Talkdesk® - Woman of the Year in Customer Service

Company: Talkdesk®
Company Description: Talkdesk® is a global customer experience leader for customer-obsessed companies.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Woman of the Year in Customer Service

Nomination Title: Kieran King

Kieran King has spent her entire 25-year career in client-facing roles. Working at a global level, she has consulted with companies across industries and continents. The work itself has been inspiring - helping brands facilitate digital transformations and each experience has been rich in best practices. These learnings have allowed her to master the crafts of listening intently, applying balance to decision-making, and “channeling the chair,” a technique that fosters empathy as you put yourself in the customer’s seat.

Kieran joined Talkdesk in February 2020 as the senior vice president of customer success, where she led the strategic and operational aspects of global professional services and customer success, driving high client satisfaction, contagious advocacy, and revenue growth.

Only a year into the role, Kieran was promoted to chief customer officer (CCO), and assumed responsibility for strategy, execution, and results around the company’s market-leading and award-winning services, including implementation, technical account management, delivery partner enablement, network engineering, expert services, customer success, and customer support. She is also personally involved in developing the most customer-obsessed talent in the industry. https://www.talkdesk.com/resources/press-releases/execs-elevated-to-csuite/

Kieran’s understanding of and passion for customer success have elevated Talkdesk to become the global, five-star standard for white-glove customer service.

Kieran recognizes customer expectations are constantly changing, so it's important to be intentional and cohesive across the different customer listening channels. For example, the customer success team recently launched Talkdesk Community, an interactive forum bringing together customers, employees, and members of the CX ecosystem. The team also defined customer journeys organized by segment to better support the customer lifecycle. To scale the motion, standards and plays were defined, along with tailored playbooks by segment journey, continuously optimized with customer feedback. Even as Talkdesk expands internationally, Kieran prioritizes listening. https://www.talkdesk.com/blog/value-of-community/

She approaches her role as an operational leader, a servant leader, and a learning teacher. As an operational leader, Kieran is responsible for the client-facing teams matrixed into every Talkdesk department. She ensures they have the instrumentation to identify and stay on track, and helps close any gaps or adjust goals. By curating CX, Kieran’s team has delivered:

200% improvement in CSM:ARR efficiency over 3 years

133% NRR overall

7500 Community members

As a servant leader, Kieran aims to leverage her influence for the benefit of others. In her organization’s hierarchy, she considers herself at the bottom of the pyramid, with her team at the top. Her goal is to understand what they need to help them grow through coaching and guidance.

In her capacity as a learner and teacher, she continuously learns from her team and blends perspectives to arrive at the best possible decisions. To foster diversity of perspectives, she seeks out talent from different cultures, demographics and experience.

Less than two years into her tenure at Talkdesk, Kieran King has made an indelible impression on the company, building out new programs and teams and lighting a path forward. Unlike other players in the space, or even many companies outside of the CX market, Kieran built off the founding vision of Talkdesk—helping companies deliver a better customer experience—taking the lead in ensuring Talkdesk is delivering the best experiences for our customers.

Kieran strives lead by example; her teams don't recommend practices, techniques, or solutions that they don't first apply to themselves. In fact, we consider our client services organization as the first Talkdesk customer.

For Kieran, the secret to customer service is humanizing the experience. When you sincerely understand a customer’s priorities, challenges, and desired outcomes, it creates partnership meaning. When you demonstrate kindness, respect, and gratitude as you interact with client stakeholders, it fosters mutual influence and respect. These themes are echoed in the three key attributes she strives for in her role as CCO:

-Humility: putting the customers’ interests first

-Business acumen: nurturing and balancing customer advocacy and growth potential

-Having a heart to serve: never sacrificing professionalism, respectfulness, or kindness.

Kieran views the industry awards and recognition for her CX Services department as a testament to their success, but she’s always asking what we can do better tomorrow.

The attached presentation includes supporting material attesting to Kieran King’s work and influence within the Talkdesk and CX communities.

Slide 2: Accelerating success. Kieran was promoted to Talkdesk’s first chief customer officer, and is the Executive Sponsor of Talkdesk’s Women in Technology employee resource group. Kieran’s focus on customer service and success has impacted hundreds of our customers and helped to cement Talkdesk as a global CX leader for customer-obsessed companies with a valuation of more than $10 billion.

Slide 3: Leading by example. Under Kieran’s leadership, Talkdesk’s goal is to lead the CX market by example and deliver exceptional service to our customers. In doing so, Talkdesk’s customer service teams have won several industry awards and received analyst commendations for their best-in-class CX.

Slide 4: Open source ratings. One of Kieran’s top priorities is listening to our customers, including our end-users. Kieran and her team’s tireless efforts have earned Talkdesk the most reviews and highest scores across major review sites.

Slide 5: Creating a great place to work. Diversity and equality are immensely important to Kieran, who is the Executive Sponsor of Talkdesk’s Women in Technology employee resource group and an active ally to the LGBTQ+ community at Talkdesk and in her community.

Slide 6: Influence within the CX community. Kieran is passionate about CX and collaborates with CX industry thought leaders to share best practices and encourage innovative thinking.

Slide 7: Showcasing customers’ success. Kieran has supported customers in hundreds of meetings, events, advisory boards, and more.