Company: Talkdesk (submitting on behalf of our clients)
Company Description: Talkdesk® is a global cloud contact center leader for customer-obsessed companies. Our automation-first customer experience solutions optimize our customers’ most critical customer service processes. Our speed of innovation, vertical expertise, and global footprint reflect our commitment to ensuring that businesses can deliver better experiences across any industry and through any channel.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Use of Technology in Sales
 Nomination Title: JK Moving
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the nominated achievement since July 1, 2020, OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 171 words used.
Turning a Cost Center into a Profit Center while Achieving Explosive Growth: Hear from Ken Cohen, SVP, Sales & Business Development at JK Moving, about what it took to implement an entirely new tech stack in a historically analog industry. This transformation story shows the power of technology to increase revenues, profits, and most importantly, customer and employee happiness—something critically important to JK Moving as a family-run business.
JK Moving's Ken Cohen shares his strategy behind 74% revenue growth: An inside look at how AI can be a boon to business—even for skeptics. JK Moving proves that turning to AI can help in many departments all with an eye to converting leads and driving revenue over time.
Enhancify Review: JK Moving: Ken Cohen describes how using Enhancify has revolutionized their customer experience for cold leads, as a great financing partner for the company and its clients. JK Moving's sales teams are bolstered by this extra tool and can offer it proactively; clients are no longer turned away because of move costs.
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions for this category, provide them in the spaces below.
Written
- Briefly describe the nominated organization or individual: history and past performance (up to 200 words):
Total 199 words used.
JK Moving Services, the 2021 Independent Mover of the Year winner, is a 40-year old business built from the ground up, and is the largest independent moving company in North America.
JK Moving was named the #1 Commercial Mover in the DC Metro Area in the Washington Business Journal Book of Lists four years in a row, has earned five Fleet Safety Awards, and was twice honored with a CARE (Companies As Responsive Employers) Award.
Service excellence is a pillar of JK Moving’s business, and its contact center is the first line of connection for both current customers and potential new ones. Handling leads successfully is a top priority, and before overhauling its technology stack, too many leads were getting lost in the shuffle.
Ken Cohen, SVP, Sales & Business Development at JK Moving, led the charge. Cohen's vision to deliver the most excellent customer service through modernized technology is rooted in his core belief that people are what make a company successful— if given the right tools. Cohen tackled the challenge head on knowing his vision would help JK Moving compete in a crowded market, boost revenue, and make customers and employees happier. Which is exactly what happened.
- Outline the nominated achievement since July 1 2020 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):
Total 249 words used.
In 2020, JK Moving invested in a new contact center solution to support the business’s future growth goals. The moving industry has paper-thin margins, and its biggest cost is people. JK Moving started by growing its inside sales team from three to eight in March 2020, and since then has added another 30 customer support agents, including a 24/7 offshore call center.
JK Moving has seen a 74% growth in revenue over the last two years, including a further 31% increase in sales in 2022 for the inside sales team. The company also launched an inside sales team for its international division, with over 100% increase in revenue since launch.
Call volumes rose from 20,000 in 2019 to 150,000 in 2021, with a 95.3% answer rate and an average hold time of 28 seconds. The volume of calls continues to grow as over 20,000 inbound calls were handled by the team in July 2022 alone—making July 2022 a new record revenue month for the business. The correlation is very clear between increased call volume, increased answer rates, and increased revenue.
In addition, JK Moving is taking advantage of predictive AI to meet its growth goals. The move to new contact center technology offered the company AI-based forecasting to provide advance notice of expected call volume on any given day. This allows for key staffing adjustments ahead of time to be prepared. Which further reduces hold and abandon rates when volumes are expected to spike—everybody wins.
- Explain why the achievement you have highlighted is unique or significant. If possible compare the achievement to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the nominee's past performance (up to 250 words):
Total 181 words used.
JK Moving's push for technology has changed its business for the better. Call volume has increased to 155,000 calls (up from 50,000), and interaction quality has improved thanks to call recordings and agent coaching. New reporting and metrics provide a data-driven view of call acceptance rates, abandons, and callbacks. Studio flows for voicemails lowered supervisor escalations by 30%. JK Moving saw a 41% increase in first contact resolution with the implementation of automatic callback options alone. With the Covid-19 pandemic, a contactless experience for customers also became paramount. This is now something the company can offer thanks to an updated technology stack. Customer satisfaction has also increased: JK Moving now has nearly 1,000 Google Reviews, up from 250. Cohen's vision is coming to life: revenues and profits are up across the board, as is the amount of repeat business. With huge success for the sales teams after implementing the “warm handshake” workflow vision, Cohen pushed to roll out similar systems to the operations team, too—increasing the team by 140 agents, with a future plan for other business units.
| Attachments/Videos/Links: |
|---|
|
