EMC, a global leader in cloud computing, data storage, and data virtualization, was struggling with an inefficient and slow method of alerting its 68,000 employees about IT system updates. The traditional method involved drafting an email, proofing it, getting approval from several stakeholders, and finally sending it. This process was not only labor-intensive but also unreliable as it depended on the user's email being unaffected and the user actually opening and reading the email. After sending 1.2 million alert emails in a single month, EMC decided to find a more efficient and immediate way to alert employees. The challenge was to find a solution that was not only faster and less labor-intensive but also globally available and scalable to EMC's needs.

Despite advancements in healthcare technology, the industry often falls short in providing best-in-class communication and service to patients outside of the hospital. The healthcare industry thrives on customization over standardization, which is beneficial for patient care but detrimental to customer service. The industry is filled with custom applications for various healthcare scenarios, creating thousands of workflows to integrate and adapt communications for. This complexity makes it difficult to manage and streamline relationships. Hospitals, in particular, face the challenge of integrating hundreds of vendors and electronic health records, and thousands of workflows to handle patient preferences and communications. Building and solving for great customer service is time-consuming and often not a top priority for hospitals, whose main focus is on solving medical issues.

Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), one of the world's largest independent Coca-Cola bottlers, faced a significant challenge in coordinating repairs for over 600,000 coolers and vending machines across eight countries in Europe. The company's primary concern was to provide top-notch service to its customers, which included restaurants, cafes, supermarkets, and newsstands. However, the existing field service management application had limitations. When high-volume customers required immediate assistance, field service agents often struggled to quickly contact technicians in the field. The system lacked efficiency, and the team identified a need for a more streamlined process that would allow agents to communicate with technicians more effectively.

Talkdesk, a company co-founded by Tiago Paiva and Cristina Fonseca, was faced with the challenge of developing a complete call center cloud solution. The existing call center solutions in Portugal, where Paiva had personal experience, were expensive and time-consuming to manage. The idea of a cloud-based alternative evolved in his mind, and the opportunity to participate in a Twilio contest gave him a means to make it a reality. The objectives for their service were straightforward: use web browsers as the only user interface, make it simple to set up a call center, make it easy to send and receive calls, support the product in the cloud, and make it affordable. Despite being predisposed to Twilio through the contest and Twilio Fund, the Talkdesk team researched other alternative services.

The demand for smart technology in rental properties is increasing, particularly among younger renters. Property managers are under pressure to provide smart apartments with digital amenities, but face several challenges. Managing properties is a daily headache, with every resident or building issue adding to expensive, manual operations. There is a constant churn of tenants with rising expectations of a smart home equipped with smart tech. However, most apartment communities do not have reliable internet connections across the property to provide the network availability needed for smart tech solutions. Additionally, property managers often lack the time to roll out smart tech solutions. They need a DIY frictionless solution that can quickly and easily scale across hundreds of units.

Dream11, a popular fantasy sports platform in India, faced the challenge of managing a rapidly growing user base, with over 5 million concurrent users often participating in multiple contests. The platform needed to send a large volume of notification emails, including transactional confirmations, match alerts, and promotional content. As the user base scaled, the company required an email provider that could handle the surge in email sends. Furthermore, Dream11 needed to ensure a positive user experience with email communication to build trust, especially since users were depositing and withdrawing money through the app. The company also wanted to target specific user cohorts with personalized emails to increase engagement rates.

Toyota Connected North America (TCNA) was in need of a flexible call center solution that could respond to customers’ needs and innovate quickly on a global scale. TCNA's Drivelink, a telematics platform, provides over 6 million drivers with access to emergency and convenience features. However, the technology powering many customer experiences was key to maintaining a competitive edge in a crowded industry. TCNA needed a solution that could scale in North America with more connected vehicles while maintaining high-quality experiences that often connected customers and agents in just a matter of seconds. They also needed a tool that offered direct access to data so that they could drive decisions quickly based on insights. Lastly, TCNA needed an intuitive tool that could integrate into Salesforce CRM and data-management tools.

