More than 50% of customer service agents face burnout due to overwhelming queries. This leads to reduced service quality and customer dissatisfaction. 

These days, customer service is paramount to the success of a business. In fact, 32% of customers will walk away after just back interaction.

The solution? Smart IVR. This AI-powered tool handles routine queries so you only divert important or complex queries to your agents, saving them burnout.

The best part? It works 24/7 to solve customer queries so it’s no surprise that 70% of service organizations already use intelligent service assistants.

In this blog, we’ll explore what Smart IVR is and how you can build smart IVR with Plivo to elevate your customer support. 

Let’s dive in.

What is Smart IVR?

Smart IVR (Interactive Voice Response) is an advanced customer support technology that uses artificial intelligence (AI), contextual awareness, and data-driven insights to deliver a more intuitive and personalized caller experience. 

Unlike traditional IVR systems, smart IVR goes above and beyond rigid menus and predefined options and adapts to the unique needs of each caller. This approach makes customer interactions faster and more efficient. 

Here’s how smart, AI-powered IVR compares with traditional IVR:

How does smart IVR work?

Smart IVR runs on advanced technology such as AI-powered voice agents and audio streaming to understand human output and deliver seamless conversations over various channels.

Here’s how it works:

1. AI-powered functionality: Smart IVR, when combined with voice agents uses natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to understand spoken or typed inputs. This allows users to interact in conversational language rather than pressing buttons.

2. Contextual awareness: AI-powered IVR tracks the history of previous interactions, to pick up any conversation where the customer left it to avoid unnecessary repetition.
3. Data-driven operations: Smart IVR integrates with customer relationship management (CRM) systems and databases, to provide relevant, real-time information during the interaction.
4. Personalized call flow: By analyzing caller data and preferences, the system dynamically adjusts the call routing and response pathways, creating a tailored experience for every customer.

Benefits of Smart IVR

Now that you know what Smart IVR is, let’s dive into its key benefits for your business. On top saving time for your customer service agents, it can help you with a lot more:

Personalized and intuitive conversations

By integrating customer data or using IVR scripts, Smart IVR systems tailor interactions based on individual histories and preferences. 

24/7 customer service availability

Smart IVR systems provide round-the-clock support, so your customers can resolve their queries, regardless of time zones or business hours. This continuous availability enhances customer satisfaction as they always get timely responses to inquiries.

Reduced operating costs

Automating routine inquiries through Smart IVR systems decreases the need for live agents, leading to significant cost savings. Handling simple tasks like order confirmations or account balance inquiries via IVR reduces the overall number of support tickets and operational expenses.

With Plivo’s audio streaming features, you can build a smart IVR starting as low as $0.003 per minute - 40% lower than competitors. 

Enhanced customer insights

Smart IVR systems collect valuable data from customer interactions and provide insights into common inquiries and areas for improvement. You can use this information to improve service protocols, and address emerging customer demands.

Improved customer satisfaction

Smart IVR systems effectively address customer issues and lets them enjoy self-service for surface level queries. You can optimize your IVR for self service resolved quickly without the need for multiple interactions.

Using Voice Agents to Build AI Powered IVR Solutions

Unlike traditional IVRs that rely on static menus and human intervention, AI-powered voice agents introduce intelligence, efficiency, and adaptability to the IVR experience.

Here’s why you need to integrate your voice agents for your IVR systems:

Scalability without the overhead costs

As businesses grow, the demand for customer support increases. With human agents, this growth requires hiring and training additional staff, leading to higher costs and operational complexity.

AI voice agents handle customer queries 24/7 without requiring additional human resources. They can instantly scale to accommodate a surge in call volumes, making them a cost-effective solution for growing businesses.

For example, during seasonal sales or peak times, voice agents can manage thousands of simultaneous calls without delays, ensuring customers get instant responses.

Less training, more customer service 

Training human agents is time-consuming and can involve a significant learning curve. Human performance also varies due to fatigue or lack of knowledge about complex scenarios.

