Pros
Interactions offers what seems might be an interesting take on the virtual assistant space, leveraging human assistance to augment traditional speech recognition and natural language technologies to provide call center automation. The value proposition appears compelling; allowing customers to deploy conversational human-like experiences at the cost of automation without the poor performance and mis-recognition often found with traditional speech solutions.
Cons
The reality sadly does not live up to the vision. While Interactions has a handful of key reference customers, execution on new logos is woefully lacking due to a cost model that is far more expensive than solutions from other leading providers and performance that is perhaps only nominally better (if that). More importantly, any customer traction they make, is constantly undermined by systemic and massive corporate disfunction and sales turn-over, stemming from exceptionally poor leadership; particularly with the Chief Operating Officer. Not only does the COO lack a basic understanding of sales, he utterly lacks integrity. He is impulsive; quick to form negative opinions based on loose facts and without context. He is petulant; threatening to withhold expense payments and commissions, for the slightest perceived misdeed. He treats his staff (normally I’d use the term “team”) with hostility and retribution. He actually refers to his sales directors as “widgets” and ignores any thoughtful opinion that is different from his own ideas. He is an absent leader when there is need for collaboration, but constantly checks everyone’s calendars for activity, keeps attendance on all calls and then threatens reprisal if attendance is not satisfactory. His style may best be reflected with the old saying… The beatings will continue until morale improves. This all happens under the watchful eye of a complicit CEO, who keeps a lower public profile, yet endorses and encourages this behavior completely. There is a small leadership cadre that makes all decisions and trusts no-one else to satisfactorily advance the sales process. The net-result is a salesforce almost entirely with one foot out the door, watching with a keen eye over their backs for the axe to come down. The rosy “Sales Director” Glassdoor review that was posted last week defies all plausibility and was almost certainly posted by someone within the company with a vested interest in recruiting new sales talent. More than 30 sales directors have turned-over in the last 24 months; most on their own volition, many others fired simply on a whim. Their culture and values are disgraceful and completely outside the standards of basic professionalism. Compensation is another major challenge, with a needlessly complex and unattainable comp-plan. Interactions generally pays a competitive base salary, but lack of sales execution (due to poor leadership) means few will actually succeed in generating any commission income. For the few sales directors that have had success with the company, the payout of commissions is drawn out over years (yes, years!) meaning you are handcuffed to the company and they can eliminate your position if they want to avoid paying you.