GameChanger Media, a company that creates software to keep amateur sports fans updated about their favorite teams, was in need of a reliable and scalable communications platform. The platform needed to deliver personalized real-time news updates about amateur sporting events to subscribers anywhere in the world. The challenge was to find a solution that could handle the escalating number of SMS alerts, and provide a seamless experience for the users. The company had tried several SMS providers but none met their requirements for competitive pricing, powerful API, and high reliability.

The migrant worker population in Singapore faced a significant challenge during the global pandemic. The need to connect with their families became critical, but technical and logistical issues made it difficult. Many of their families back home did not have access to Wi-Fi or could not afford data plans for calls via WhatsApp or Viber. Landlines were often the only option, but obtaining prepaid calling cards became challenging due to quarantine orders and the risk of virus spread. The situation was further complicated by the fact that many of these workers' families resided in Bangladesh, where the infrastructure for digital communication was not as robust.

The telecommunications industry is highly competitive and is expected to become even more so. To stand out, companies need to offer solutions that tackle familiar problems in streamlined and straightforward ways. CallHippo, a company that provides on-demand, cloud-based phone systems, aimed to create fast, easy-to-use solutions for any company to make inbound or outbound calls, monitor conversations for improved customer care, or track call center agents’ productivity. However, at the beginning of 2020, CallHippo’s team knew they needed to scale their service for a rapidly growing, international customer base. They also faced issues with call quality while using other providers.

Businesses of all sizes and types receive calls throughout the day, many of which involve answering the same types of questions repeatedly. This can be time-consuming and costly, diverting focus from day-to-day operations and customer service. The challenge was particularly pronounced for small and independently-run businesses like restaurants. The global pandemic exacerbated the situation as businesses had to shut down, necessitating an answering service that didn't require a human voice or employees to be present at the business location. Co-Graph, an IT venture company specializing in software development and data utilization services, sought to address this challenge with its Mayai automated call answering solution.

GlobalGiving, a tech nonprofit, provides over 5,000 community-led organizations with the tools they need to meet their fundraising goals. However, they faced a challenge in creating a fulfilling donor experience that would inspire continuous giving. The traditional online donation process often ended at the confirmation receipt, leaving donors without a sense of having contributed to something greater. GlobalGiving also struggled with personalizing email experiences for their 1.2 million donors. They had cycled through several email service providers, most of which were designed for bulk communication and did not offer the level of customization needed. One provider's system even broke due to the scale of personalization required by GlobalGiving.

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 led to a sudden shift from traditional classroom learning to remote learning. This change posed a significant challenge to maintaining academic integrity, as monitoring students during assessments became a complex task. The traditional methods of proctoring, such as physical supervision in a classroom, were no longer feasible. The challenge was to find a solution that could ensure academic integrity at an unprecedented scale without compromising the user experience. Honorlock, a company specializing in online proctoring, was faced with the task of scaling their solution to meet the increased demand. Their existing video provider was unable to scale quickly enough to meet their expectations.

The traditional model of parent-teacher meetings in schools has been fraught with inefficiencies and logistical challenges. These meetings, typically conducted in-person, often involve inaccurate scheduling, overrunning of meetings, and long waiting times for parents. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent closure of schools further exacerbated these issues, necessitating a shift towards virtual meetings. However, the existing video conferencing platforms were not equipped to handle the unique requirements of parent-teacher meetings, such as tight scheduling and the need for visual cues to indicate the next parent waiting. SchoolCloud, an edtech company, recognized these challenges and sought to develop a solution that could streamline the process of conducting parent-teacher meetings in a virtual environment.

Edureka, an online education marketplace, prides itself on having the highest course completion rate in the industry. However, they faced a significant challenge in maintaining this rate due to the lack of immediate response to user support queries. This delay often led to students losing interest and discontinuing the course. The company wanted to create a support system that not only answered student queries but also encouraged them to continue, monitored their progress, and celebrated their achievements. However, providing 24/7 phone support was a daunting task. Edureka’s agents began to receive a surplus of calls from their students daily, which were often plagued with connectivity issues. As the company began to scale internationally, the platform founders started to search for a partner that would allow a smoother user experience for both the Edureka students and support agents.