AI voice agents don’t require traditional training. They leverage machine learning models that can quickly process past customer interactions and data to provide context-based resolutions. Updates or improvements can be implemented instantly across all interactions, ensuring consistent service quality.

For example, if a new product is launched, AI agents can be updated instantly with FAQs or key information, unlike human agents who may take days or weeks to fully adapt.

Plivo, a voice API platform can help you supercharge your voice agents and build smart IVR for customer service. Here’s how Plivo does it:

1. Capturing Input: Plivo captures the customer’s audio input (e.g., spoken queries or commands).
2. AI Bot Processing: This audio input is transmitted to the business’s own AI bot, where advanced algorithms analyze and process the request.
3. Generating AI Responses: The AI bot generates an intelligent, context-aware response.
4. Delivering Output: Plivo transmits the AI’s response back to the customer in real-time.

How Smart IVR Improves Customer Support for Your Business?

Enhancing traditional IVR systems with AI and audio streaming can create more intuitive and efficient customer interactions.

For example, instead of navigating through multiple layers of options by pressing keys (e.g., "Press 1 for refunds"), users can simply state their query (e.g., "I want to talk about a refund"), and the system understands and routes the call appropriately. This makes the interaction more natural and reduces customer frustration.

Here’s why you need smart IVR for customer service:

Proactive customer engagement

Smart IVR can automate reminders for medical appointments, service visits, or delivery schedules. It can send real-time updates about account activity, payment deadlines, or service outages. It can also collect customer feedback immediately after interactions to gauge satisfaction.

Dynamic call routing

Direct callers to the most appropriate agent based on their query type or customer profile. Or, transfer calls to agents with complete context, including caller history and ongoing concerns, ensuring seamless service.

Real-time call analysis

Analyzing live calls to extract actionable insights such as customer sentiment, intent, or key entities mentioned.

For example, during a customer service call, Smart IVR performs real-time transcription and records keywords like "refund," "complaint," or "order status" are recognized. The system can then provide live prompts or assistance to the agent or automate responses.

Real-time transcription

Smart IVR transcribes conversations so you can use the text to update customer records or assist agents with relevant information.

Speech recognition

Smart IVR systems can understand and process spoken language by converting it into text. This allows the system to interpret what the caller is saying and respond appropriately without requiring them to press buttons.

For example, if a customer says, "I want to check my account balance," the speech recognition technology converts their words into text. The Smart IVR then processes the request and provides the relevant information automatically. This makes interactions faster, more natural, and user-friendly, enhancing the overall customer experience.

Automation of voice channel operations

AI powered IVR can automate functions traditionally performed by human agents, such as answering routine queries, recording information, and providing real-time assistance.

Data collection and analytics

Smart IVR can collect data during IVR interactions to analyze customer preferences and behavior. You can also measure the effectiveness of customer support through call resolution times, customer satisfaction, and IVR usage rates.

Enhance the functionality of Your IVR with Plivo-Powered Voice Agents

IVRs already manage twice the volume of customer interactions compared to live agents. 

You can double down on these benefits by transforming traditional IVRs into smart IVRs using Plivo-powered AI voice agents. 

Plivo helps you launch AI-powered voice agents that can interact with customers and solve most of their queries without human intervention.

There are two ways launch a voice bot with Plivo:

Using Speech-to-text and Text-to-speech integration

Get started in 3 easy steps:

• Sign up for Plivo to purchase a number through the Voice API or Plivo console.
• Once you have your number, link it to an application equipped to accept voice calls, transcribe speech, and forward this text to your WebHook.
• You can plug in Plivo's Voice API with any LLM model, like ChatGPT, to launch your bot

Using OpenAI's real-time API for live customer interaction

Launch AI voice agents and voice agents with Plivo using just a few lines of code!

• Log in to your OpenAI Account: Secure your API key and RealTime API access.
• Log in to your Plivo Account: Sign up and get a voice-enabled number.

