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One of the ironies of 21st-century life is that virtually all of us carry a phone with us at all times, but most of us rarely use it as an actual phone. We text, email, post on social media, use messenger apps—anything to avoid the hassle of actually making a call.
This preference extends to our consumer lives as well. Would I rather sit on hold for 45 minutes, or spend a few minutes in a chat queue? Even the most soothing of smooth-jazz hold music can’t make the former seem more attractive.
In a survey of UK and US consumers, 83% said it’s often difficult to communicate with a business. However, only 36% of UK businesses acknowledged these challenges.
As consumers demand more ways to talk to your brand than the dreaded phone call, it’s time to rethink the concept of a call centre and work toward a …
Take one look at Marc Boroditisky's LinkedIn profile, and it's immediately apparent that he is an innovative and successful sales leader. But it's also quite clear that he hasn't had a traditional career path.
Boroditsky has founded, built, and sold several companies, including Numera and Passlogix. When Passlogix was sold to Oracle, Boroditsky signed on to lead their Identity Management product lines. Then, after advising Authy, the two-factor authentication startup, Boroditsky joined on as President and COO. A casual lunch with Twilio founder Jeff Lawson led to Authy’s acquisition and a role as Twilio's VP & GM for Authentication before moving to a sales leadership role. In 2020, he took on global responsibilities as Chief Revenue Officer for Twilio.
In a recent blog post, Boroditsky weighed in on how Twilio is building a world-class sales organization and what that looks like. It was such an insightful discussion that …
When I think about virtual call centres, I think about DVDs.
Do you remember the long-ago times before streaming video? If you wanted to watch a movie, you needed a disc. We had row upon row of movies, taking up space, rarely watched. If you started watching in the bedroom and wanted to move to the living room, you had to take the disc with you, put it in the player, and manually fast forward to where you left off.
That sounds exhausting now, right? How did any of us survive?
Now we have thousands of movies available on demand. You can watch on dozens of different devices, seamlessly. The virtualisation of movies added a ton of convenience and flexibility.
Let’s apply that logic to call centres. Without virtualisation, you have a big building full of people placing and receiving calls. People have to be in that one building in …
Assembling a stellar sales team is never easy. Most sales leaders consider hiring and retaining the right talent as more important and as challenging as ensuring a consistent pipeline of quality leads.
The struggle to hire salespeople has more to do with the types of roles offered than with a shortage of candidates. Part of the problem is tied to the decades-old stereotype of traditional sales: a pressure-cooker environment where workers rely on desperate tactics to make daily sales goals. It's how the phrase "Always Be Closing" got started.
Twilio's Approach: Creating a Sales Opportunity of a Lifetime
This win-at-all-costs mentality doesn't gel with Twilio. Our approach to selling had to be about more than just closing a deal. We wanted to have a significant impact on our customers by forging genuine relationships, becoming trusted advisors, and helping customers solve problems and seize opportunities.
Early on, Twilio recognized that sales …
Twilio suffered a significant service disruption on Feb 26, 2021.
When we fall short, as we did with the service disruption on Feb 26, it motivates us to learn and to make our services more resilient and reliable. Nothing is more important than regaining your trust. We want the opportunity to show that Twilio can and will continue to be a reliable and consistent partner.
We are committed to you that when an incident occurs that disrupts your customer communications, we will always tell you about it. “No shenanigans” is our ethos. Striving to act in an honest, direct, and transparent way is a value every Twilion lives by - and in that spirit, we want to share our Q2 improvements that we’ve completed.
Recap of the Feb 26, 2021 service disruption:
On Friday, February 26, 2021, one of Twilio's internal services suffered a service disruption that impacted a broad …
Working from home. Sharing makeshift office spaces with roommates or partners, or noisy kids, or needy pets. Zoom fatigue. Too many meetings. Wouldn’t it be great if we all had some time to think?
Well, Twilio did just that. We’re just coming out of one big company-wide “Think Week” that took place globally from July 5-9. And, as Twilio is in the midst of a hiring spree with hundreds of jobs open for developers, managers, and sales professionals, we wanted to give potential candidates a feel for how Twilio is listening to employees and making room for thinking.
What is Think Week?
Twilio's Think Week is a global initiative during which Twilions everywhere get to focus on whatever is important to them without the disruption of internal meetings. It's an opportunity to reflect on the first half of the year, determine where they are with their BPMs (our acronym for …
June is Pride Month — a global celebration of the community and activists who continue to advance LGBTQIA+ causes by creating awareness, confronting discrimination, and challenging inequities everywhere.
Even if you don't identify as LGBTQIA+, you're likely aware of all the Pride parades, rainbow merchandise, and community events in big cities and — increasingly — smaller neighborhoods. You've probably also seen well-known brands adding rainbow' flair' to company logos and messaging to show their support of Pride initiatives.
Twilio's first formal Pride march was in San Francisco in 2017, but we've embraced diversity in all its forms since our inception. That stance continues to this day with global work environments that welcome everyone, always. And while Pride Month is a great time to raise awareness of all the outstanding accomplishments by Twilions who identify as LGBTQIA+, it's really just an elevation of the support and activities we are immersed in …
This post is updated quarterly. Click here to read the latest update.
Transfers of EU personal data to the US and other third countries have long been an area of concern for privacy-conscious EU customers and EU data protection authorities. On July 16, 2020, these concerns came to the fore again when the Court of Justice for the European Union (CJEU) ruled on Schrems II . While Twilio has already taken significant steps to ensure data we process is adequately safeguarded wherever in the world we process it (including, among other things, our Binding Corporate Rules and issuing semi-annual transparency reports), we know that this ruling raises important questions about the impact they may have on your business.
We’re excited to share the following details for how Twilio is taking further action to give customers greater control over personal data transfers, and we’re committed to providing updates on a …
Many Twilions — our name for someone who works at Twilio — come to us with years of experience in software development, project management, sales, and other disciplines. But some of the most magnificent accomplishments here, and many of our best ideas, come from people who haven't followed a traditional career path and weren't given the opportunities to nurture their talent elsewhere.
We feel that expanding the candidate pool organically and sustainably will make the industry better in the long term. And, by adding diverse role models to the industry, those who desire a career in tech but don't know how to go about it, can see a way forward.
A pathway to apprenticeship
Hatch is a software engineering apprenticeship program designed to identify and grow exceptional talent from sources that other technology companies may not be considering. Think of it as a bridge to a potential career in tech …
Here in the USA, Twilio recognizes Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with a series of events that honor the historical achievements and cultural differences of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) and their impact on American history.
The idea for the observance started when Jeanie Jew, a Capitol Hill staffer, approached Congressman Frank Horton after noticing that the US Bicentennial celebrations of 1976 lacked any substantive recognition given to Asian Pacific Americans. A year later, Asian Pacific Heritage Week was introduced, and, in 1990, a bill was passed by Congress to extend the week to a month. By 1992, May was officially designated as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
May holds significance for the AAPI community. In May 1843, Japanese immigrants arrived in the US. Twenty years later, also in May, the transcontinental railroad was opened, a project that would have been impossible without over 20,000 Chinese workers. …