Don't take a sales job at Talkdesk. - Enterprise Account Executive Talkdesk Employee Review

1.0
Aug 10, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

There are a number good people who are not in management that work here.

Cons

There are so many cons and here is my list: 1) Compensation - They pay the enterprise sales reps a low base salary compared to industry standards. The quota is $1.5 million. Last year, not a single rep hit this number. There were only 3 AE's that sold a little over a million dollars. These 3 AE's also had much larger territories in 2019. Bottom line is you cannot make money here. They also do not reimburse you for your cell phone. 2) Turnover - Most people at Talkdesk do not last a year. The average AE is fired in 6-8 months. There are currently 19 open enterprise AE positions on the Talkdesk web-site. Many of these jobs were reps that were fired in the last several months. Many of them are friends of mine and they are very talented. In addition to high sales turnover, many other talented people have left. There were two C-level executives that quit after only a few weeks on the job. Two of the best sales engineers left to go to a competitor. Many other talented people have left in the past few months. So you have to ask yourself, why are some of the best people leaving a company that is doing so well. 3) Toxic sales culture - Talkdesk is a depressing place to work. If you are in sales, you will not like the monthly sales call. The purpose of this call is for everyone to say what they will close for the month and the quarter. The person that runs this call likes to berate 1 AE for missing their number. Most AE's have such a weak pipeline that they make stuff up and hope that something will come in. We wonder why are numbers are off every month. 4) Weak Product - Talkdesk is one of four companies in the leader board for Garter's CCaaS. During the new hire training, we learned that our competitive advantage is the modern micro services architecture. This allows Talkdesk to say they have a 100% SLA. On one of our monthly sales calls, we had a guest speaker who is an expert in the call center space. He told everyone to stop saying that Talkdesk is the only company that has this, as the other competitors also have this feature. All of sales reps felt we were lied to in new hire training. Bottom line is Nice inContact, Genesys, and Five9 have a better product than Talkdesk. Also, most of the new logos are small commercial companies. Very few enterprise companies use Talkdesk. Plus our enterprise licenses are too expensive so most AE's sell a lower version that does not include the 100% SLA. I have a feeling that Talkdesk will not be in the Garter leader board next year. 5) KPI focus - The sales leaders are very focused on KPI's. We have KPI's for everything. You can see your colleagues number of calls made, emails sent, meetings completed and opportunities created. Guess what KPI is hidden from all the of sales reps? The percentage of quota and how much each AE has sold year to date. The reason for this is most reps sell very little and as I stated earlier, it is impossible to make quota. There are about 12 reps that have sold over $100K and not one person is even close to selling $1 million dollars. Most AE's have a weak pipeline for the remainder of 2020. Let me wrap up by saying I have never posted a review on Glassdoor. I always thought that this is what disgruntled employees do. If you are looking for a sales job here, please read all of the reviews about Talkdesk in the past few weeks. The theme is the same and the level of details that we are saying about what is wrong with Talkdesk is so accurate. I question if Talkdesk will make it. Remember, if you are interviewing for a sales role, the only question you need to ask is how many reps made their number. The answer is nobody. Please do not damage your career to take a job at Talkdesk as it is a terrible company.

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5.0
Jul 16, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great company to work for. Management and team members are great!

Cons

Nothing at this moment. So far, everything has been really great.

4.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-The AI-First Mission is Real- We aren’t just talking about artificial intelligence; we are actively executing an AI-first transformation across our entire product and internal operating models. It’s an incredibly exciting, fast-paced space for anyone looking to build the future of enterprise software. -What makes this company truly special is our foundation: we have a deep, proven contact center history, but we’ve successfully paired that legacy with the right product architecture and the right people to dominate the AI future. It feels like today we have the right people on board to execute. - Innovative mindset- We don't have everything figured out today. Employees are encouraged to think outside of the box and move fast to try new things and surface solutions.

Cons

-High-Pressure, Agile Environment: Because we scale on consumption and automation rather than simple headcount, the bar for talent density here is exceptionally high. Things move FAST. If you prefer a slow, highly structured, or static environment, this level of rapid iteration might feel overwhelming - TD doesn't have everything figured out. You have to be OK building as you go, and not always having clear direction.

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