Launch Plivo-Powered Voice Agents to Build a Smart IVR for Your Business

Now you know, it’s that easy to integrate with Plivo to launch your voice agents. Plivo-powered AI voice agents can handle more complex customer queries 24/7 as we promise:

• Superior voice infrastructure: to deliver get crisp call quality across 220+ countries 
• Low latency: Our PoPs are located in seven locations (California, Virginia, Frankfurt, Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, São Paulo) across five continents. 
• High availability and uptime: With a redundant infrastructure across multiple geographies and at least three local carrier connections across countries, Zentrunk promises 99.99% uptime
• Full redundancy: Redundant links reroute traffic over backup networks in less than two seconds in case of backbone failover

With Plivo and OpenAI’s RealTime API, you can create voice agents that don’t only talk but empathize and engage with your customers. 

‍Request a trial to Plivo today to get started.

Ever wondered how companies get your phone number to send you text messages?

The answer lies in SMS opt-ins. It helps in building a direct communication channel with customers, allowing businesses to send targeted marketing messages.

According to Forbes, SMS has a 98% open rate—3.7x higher than email (26.8%). Also, 90% of people reply within 30 minutes, making it perfect for urgent messages.

However, it's crucial to know the importance of obtaining consent with laws such as GDPR, TCPA, etc., before sending messages. Consent is required to comply with legal regulations. Ignoring these regulations can lead to severe consequences.

However, obtaining consent demands a thorough compliance with privacy-focused laws such as GDPR and TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) before sending messages.

Companies that don't follow these laws can face serious consequences. For example, in 2021, Amazon was fined a whopping €746 million (about $888 million) for violating GDPR rules in Europe. 

In this article, let’s explore SMS opt-ins are and find out some real-world SMS opt-in message examples.

What is an opt-in text message?

An opt-in text message is a permission-based SMS campaign where subscribers explicitly consent to receive marketing messages from a business. This process involves more than just collecting phone numbers; it's about establishing a clear agreement between the company and the customer.

Key types of SMS opt-in procedures

Typically, customers agree to receive opt-in SMS by texting a keyword, giving the business permission to send them messages. The three primary types of SMS opt-in procedures are as follows:

1.Single opt-in

A single opt-in is the simplest process where a recipient gives their consent in one step without any confirmation.

Example:

2.Double opt-in

Double opt-in involves an extra layer of verification. After the initial consent, the recipient receives a confirmation message (e.g., “Reply YES to confirm”). This ensures the number belongs to someone genuinely interested.

Example: 

3.Soft opt-in 

The "soft opt-in" rule lets businesses send marketing messages to customers who've bought from them before, without needing explicit permission each time. Any company selling directly to consumers can use it, as long as they're promoting similar products or services. This is especially handy for businesses with repeat customers, like retail shops or subscription services.

But there are some important rules to follow. The customer's details must have been collected during a sale or negotiation, and they must be given an easy way to opt out in every message. It doesn't work for charities, political groups, or new contacts from bought lists.

Misusing this rule can lead to hefty fines, as Papa John's found out when they were hit with a £10,000 penalty.

Example: "Thank you for your recent purchase! Don’t miss our latest offers: [link]. Reply STOP to opt out."

Additional types of SMS opt-in processes 

Prospects can consent to receive text messages from your business in the following five ways as well:

1.Verbal consent

The individuals can verbally consent to receive SMS messages over the phone or in person. Businesses must document this consent and a summary of the conversation.

2.Website form opt-in

Customers can provide consent by filling out a form on your website. This can be a dedicated opt-in form or a form embedded in other website content.

3.Paper form opt-in

Customers can consent by completing a physical form in-store. The form should clearly state that the customer is opting in to receive SMS messages and an explicit opt-in message.

4.Text-to-join

Your contacts can initiate the opt-in process by texting a keyword or specific phrase to your business's designated number. 

5.QR code opt-in

Customers subscribe by scanning a QR code, which prompts them to enter their phone number to opt in. This code can be on posters, product packaging, or your website.