NYU Langone Health, a premier academic medical center, was faced with the challenge of finding a platform that could deliver important health messages to millions of patients across individualized care journeys. The rapid shift to digital healthcare, accelerated in the last 2 years, created complex challenges for healthcare providers. For NYU Langone Health, it meant prioritizing patient experience at every stage of the healthcare journey. The organization, which includes several hospitals and hundreds of ambulatory locations, had to navigate formidable challenges to continue delivering quality care. The array of patient journeys varied widely, requiring digital journeys to be flexible and intuitive, while also accounting for issues like security, regulatory compliance, language, and more. The challenge was to build a solution that could tackle all these considerations.

Zocdoc, a healthcare marketplace connecting patients and providers, was faced with a significant challenge during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company had been empowering patients by making it easy to find, compare, and book healthcare appointments. However, with the pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders, the need for a seamless virtual care experience became paramount. The company had to quickly adapt its roadmap to meet the changing needs of patients and the healthcare system. While their original system had the option for virtual appointments, changes were needed to enable Zocdoc’s nationwide network of providers to offer virtual appointments seamlessly through its platform.

Concilio, an app-based healthcare service, connects users and their families to a health concierge who assists them in finding doctors and scheduling appointments. With over 25,000 clinicians treating more than 5,000 different medical conditions, Concilio's user base began to grow rapidly in 2018. This growth necessitated a more reliable telemedicine platform for virtual consultations, a challenge for Quentin Hayot, Concilio’s system administrator and lead developer. Furthermore, Concilio's contact center, which was initially using SIP trunks with an Asterisk-based PBX for connectivity, was unable to support the growing population of users and agents. Agents were registering at least one complaint about the system with IT per day, and VPN issues led to poor call quality, degrading the customer experience.

Dentistry practices operate on tight schedules, often leaving little time for patient care. Dentally, a company dedicated to improving patient experiences, envisioned a future where dentists have more time to treat patients. They aimed to build a user-friendly, intuitive portal that would empower dental practices to easily communicate with patients via voice and text. The challenge was to create a system that could streamline processes like appointment booking and reminders, clinical treatments, medical history records, and billing. This would ensure appointments run on time and patients are satisfied with their experience.

Dial-A-Doctor, an after-hours medical service provider, was facing significant challenges with their existing PTSN fixed-line call centre. As they transitioned into the digital age, they switched to a VoIP system, hoping it would provide a more reliable and efficient service. However, the VoIP system proved to be inadequate, leading to poor call quality, instances where callers couldn't hear the agent, and calls dropping out in the middle of conversations. The most concerning issue was an instance where a second caller dropped into a private conversation between an agent and a patient. Dial-A-Doctor needed a flexible, reliable, and intuitive technology solution that could handle not only calls but also other forms of customer contact like SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WebChat.

FinAccel, a financial services company, was facing challenges in providing easy and equitable access to credit for customers with limited histories. The company's goal was to enable customers to shop with approved retailers through a two-click purchase option and pay for purchases later with installments. However, the company's existing email marketing tool was not agile enough to accommodate the sending of several new campaigns to a rapidly growing contact list. The delivery speed per campaign was around eight hours, which was not feasible for their time-sensitive campaigns and promotions. The company needed an email marketing solution that would allow them to deliver important campaigns on time and keep up with their rapidly growing user base.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC), one of the largest humanitarian organizations supporting refugees, was seeking to expand its technology programs to improve how they serve the refugee community directly. The organization aimed to build an information platform that connected refugees to resources immediately over chat, particularly in the Northern Triangle of Latin America. The challenges faced by IRC included offering channels that refugees use every day, reaching more people with limited staff, and integrating its helpline into existing systems. The organization also needed to ensure that the platform was user-friendly and felt like texting with a friend rather than navigating a website.

Notarize, a mid-sized company based in North America, was founded with the aim of transforming the traditional, manual, and often inconvenient process of notarization. The company's founder, Pat Kinsel, initially envisioned a consumer-facing remote online notary application. However, he soon realized that notarization was often part of a larger business process or organizational workflow. This realization led to a pivot towards helping organizations digitize their notarization experiences. The challenge was not just to create a digital notary service but to change laws and regulations state-by-state to allow businesses to certify documents online. Notarize also had to understand the individual processes and compliance needs of each industry, as well as the myriad laws and regulations that govern notaries in each state.

