Talkdesk

There are so many analytical capabilities. Talkdesk came with a robust set of out of box reports and dashboards, but it has extensibility to create custom reports inside of the platform as well as the capability to use APIs to connect to the various datasets. There is a significant amount of automation capabilities that are provided with low code/no code development GUIs (e.g. virtual assistants for your voice channel and digital channels). Having live transcripts has enhanced our agent experience greatly and also has enabled better analytics for call evaluations and also getting a better pulse on what customers are actually calling about.

It consolidates many aspects of what is needed to run a call center. That is why it was chosen in the first place. The ability to do telephony, digital, csat, chatbot, quality and further integrations all in one is the best thing about Talkdesk. BUT they are still not 100% there yet in terms of being optimized.

The custom product integrations are standout compared to others, i.e. it doesn't need an Enterprise CRM to work The project delivery approach is one that delivers in accordance with customer needs rather than just delivering the product as is The AI product features are seamlessly integrated into the customer journey The product is very configurable and easy to use, from a customer perspective Talkdesk want the customer to be autonomous in being able to update the product. Talkdesk have had no outages since we went live which has been truly exceptional. We have been able to learn fast and adapt, i.e. when we try something and it doesn't work we can implement another solution very quickly.

This is definitely a short list because Talkdesk strives for excellence. 1. The Explore reports and dashboards load very slowly. Talkdesk may need to consider some enhancements to their historical reporting platform. 2. While leveraging APIs is doable, it would be more ideal if there was a certified Power BI connector. Of course, to properly support that, Talkdesk would possibly need to reconsider how historical data is stored and accessed for historical reporting data (and potentially live data). We were looking for a BYOBI platform (if possible) and this does work but it gets complex getting our data into Power BI via those APIs (e.g. leveraging complex Power Automate flows). 3. The standard Dialer product that comes with the product offering our enterprise obtained did not include the ability of agentless outbound dialing/texting. We ended up having to implement another one of Talkdesk's products (Proactive Notification) for our agentless dialing campaigns - but the Proactive Notification product is seriously lacking in report capabilities. There is another product offered separately that is newer (Advanced Dialing) and it is disappointing that we did not know about this other product prior to implementing Proactive Notification (if that would provide better visibility). In essence, Talkdesk should offer a dialer that is as amazing as the rest of the platform - outbound dialing efforts for utilities are still a critical part of daily operations. I believe Advanced Dialer may offer that, but I am unsure since we did not implement that product.

Historical data gets impacted when changes are made. This should not be happening, it limits our CI efforts and makes it less new business friendly. Quality management services are not flexible enough. I would suggest to also offer the build of at least 1 custom report without purchasing the add on. Lack of custom reporting (outside of the add on) makes it impossible for us to meet basic reporting standards for us and having 1 might make it easier to support stakeholder relationships as well as make business cases about the benefit of purchasing the full add on.

Talkdesk invest a lot in their product, but as a customer if you want to benefit from it you have to buy the additional capabilities. As an example, after we signed the contract Talkdesk brought out agentic AI capability which made what we bought feel a bit legacy. On the flipside, Talkdesk did allow us product swaps. Overall though I would like to see more of the Talkdesk enhancements to be delivered as part of the existing licence you pay rather than being an extra. Talkdesk have charged extra for things that we would have expected to be in the product and was not clear anywhere in the agreement that they were optional extras. Key examples of this - the voice used for IVR was not in line with our brand. When we asked for a better one they charged us extra. Also, the voice recognition for certain accents wasn't great, we were told there was a better one available but we had to pay for it. We were told that we could transfer calls from Talkdesk to MS Teams. What wasn't clarified was that the Teams user had to have a phone number. These small details matter massively as we had to buy a lot more phone numbers post contract to support that requirement.