your guide to Talkdesk.

The History of Talkdesk

Talkdesk is a Software as a Service company specialising in CCaaS (Contact Centre as a Service). The Talkdesk platform does offer some UCaaS functionality in the form of internal communications tools, collaboration services, and analytics systems. Today, Talkdesk is a market-leading innovator in the contact centre, serving customers worldwide from a headquarters in San Francisco.

Founders Tiago Paiva and Cristina Fonseca brough the Talkdesk business together with the belief that customer experience could be enhanced and digitized for the modern world. Tiago Paiva originally prototyped the cloud-based contact centre solution from Portugal, where he was living at the time. His technology was easy to deploy, integrate, and operate, making it an appealing option for many brands.

Paiva entered his contact centre solution into a global hackathon and won some initial seed funding, which he used to launch Talkdesk and move to America.

Key facts:

• Launch date: 2011
• CEO: Tiago Pavia
• Trading name: N/A
• Headquarters: San Francisco, California
• Website: www.talkdesk.com
• Employees: 1500 (January 2021)
• Revenue: Unlisted

Major Moments in the Talkdesk Timeline

The Talkdesk brand was first born in Portugal, Lisbon, during 2011, when Tiago Paiva and Cristina Fonseca saw an opportunity to create a new customer experience environment. During 2011, the initial Talkdesk software won a global hackathon, providing the initial investment that the founders needed to move to America and launch their global company.

In November 2011, Talkdesk graduated from the final batch of the 500 Start-ups Accelerator Program and began building a strategy for long-term success. In 2014, the company raised $3.15 million in investment rounds led by Storm Ventures. In 2015, the company earned another $21 million in investment from companies like Salesforce Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

By 2018, Talkdesk has acquired $100 million in Series B funding, which earned the company a valuation over $1 billion. In 2020, Talkdesk raised another $143 million in Series C funding, which accelerated the company’s value to more than $3 billion.

Talkdesk has come a long way in the last ten years. During 2019, the company grew to employ more than 1000 staff members, a number that grew by half again to 1500 in 2021. Though Talkdesk doesn’t release revenue figures as a privately held business, it does have around 1,800 customers worldwide.

In the past 2 years, Talkdesk has seen particularly significant growth in the form of an internal expansion that helped the brand to reach even more locations, such as France, Australia, Italy, and Spain. The company also brought 20 new innovations to market during the first 20 weeks of 2020, despite the issues of the pandemic, and expanded its partner ecosystem of cloud resellers.

Recently, Talkdesk launched a range of industry-specific solutions to suit the unique needs of different companies in the cloud contact centre environment. The brand also achieved Leader status in the Gartner Cloud Contact Centre as a Service Quadrant for 2020.

The Talkdesk Platform

Talkdesk’s primary solution offering is a cloud-based platform where companies can tap into customizable functionality for communications and customer experience. The platform is built on an open API framework and comes with over 60 out-of-the-box integrations for users to access.

Talkdesk offers companies a modular approach to accessing various business continuity solutions, remote and mobile working services, and cloud contact centre services. The cloud-native architecture ensures that Talkdesk can remain secure, scalable, and reliable, even an environment made unsteady by the 2020 pandemic. Talk-desk’s AI-infused platform also comes with a host of intelligent features for next-generation brands.

Within the cloud-native environment, Talkdesk customers can access features like AI analytics, contextual insights, intelligent routing, customer service tracking, and collaboration tools. Some of the major features of the Talkdesk platform outside of CCaaS (Covered below) are:

• Excellent voice management through the Talkdesk Global Communications Network
• Industry-leading MOS scores for crystal clear conversations
• 100% uptime SLA to protect your brand reputation
• ACD and IVR technology
• Talkdesk mobile for on-the-go connectivity
• Talkdesk business continuity with end-to-end cloud support
• Access to dashboards on any channel
• 100% uptime and 100% security
• Workforce management technology for business leaders
• AppConnect marketplace for integrations
• APIs and SDKs for integrations
• Hybrid spaces for team collaboration
• Quality management and recording
• Speech analytics and AI insights
• Call recordings
• Performance management
• Desktop analytics
• Integrations with tools like Microsoft, Salesforce, and Zendesk
• Virtual agent assistance tools

Talkdesk ensures that you can keep your teams informed and connected wherever they are with a convenient phone system which works with a range of telephony providers, including Zoom, Telnyx, Nos, and more. You can integrate your phone system with Talkdesk for a more aligned UCaaS and CCaaS experience.