SMS regulations and compliance: An outline

Please note that SMS regulations and compliance requirements can vary by country and jurisdiction. It's essential to consult with legal counsel to ensure full compliance This information is provided for general knowledge only and does not constitute legal advice.

In 2024, IBM notes that the global average cost of a data breach hit $4.88 million, a 10% rise from the previous year. This shows the growing financial impact of cybersecurity incidents worldwide.​

Complying with SMS regulations

To ensure compliance with SMS regulations, it's necessary to adhere to specific guidelines. Here are some key points to remember:

• Explicit consent: As noted before, obtain clear consent from customers before sending promotional or marketing text messages.
• Clear opt-out instructions: Provide easy-to-follow instructions for customers to opt out of receiving messages. This can typically be done by texting a specific keyword like "STOP."
• Frequency: Be mindful of the frequency and timing of your messages. Aim to send about 4-5 texts per month to start, and don't go over 10-15 unless you want customers hitting that unsubscribe button. 
• Timing: Here, Adhere to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulations—no texts before 8 AM or after 9 PM in the recipient's time zone. Mid-afternoon usually works best, but avoid Mondays and rush hours. The sweet spot is between 10 AM and 8 PM.
• Carrier compliance: Adhere to carrier-specific guidelines and regulations.

Compliance measures regarding promotional and transactional messages

When sending SMS messages, it’s important to distinguish between promotional and transactional messages. They both serve different purposes and are subject to varying compliance regulations from one country to another. Here’s how:

1.Promotional messages

These messages are designed to enable customer engagement, such as making a purchase or taking advantage of a special offer. Promotional messages generally include texts about discounts, flash sales, and exclusive promotions. 

Marketing SMS faces stricter rules that vary by country, including the US and UK. For instance:

• U.S
  • The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) requires explicit opt-in consent before sending promotional SMS.
  • Messages cannot be sent before 8 AM or after 9 PM in the recipient's local time.
• UK
  • The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) mandates businesses to obtain prior consent for promotional texts.

2.Transactional messages

Transactional messages provide essential information and are subject to fewer regulations. Common examples include order confirmations, password resets, and two-factor authentication codes.

• U.S
  • TCPA rules allow transactional messages without explicit opt-in, provided the recipient’s number was collected as part of the transaction.
• UK
  • PECR allows transactional messages without prior consent, provided they are necessary for fulfilling a contract or providing a requested service.
    

SMS marketing compliance varies by country, with regions like Canada, Australia, and the EU enforcing strict privacy rules. Businesses should also understand local regulations, like CASL in Canada or GDPR in the EU, to ensure global compliance.

SMS opt-in message examples

Here are some practical SMS opt-in message examples used by brands in different business scenarios:

SMS marketing

Popup website form 

A popup appears on the website encouraging users to subscribe to SMS updates in exchange for a discount or perk. 

SMS keyword promotion

Customers can opt-in by texting a specific keyword to a shortcode.

Website form fill 

Users fill out a dedicated form on your website to subscribe to SMS marketing.

Footer form fill

A small form in the footer of the website invites visitors to sign up for SMS updates.

Checkbox form

A simple checkbox added to forms, such as during checkout or account registration, lets users opt-in to receive SMS messages. 

Mobile QR code

Customers scan a QR code with their smartphones, leading them to a page where they can subscribe to SMS updates.

Customer support

Paper form

Customers fill out a physical SMS opt-in form in-store or at an event to opt in for SMS support or updates.

Example:

"Sign up for SMS notifications! Fill out this form to receive support updates and service alerts. Msg & data rates may apply."

Website checkbox opt-in

An optional checkbox on a contact or checkout form lets customers consent to SMS notifications.

Text opt-in

Customers initiate the text message opt-in by texting a keyword to a shortcode.

SMS keyword campaign 

Customers opt-in by texting a specific keyword to a shortcode to receive promotions, support updates, or special offers. 

Verbal opt-in confirmation 

Customers verbally confirm their agreement to receive SMS updates, often during a phone call or in-store interaction. 

