How Talkdesk Transformed Sales Effectiveness with ViViEN™

3x higher win rates & 2x larger deals when using Ecosystems’ Collaborative Value Assessment (CVA)
100% CVA adoption for deals above $100K ACV

Improved deal forecasting and sales coaching using Ecosystems Virtual Value Engineer AI, ViViEN™ sales effectiveness scoring, integrated with Salesforce‍

“We finally have an empirical way to track value execution—and it’s changing the way we manage the pipeline.”

Al Caravelli
CRO at Talkdesk

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Introduction

Talkdesk, a global leader in cloud contact center technology, recognized that traditional business cases were no longer sufficient to close modern enterprise deals. Faced with increasing sales complexity, a lean value consulting team, and the need for pipeline transparency, they turned to Ecosystems’ Collaborative Value Assessment (CVA) and ViViEN™, Ecosystems’ AI-powered virtual value engineer.

Together, these tools helped Talkdesk scale personalized value selling, improve forecast accuracy, and increase win rates—all while reinforcing alignment between sales execution and executive strategy.

Establishing a Standard for Value Selling

Like many B2B revenue teams, Talkdesk faced increasing pressure to justify investments with clear business value. Reps were trying to move upmarket, but lacked a consistent framework to quantify outcomes and align with executive stakeholders. The company needed a scalable way to embed value into every deal above a certain threshold.

To solve this, Talkdesk introduced the Collaborative Value Assessment (CVA)—Ecosystems’ platform for co-creating business cases with prospects. The CVA enables sellers to:

Tailor ROI messaging by industry, persona, and KPIs
Collaboratively model financial impact
Enable continuity into post-sale value realization

We really came all in on value here at Talkdesk. And one of the mantras we used was shifting from a function to an ethos.”

Clayton Lougée
Senior Director, Value Consulting at Talkdesk

Top-Down Mandate Drove 100% Adoption

To scale value globally, Talkdesk integrated the Ecosystems platform with Salesforce CRM and mandated CVA adoption for deals with an Average Contract Value (ACV) of $100k or more. The motivation was primarily to:

Standardize value selling in every large deal
Provide leadership visibility into deal quality
Ensure consistency before granting discounts or forecasting

The requirement was enforced not only for consistency, but to gate discounts and deal progression, acting as a form of deal discipline.

“For new sales, you actually can't move into a different sales stage without having adopted Ecosystems.”

 Al Caravelli
CRO at Talkdesk

“We really went from more of a function to an ethos… A value-based sales motion was part of every deal of substantial size for [the] organization. We were able to say by the end of the year, 100% of those opportunities had a value-doc.”

Clayton Lougée
Senior Director, Value Consulting at Talkdesk

The Challenge: From Quantity to Quality

The success of the CVA rollout revealed a new challenge: many reps were completing value assessments late in the process, often just before forecast calls or discount approvals—without meaningful collaboration or discovery.

With a lean value team of just three people, Talkdesk couldn’t manually review every document or coach every deal team.

The business needed a scalable way to assess the quality of these business cases and identify which ones were truly driving customer alignment.

What we were seeing was sales reps viewing business cases as a check-the-box activity. We had strong adoption, but what we really needed was quality. Without that, value selling just doesn’t scale.”

Clayton Lougée
Senior Director, Value Consulting at Talkdesk

The Solution: ViViEN™ AI

To address the quality gap in value assessments, Talkdesk turned to ViViEN™, Ecosystems’ AI-powered Virtual Value Engineer.

ViViEN™ transformed Talkdesk’s value motion by:

Auto-generating discovery research from public sources and telemetry
Providing in-app coaching for building collaborative, customer-facing CVAs
Assigning a machine learning-based Effectiveness Score to evaluate the strength of each business case in real time.

ViViEN™’s Effectiveness Scoring

ViViEN™’s Effectiveness Scoring uses a scale from 0 to 100 based on key quality indicators:

✅ Internal and external collaboration (e.g., customer or partner involvement)
🔎 Depth of discovery and investment assumptions
📝 Frequency, timing, and depth of document edits
📈 Inclusion of quantified value drivers tied to outcomes
⏱️ Timing relative to the deal’s stage in pipeline

Quantifying the Impact: Lookback Analysis

Talkdesk conducted a year-long lookback study to validate whether Effectiveness Scores were predictive of deal success. The results were compelling. Where most organizations struggle to close 15–25% of large deals, Talkdesk saw:

Score

Close Rate

= 100

62%

≥ 80

52%

≥ 50

47%

Forecasting Based on Evidence, Not Gut Feel

ViViEN™’s scores are embedded directly into Salesforce and Talkdesk’s forecasting tool, BoostUp. Sales managers now review the score alongside deal stage, engagement risk, and MEDDIC compliance—using it as a proxy for deal strength and a coaching tool for reps.