Easy integration with your cloud phone solution means that you can have a full end-to-end view of your entire internal communications and contact centre environment. All the while, employees get to collaborate through audio and video conferencing, real-time messaging, and more. There’s also a full workforce engagement and management suite for managers handling a hybrid team.

Talkdesk CCaaS Offering

Talkdesk is a leading CCaaS, workforce management, and customer experience innovator. The Talkdesk cloud-based contact centre promises business leaders a next-generation environment where you can support, empower, and enrich your service team. The technology comes with Talkdesk’s incredible 100% uptime guarantee, so you know you’re not going to miss out on any important discussions. Plus, consumer-grade usability aligns modern agents.

The comprehensive Talkdesk platform comes with everything businesses need to unlock a new level of service, including more than 30 integrations and App Connect apps for voice analytics, advanced reporting, WFM, WFO, co-browsing, recording and more. The Talkdesk contact centre solution also happens to be one of the most rapidly evolving tools in the CCaaS space.

Talkdesk’s technology, which introduced 20 new upgrades during the beginning of 2020 alone, includes features like the Talkdesk Callbar, so you can navigate information through CRM systems for a better view of the customer journey. There’s also automated workflow management, AI training and support, agent assistance, and desktop analytics. Just some of the available features include:

• Talkdesk AppConnect for endless integrations
• APIs and SDKs for unique connections between services
• Intelligent routing to send conversations to the most qualified agents
• Callbar technology to connect customer information across systems
• Automated workflows to improve agent efficiency and reduce handle time
• Call recording for coaching and compliance
• Speech analytics and sentiment analysis to improve engagement
• Granular reporting features and in-depth insights
• CSAT scoring and customer surveys
• Contextual information capture in real-time
• Salesforce native routing for sales teams
• Agent assist and a dedicated agent dashboard for call centre professionals
• Automatic call distribution with in-depth rules
• AI training with guidance from artificial intelligence
• Custom agent workspace with dashboards for performance tracking
• Global communications network
• Hybrid cloud deployment
• Mobile agent for employees on the move
• Omnichannel email, messaging, and chat
• Performance and workflow management with tracking
• Security and compliance built-in
• Talkdesk Boost
• Agent assist to help agents with intelligent guidance

Next-level technology makes Talkdesk’s contact centre solution one of the most customisable and flexible solutions available. You can customise every aspect of your cloud contact centre with the Talkdesk builder and add in applications and features that suit you. Companies can even create custom reports and adjust components with a low code editing system.

Talkdesk offers desktop analytics to monitor and report on agent activity, to ensure compliance and track the impact you can have on customer experience. AI and machine learning are common components of many of Talkdesk’s offerings. You can even use the system to build your own chatbot and automate repetitive tasks for your human agents.

The “connections” integrations builder ensures you can align your omnichannel contact centre across all of the channels that matter most to your audience and embed the right business integrations and workforce management tools. Talkdesk also has its own dedicated “Guardian” feature to help protect customer data from various threats.

Talkdesk Differentiators

Although more of a CCaaS solution provider than a comprehensive CCaaS and UCaaS offering, Talkdesk still offers a highly competitive technology stack for the modern business. The Talkdesk platform comes with flexible deployment options, so you can choose to move certain components of your technology to the cloud at a pace that makes sense for you.

As you implement cloud elements into your day-to-day technology, you’ll discover that all Talkdesk technology is simple and intuitive. The sophisticated environment means anyone can jump in and start experimenting with contact centre innovation in no time. Some of the major selling points of Talkdesk include:

Intelligent customer protection

Talkdesk knows that thriving in the current landscape means providing a secure and private experience that customers can trust. The Talkdesk technology is certified with SOC2 Type II regulations, and it’s GDPR compliant. Your CCaaS solutions will follow various security frameworks from CSA to PCI-DSS, HIPAA, NIST, and many others. There’s even a dedicated PCI payment system available for processing secure data.,

The Talkdesk Guardian platform further adds support for protecting customers and companies against the threat of fraud and security risk with a risk-management environment for companies and business leaders to track.