Example:

"By saying 'Yes,' you agree to receive SMS updates regarding your support requests. Msg & data rates may apply. You can opt out anytime by replying STOP."

Sales

Online demo request form

Customers opting in to learn more about your product can do so via a demo request form with an SMS opt-in checkbox. This matches the style of the previously displayed checkbox form.

Example:

"✔ Yes, I’d like to receive SMS reminders and updates about my product demo. Msg & data rates may apply."

Contact us form

 A checkbox on the contact form allows customers to subscribe to SMS sales notifications. This is similar to that of the checkbox form image shown earlier.

Example:

"✔ I agree to receive SMS updates about promotions and sales inquiries. Msg & data rates may apply."

Verbal opt-in 

Sales reps ask customers for verbal consent to receive SMS updates during a phone call or meeting.

Example:

"Would you like to receive SMS updates about our latest deals? By opting in, you agree to our terms. Msg & data rates may apply."

Via text 

Customers text a keyword to opt in for sales offers or product information.

Physical form

Customers provide their phone numbers and consent on a physical form at a sales event or store. 

Example:

"Sign up for SMS notifications! Provide your phone number below to get updates on our latest offers. Msg & data rates may apply."

Make your SMS opt-in campaigns more impactful with Plivo CX

Launching an effective SMS opt-in campaign can be streamlined with a suitable tool in place. With Plivo CX, you can simplify SMS opt-in, manage compliance, and deliver impactful messages, and more. 

Here are some features you can try:

• Personalization and automation: Utilize Plivo CX's AI-driven customer engagement platform to craft personalized welcome messages. The platform's Copywriter AI can generate highly customized content based on your campaign objectives, brand voice, and message length.
  
  
• Timing and frequency: The tool also lets you schedule messages at optimal times across time zones for the maximum impact. You can also maintain thorough compliance with regulations.
  
  
• Segmentation and targeting: Use the Audiences feature to segment your customers based on complex rules, such as purchase history or engagement levels. You can send targeted opt-in campaigns to specific groups, increasing relevance and engagement.
  
  
• Omnichannel approach: Integrate your SMS opt-in campaign with other marketing channels for a consistent messaging across all platforms. Leverage each channel's strengths for a more comprehensive opt-in strategy. The platform also allows for strategic scheduling, enabling you to deploy campaigns immediately or at optimal future times.
  
  
• Analytics: Take advantage of Plivo CX's detailed analytics to track performance metrics to measure ROI and effectiveness. Use these insights to continuously refine your approach, adjusting message content, timing, and targeting for better results.

Plivo CX can also leverage Plivo’s premium carrier network, with coverage in over 220 countries. This can slash your SMS marketing costs by up to 70% and increase 3x more ROI in your campaigns. 

Plus, you can also engage customers by integrating SMS into your applications using Plivo's powerful SMS API.

Want to see how it can simplify your SMS opt-in process? Book a demo today!

The importance of customer experience needs no introduction— 96% of customers remain loyal to a brand that considers brand perception a priority. 

However, delivering a consistent and customer-centric experience is not as straightforward as it seems, especially when you have to do it manually. There are tons of repetitive and error-prone tasks that can affect your efficiency or negatively impact delivery.

And that’s where customer experience automation comes in.

Automation helps you streamline your customer service by delegating tasks, such as ticket routing, rerouting, follow-up emails, and data entry, to AI-powered tools. This means human agents can focus on more strategic and complex customer interactions.

In this article, we’ll explain customer experience automation, its benefits, and how to use it to boost your ROI.

What is customer experience automation? 

To answer this, let’s split our definition into Customer experience and customer experience automation.

• Customer experience is a sum of all customer interactions with your business, from their first contact to post-purchase support and the impression they form through these interactions. This encompasses every touchpoint, including browsing your website, engaging with your marketing efforts, interacting with your sales team, using your product or service, and receiving customer support.

• Customer experience automation (CXA) means using AI-driven tools to streamline, optimize, and enhance these interactions with minimal human intervention while still delivering great results. This approach, which allows businesses to automate repetitive tasks, workflows, and communications, results in reduced human errors, consistent support, and personalized services.