The closer we get to 100, the more evidence we have that it's resulting in closed business.”

Chris Swansiger
Senior Director, Value Consulting at Talkdesk

CRO Perspective

"What we've realized is that the more input that we get from our customers and our partners, there is a much higher propensity to win.

‍Our top region currently, their chances of winning have increased by 70%.

‍When they incorporate Ecosystems into the business assessment at the early stages of a deal and have at least input from three different departments within the customer and the partner, their win rate last quarter was 100%.”

Al Caravelli
CRO at Talkdesk

These scoring signals now guide forecasting hygiene, drive 1:1 coaching, and reinforce discipline at every level of the GTM team. ViViEN™’s scoring gives frontline managers and leaders visibility into whether a business case was collaborative and credible, or simply rushed. It provides a neutral, data-driven basis for coaching conversations—freeing frontline managers and CROs from relying on intuition alone.

Al explained how Talkdesk uses the Effectiveness Score to coach underperforming teams and spotlight those who leaned into value early:

I have one [rep] that I call my favorite child. And I’m trying to persuade him to show him how far he's off from everyone else... Now, I have to flip and show the positive sides by the people that are engaging with selling value early on and building new cases.

‍This has to be part of a seller’s playbook.”

Al Caravelli
CRO at Talkdesk

Results

3X win rate increase with value engagement
2X increase in deal sizes when value selling is used
100% CVA adoption for deals >$100K ACV
Integrated ViViEN™ Effectiveness Scores in Salesforce and BoostUp forecasting workflows

The goal is to make value a shared language across the entire customer journey.”

Clayton Lougée
Senior Director, Value Consulting at Talkdesk

Future Outlook

Talkdesk is now focused on:

Enhancing effectiveness scoring to include predictive coaching
Refining enablement by role, region, and deal stage
Deepening Customer Success integration to link presales promises with post-sale outcomes

We’re just getting started. Our goal is to democratize value—across every touchpoint, every team, and every customer conversation."

Clayton Lougée
Senior Director, Value Consulting at Talkdesk

Transform Your Sales Effectiveness with ViViEN™

Talkdesk’s story is just the beginning. With the launch of ViViEN™ 2.0, Ecosystems is redefining how revenue teams scale value selling with AI—moving from compliance checklists to credible, customer-facing business cases that close.

Whether you're looking to:

Increase win rates with value-based conversations
Improve forecasting precision with AI-powered scoring
Embed value across sales, CS, and partners

3x Win Rates & Smarter Forecasting: How Talkdesk Transformed Sales Effectiveness with ViViEN™

“We finally have an empirical way to track value execution—and it’s changing the way we manage the pipeline.”

Get the Complete Case Study

Introduction

Establishing a Standard for Value Selling

We really came all in on value here at Talkdesk. And one of the mantras we used was shifting from a function to an ethos.”

Top-Down Mandate Drove 100% Adoption

“For new sales, you actually can't move into a different sales stage without having adopted Ecosystems.”

“We really went from more of a function to an ethos… A value-based sales motion was part of every deal of substantial size for [the] organization. We were able to say by the end of the year, 100% of those opportunities had a value-doc.”

The Challenge: From Quantity to Quality

What we were seeing was sales reps viewing business cases as a check-the-box activity. We had strong adoption, but what we really needed was quality. Without that, value selling just doesn’t scale.”

The Solution: ViViEN™ AI

ViViEN™’s Effectiveness Scoring

Quantifying the Impact: Lookback Analysis

Forecasting Based on Evidence, Not Gut Feel

The closer we get to 100, the more evidence we have that it's resulting in closed business.”

CRO Perspective

Results

The goal is to make value a shared language across the entire customer journey.”

Future Outlook

We’re just getting started. Our goal is to democratize value—across every touchpoint, every team, and every customer conversation."

Transform Your Sales Effectiveness with ViViEN™

ViViEN™ provides the insights and automation to make it happen.

About Talkdesk