How a Company with Character Centralized CX

Guided by Science, Powered by Nature: AlgaeCal is the global leader in all things bone health. It is their only area of focus and concern. Every product and service they provide is designed to help the more than 50 million people experiencing bone-health issues live full, active lives, free from the fear of bone loss or fracture.

At best, calcium from rocks can only slow bone loss. But AlgaeCal founder Dean Neuls wanted calcium that could actually build new bone. And he found what he was searching for on a beach in South America. That’s where he was introduced to Lithothamnion superpositum—an ocean algae that contains all 13 of the essential minerals scientifically shown to support healthy bones.

That was more than two decades ago. Today, AlgaeCal remains the only calcium supplement clinically supported to stop bone loss and increase bone density — even for people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. 

AlgaeCal is not just the world’s premium calcium supplement. Led by a best-in-class team, they offer consumers premium supplements, resources, and support. From a Scientific Advisory Board to their Bone Health Consultants and The AlgaeCal Community, they’ve started a movement that offers unmatched support, resources, and expert advice for consumers at every stage of their bone-health journey.

“Our values are the fabric of our character,” says David Reeve, Chief Strategy Officer at AlgaeCal. “We really care for customers, teammates, and nature. We are the real deal: we strive to actually make a difference, which is why we fund real research, invest in our team, and do the right thing even when it hurts.”

AlgaeCal’s values tie into their vision of customer experience (CX): being an open, reputable source of information for people looking for answers. This vision trickles down to their customer success center, where their bone health consultants are willing to chat for however long it takes to meet customer needs. Callers can reach out as often as they want and remain on the line for as long as necessary. The goal is to help customers wherever they are, regardless of age, needs, or circumstances.

AlgaeCal Found a Partner Who Aligned with Their Company Culture

AlgaeCal’s bone health team has a lot of experience creating happy customers, but they used to navigate extensive pain points with their CX platform.

“We had disparate systems,” David says. “We didn’t have all the integrations and connections we wanted, so our bone health consultants needed to hunt for information in different systems.”

These disparate systems became a thorn in the side of their bone health consultants and other support staff. Over time, AlgaeCal’s existing solution became less and less applicable to its vision of great customer experiences. “We knew that we needed to do something to reach our long-term goals,” says Jonathan Potter, Director of Customer Success at AlgaeCal. “We weren’t able to achieve what we wanted due to inefficiencies in the system we were using at the time.”

Culture is everything for AlgaeCal, and so is customer experience. A “people first, profit second” mindset requires cutting-edge software, which their existing contact center didn’t have. AlgaeCal knew they needed to make a change if they wanted to scale effectively. David and Jonathan began discussing ways to drive greater efficiency, including acquiring a new CRM and contact center solution.

The evaluation process for their new contact center solution initially included more than 10 different providers. Many of these providers offered similar product foundations, which led AlgaeCal leadership to look closer at the character of each company. It didn’t take long for them to whittle their 10 options down to five, ultimately landing on Talkdesk, whose company values mirror their own.

“We didn’t feel that we were just one of many. Talkdesk made us feel like they were going to be a significant part of our future,” David says. AlgaeCal leadership felt their conversations with the Talkdesk team centered around value, growth, and service, whereas other companies were far more transactional. Their dedicated rep specialist, Rahim, was also “patient and kind” during demos, working hard to illustrate potential use cases of Talkdesk CX Cloud and other solutions.

Another reason Talkdesk appealed to the AlgaeCal team was the ease of setup and launch. Since the platform involves minimal coding and more pointing and clicking, users of any technical experience level can get up and running quickly and easily expand. This element greatly appealed to leadership, who were seeking a long-term solution as they grew. “We didn’t want something that was really hard, really labor-intensive to maintain,” Jonathan says. “Talkdesk provided that for us, and was a cloud-based solution as well.”

AlgaeCal opted for a slow migration process, during which they were in regular contact with the implementation team. They had a dedicated implementation specialist who asked all the right questions while navigating hiccups and fine-tuned the Talkdesk system to their expectations. “Having one person throughout that entire implementation process made it a lot smoother on our end because we weren’t trying to communicate with multiple stakeholders to try and launch,” Jonathan says.

Although there was an element of formal training, the simplicity and user-friendly interface made adoption a breeze. Once the team was happy and comfortable, AlgaeCal transitioned to Talkdesk completely, which came with immediate quality-of-life upgrades for their bone health consultants.

Coaching and Integrations Help Serve Customers Better

The Talkdesk migration had an immediate effect on AlgaeCal’s customer success team. Not only did the migration allow them to view multiple systems through a single dashboard, but it also led to a better experience for customer-facing interactions.

In addition to Talkdesk CX Cloud, AlgaeCal adopted Talkdesk Quality Management, which helps ensure a high standard of service. Managers can support bone health consultants on calls, and they can also provide more detailed performance evaluations. They can leave comments anywhere in a call, so it’s easy to highlight points and offer suggestions for better conversations in the future.

Reporting is easily accessible within the platform, which increases data transparency for the entire team. “The actual technology of the quality management software is great for us,” Jonathan says. “It gives us reports without us having to make calculations in an Excel spreadsheet, which means we don’t have to put reports somewhere else and then share the numbers.”

Talkdesk also provides a seamless Salesforce integration, which happened to be AlgaeCal’s new CRM. It only took a few hours to integrate the systems, which allowed them to create workflows and triggers based on incoming data. For example, AlgaeCal built a specific workflow to ensure contacts sync between Salesforce and Talkdesk. Bone health consultants use that shared information to know who they’re speaking with, so they don’t have to ask or validate details as often. This context improves the calling experience for the customer. It also means they can work on customer issues with fewer delays and errors since they don’t need to copy and paste information between platforms. “With the click of a button, we can have the customer’s profile open,” Jonathan says. “We’re then ready to support the customer in all the ways they need.”

AlgaeCal launched Talkdesk in 2022 and is looking to the future with the platform’s AI-powered features.  Although AlgaeCal is a high-touch team that prefers to speak directly with customers, Talkdesk tools like  Talkdesk Agent Assist™ can provide agents with relevant information while decreasing onboarding timelines. 

“Visionspeak” and the Way to Scalable CX

Before Talkdesk, AlgaeCal rarely pushed the boundaries of their existing systems. “We knew what we knew, and we didn't know what we didn't know,” Reeve says. However, AlgaeCal’s unfettered access to the right people at Talkdesk has opened their eyes to some of those unknowns. Talkdesk is always open to ideas, and their enthusiasm has become a catalyst for AlgaeCal to explore conversations around new solutions and opportunities.

Jonathan started as a bone health consultant at AlgaeCal, and his intimate knowledge of the role was a big bonus during the transition. Jonathan's role specific knowledge, combined with the collaboration with others who were previously and currently in the role allowed to address the pain points and reduce any friction in the customer and user experience. “It’s important to use visionspeak: painting a vision of where we’re at today and what tomorrow may bring,” he says.

The combination of the Talkdesk AI-powered platform and Jonathan’s entrepreneurial attitude has made AlgaeCal’s platforms, systems, and integrations more efficient.

“We wouldn’t be in the place that we’re at right now if it wasn’t for a transition from our old platform to Talkdesk,” Jonathan says.