Customer experience automation vs marketing automation

Marketing automation refers to using software to streamline marketing processes and manage multi-channel campaigns. However, it focuses heavily on pre-purchase interactions and lead generation.

In contrast, customer experience automation covers your marketing and sales funnel, including pre-purchase and post-purchase interactions. This approach aims to build customer satisfaction, retention, and loyalty.

Customer experience automation vs customer relationship management

While both CXA and CRM aim to nurture brand-customer relationships, the latter primarily does that by centralizing your customer data. CRMs also have minimal or zero customer interface, meaning only your business interacts with the system, not your customers themselves.

On the other hand, CXA offers a customer interface through AI agents like chatbots and integrates with CRMs, ERPs, and other home-grown systems to utilize customer data to deliver personalized experiences.

How does customer experience automation work?

Customer experience automation leverages three crucial components to streamline each touch point in your customer’s journey for faster and more effective service delivery:

• AI agents: AI-powered chatbots engage your leads and customers on the front end to simulate authentically human-like conversations. An example is the all-in-one customer service platform Plivo CX’s self-service chatbot, which is an OpenAI-developed bot capable of custom training for accuracy and relevance.
• Agent assistance: Automation tools provide valuable support to your human agents in the backend through real-time suggestions, seamless retrieval of relevant customer data, and automation of routine tasks during interactions.
• Workflow optimization: Escalation workflows, interactive voice response, ticket routing, and sticky rerouting standardize your processes to boost overall efficiency.

These automation components work in tandem to eliminate drags in your customer experience and enhance satisfaction.

Key advantages of customer experience automation for ecommerce

As HubSpot data suggests, 86% of customer experience leaders believe automation will positively impact their service delivery, and 71% plan to invest more in AI agents like chatbots. Let’s explore some advantages of doing the same for your ecommerce business:

1.Offer 24/7 support

67% of consumers want a response to their queries within 3 hours, and over 60% want 24/7 support availability. That’s not something a 9-5 helpdesk offered by your human agents can help offer, especially when serving cross-border buyers outside your local timezone.

Customer experience automation helps you eliminate these geolocational and support barriers by using round-the-clock AI-powered chatbots built to handle more than 80% of routine questions. 

Moreover, you don’t need to hit a break with your customer data collection and analysis. Your automation works nonstop while you nap.

2.Reduce operational costs

For a mid-sized ecommerce business with tens of thousands of customers, you’ll need to set up a bogus team of human agents and data analysts to have a chance at providing a near-efficient experience for your customers. That’s difficult to scale in terms of resource and skill availability.

On the other hand, automating your customer experience with AI agents can help save up to 30% in cost. A single bot can do the work of multiple humans, thus reducing your recruitment costs. Also, good customer experience enhances retention rate and slashes customer acquisition costs.

3.Increase customer satisfaction

Companies using AI report a 20% increase in satisfaction rates. Automation reduces time to resolution, ensures quick escalation to the right channels when necessary, and matches customer data to deliver accurate experiences.

Also, delegating these weights to AI enables companies to allocate resources such as human agents and capital towards improving other core aspects of the customer journey, which serves your customers’ interests.

4.Personalize communications

According to Forrester, 77% of consumers have purchased from or recommended brands that provide personalized experiences.

Customer experience automation ensures this by collating and analyzing customer data from different sources, such as multiple communication channels, e-commerce platforms like Shopify, and CRMs.

Structured data gives valuable insight into your customers’ pain points, previous support history, and other information that can assist in making informed decisions.

A great example is the omnichannel contact center solution Plivo CX's unified desktop agent, which consolidates fragmented customer data from multiple channels, such as email, voice, SMS, WhatsApp, and live chat, into a single, easily accessible interface.

This empowers your human agents with real-time access to valuable insights and enables your chatbots to provide tailored recommendations and assistance to customers.