Paack, a Spain-based ecommerce delivery solution, has been experiencing rapid growth since its inception in 2015, managing over 27 million deliveries and achieving 3.5x growth year-over-year. However, this growth came with its own set of challenges. The company's commitment to customer-driven delivery times presented a complex logistical challenge of coordinating driver routes with predetermined delivery timelines. Furthermore, Paack realized the need for a unified communications platform designed for heightened customer engagement. The company also faced issues with proof of delivery (PoD), with up to 20% of its customer support cases related to PoD investigations and about 40% of low customer satisfaction scores directly tied to unreceived parcels or issues with third-party delivery.

Datalot, a company that develops pay-per-call advertising solutions, was facing a significant challenge in improving response times for internet leads to increase sales. The online lead generation industry was plagued with costly inefficiencies, making it difficult to convert someone who clicked on an online ad into a paying customer. The average time it took companies to respond to online leads was 42 hours, and 23% of companies never responded at all. The existing web-to-call infrastructure was a patchwork of separate processes and technologies that did not communicate with each other, leading to a loss of valuable information about the lead and a delay in response times. This resulted in sales reps being overwhelmed with too many leads or having too few to work with.

BGL Insurance, a leading digital distributor of insurance, was faced with the challenge of transitioning its customer service agents to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company, which serves over three million customers with their motor, home, and life insurance needs, needed a solution that would allow its agents to work safely from home without compromising the quality of customer service. With nearly 2,000 colleagues across three sites in England, the transition to remote work was a significant undertaking. The company needed to move away from its existing on-premise solution to a fully remote model quickly, without impacting its customers and ongoing operations.

Child Helpline International, a nonprofit consortium of 160 helplines across 140 countries, was facing a significant challenge. Despite receiving over 30 million calls annually, a staggering 30% of these calls went unanswered due to limited resources. The organization's technology was outdated and unable to effectively handle the volume of calls. Furthermore, the organization was unable to adopt new channels that children felt more comfortable using than voice, such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and SMS. The organization also lacked consistent data collection for advocacy purposes, which was crucial for understanding the challenges facing children and advocating for funding and policies to protect them. Lastly, the administrative tasks required of counselors were cumbersome and time-consuming, limiting the number of children they could reach.

Duolingo, a globally recognized language learning app, aimed to integrate social sharing into their platform to boost user engagement. The challenge was to create a secure and efficient way for users to connect with their friends on the app. The existing methods of finding friends via a search engine or Facebook were either slow, lacked meaningful validation functions, or were hindered by tightened privacy policies. Furthermore, as Duolingo sought to add more robust social sharing features, the need for enhanced security to protect users' information became paramount. The challenge was to find a solution that could easily integrate with Duolingo's existing technology stack and provide a geographically agnostic way to validate users and connect them with their friends.

The global pandemic brought about a significant challenge for businesses across all industries, including Electrolux, a global leader in home and kitchen appliances. The company, which sells more than 60 million household and professional products in over 150 markets annually, had to quickly pivot to maintain strong customer engagement and keep operations running. However, Electrolux's contact centers were not cloud or Internet-based, making it impossible to support remote work. The company needed to quickly develop a solution that would allow them to keep their contact centers operational. The challenge was to find a partner that understood their vision for the future and could help them find the appropriate solution to simplify communication functions between clients to ensure fast and efficient engagement with customers at every interaction.

The advent of the digital era allowed real estate agencies to expand their operations and manage more properties than ever before. However, this expansion also led to an increased volume of customer information and a greater number of lease agreements to process, resulting in administrative backlog and internal delays. Andrew Colagiuri, CEO and Founder of FLK it over, who had been in the real estate industry for 20 years, was frustrated with these time-consuming processes, especially after experiencing fast growth at his own firm. He sought to reinvent how real estate documentation is reviewed and signed in a more efficient manner.