Customer-first technology

As an innovator in the CCaaS environment, Talkdesk is constantly investing in the latest customer-first technology to enhance opportunities for brands. For agents, Talkdesk offers a simple and accessible experience which generates excellent results regardless of the platform in use. There are out-of-the-box integrations with CRM and helpdesk technology, as well as a suite of APIs to allow for more immersive customer interactions.

The Talkdesk technology also comes with access to things like Talkdesk Boost, which supports the modern remote and hybrid work environment, by allowing companies to direct customer conversations towards agents wherever they are.

Excellent Brand Values

Aside from excellent technology and innovation opportunities, Talkdesk boasts fantastic brand values. The company supports businesses of all sizes in designing the best contact centre and communication offering for their needs, with no need for any existing coding knowledge from the customers. You can

extend solutions and add apps at the click of a button, and all the while expect fantastic transparency from Talkdesk about what they can reasonably help you achieve.

Aside from making your life easier, Talkdesk promises to make the lives of other people better too, with plenty of community and environmental giving initiatives underway. This ensures you can benefit from the pleasure of knowing your money is going to the right place.

Industry Focused Solutions

During 2020, Talkdesk introduced a new series of industry-focused solutions designed to provide companies with the exact tools they need for their audience. Vetted by some of the world’s leading companies, the Talkdesk sector-focused solutions are just as open and extensible as the standard Talkdesk platform.

Current tailor-made offerings for industries cater for companies in the communications landscape, Financial Services, Government, Healthcare, Education, Life Sciences, Retail, eCommerce, Travel, Hospitality, and Consumer Goods.

Flexibility

Like most communication innovators operating in the cloud today, Talkdesk ensures that you can move into the new cloud landscape at a pace that suits you. The company caters to companies of all sizes and from all backgrounds. There are affordable solutions for small businesses and non-profits, as well as larger, specialised options for people with global enterprises to support.

The modular and adaptable design of the Talkdesk portfolio means that you can unlock comprehensive functionality and flexibility for sales, business process optimization, and customer service, all in the same aligned environment.

Excellent AI Innovation

Artificial Intelligence is a common feature at the heart of many Talkdesk products. The Talkdesk Virtual Agent, for instance, offers team members a conversational agent to help them solve customer problems and issues. Talkdesk also offers AI solutions for real-time and historical data analytics, business insight tracking, and customer sentiment analysis.

You can record conversations and dive deeper into the meaning behind the words that customers say, and turn every conversation into more actionable customer intelligence. Talkdesk makes it easy to stay on the cutting edge.

Connectivity with UCaaS

The XConnect solution from Talkdesk means you can easily connect your existing phone system and service solutions to your contact centre environment. Although Talkdesk doesn’t have UCaaS to offer itself, it does ensure that you can mix and match the features you need in an aligned environment. Talkdesk also has features like workforce management and collaboration to enhance your existing UCaaS and CCaaS landscape.

Integrations

Talkdesk has no problem playing well with others. Integrations range from Talkdesk for Microsoft Teams to connections with tools like Zoom, Zendesk, Slack, ServiceNow, and Salesforce. You can even access APIs and integration builder tools to make your own customized connections.

Workforce management

Along with tools like Virtual Agent, and Talkdesk Live, so employees can track their performance and get feedback on how to improve in real-time, Talkdesk also offers a range of other workforce

management tools. You can build the perfect workspace for your hybrid, office, and remote employees through Talkdesk, and make sure all of your staff have the insights they need to constantly improve and update their performance. Desktop analytics even show your business leaders how productive team members are being, and who might need additional help.

Omnichannel

Talkdesk is a full omnichannel environment for contact centre management. You can track so much more than just phone conversations, and align your agents on a single pane of glass for text, email, online chat, and various other platforms.

How Is Talkdesk Placed?

Talkdesk is currently recognized as a Market Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Centre as a Service. The company is also named a leader in the 2020 Aragon Research Globe, focusing on Intelligent Contact Centres. In 2021, Talkdesk won the BIG excellence award in customer service, and also achieved two top rated awards from Trust Radius.

In Spring 2021, Talkdesk earned the highest G2 scores and more reports than any other CCaaS company and walked away with recognition as an exemplary CCaaS vendor according to Ventana research. Talkdesk frequently appears in reports like the Forrester Wave as a market leader and earns rewards around the world for contact centre excellent and innovation. The company also achieved a position in the Forbes Cloud 100 for 2020.