5.Offer consistent experiences

79% of consumers expect consistency in service delivery; however, 55% say they often feel like they are talking to different departments instead of one organization. This disconnect often occurs when departments operate in silos.

For example, the marketing team may focus on lead generation without aligning with the customer service team, leading to fragmented communication and a disjointed customer experience.

Customer experience automation prevents silo operations by breaking the barriers between your marketing, sales, and customer support teams. This results in a unified contact center and allows access to valuable data, ensuring your customers have a consistent experience pre- and post-purchase.

6.Boost customer relationships

Providing faster responses to queries, accelerating order delivery, reducing touch points to purchase, and offering personalized experiences through automation all boost customer satisfaction. And satisfied customers are more likely to become loyal or connected to your brand. 

Customers who feel connected to a brand are worth 306% more in lifetime value. Loyal customers are also good brand advocates and will recommend your business to others 71% more than those who are not.

5 ways to use customer experience automation

While customer experience automation is a must-have superpower, knowing where and how to use it can significantly impact your results. Let’s see some of the most important use cases to consider.

1.AI Chatbots

AI chatbots handle routine queries, manage customer orders through API integrations with stores, sort customer refunds, or simply hand off issues and escalate them to your human agents. These bots can also provide smart product recommendations to customers and help streamline decision-making.

As noted before, Plivo CX’s OpenAI-powered self-service chatbots, which you can train in-house with a custom dataset to provide accurate and hyper-personalized responses to your customers. You can also guardrail them to stay within your company’s playbooks and brand voice.

2.Live chat

Occasionally, your chatbots might hit a hard rock and be unable to address a query. In that case, you can employ customer service automation to reroute the query to a live agent through a smart sorting system that uses customer data to choose the most appropriate human agent and channel.

Plivo CX’s drag-and-drop workflow builder makes this possible by helping you build sleek workflows without coding to streamline escalations, routing, and rerouting. This reduces time to resolution and ensures your customers get the assistance they need. 

3.Self-service portals

Utilize automation to create self-service portals to help customers access their personal information, initiate actions, and solve problems with barely any interaction with your agents. They are personal but password-gated dashboards that have been automated to provide tailored assistance based on customer data.

These portals also often include an account management dashboard that displays relevant transactions, personalized knowledge bases like FAQs, and task management features to apply for a credit card or follow a ticket’s history.

4.Automated notifications & emails

You can set up automated notifications and emails for your ecommerce business based on several triggers, such as cart abandonment, confirmation after placing an order, shipping updates, a drop in the price of previously viewed products, or when a product is out of stock.

Plivo CX’s Shopify integration allows owners to provide proactive support through preset reminders, personalize messaging, and make smart routing decisions based on centralized customer data.

5.Feedback surveys

Use automation tools to collect feedback from your customers to refine your delivery further. You can do this via AI chatbots and simply ask customers to rate their experience after the resolution of a query. You can also send a survey to their emails after an interaction.

Plivo CX’s CSAT collection feature helps you do that by sending predesigned surveys to customers and providing visual analysis in order to pinpoint areas that need improvement quickly.

Implement superior customer experience automation with Plivo CX 

Automating customer experience is seamless only when using the right solutions. Plivo CX offers an AI-driven platform with a full-packaged automation system designed to streamline communication, enhance engagement, and ensure smooth interactions across your channels.

Plivo CX also boasts a 24/7 OpenAI-powered chatbot that can be trained to make informed decisions guided by your company’s policies, accurately and rapidly address customer complaints, and escalate issues to human agents along with detailed notes or data when required.

In addition to that, the tool offers several features, such as:

• Unified communication: As noted before, you can manage all customer conversations across channels like email, voice, SMS, WhatsApp, and live chat from a single, agent-friendly platform
• Seamless integrations: Connect Plivo CX with your existing tools, including CRM, ERP, helpdesk, home-grown systems, and more
• Data-driven optimization: Track real-time analytics and generate custom reports to gain insights into customer interactions and agent performance
• Communication with media support: Enhance interactions with multimedia support, including images, videos, and documents
• Increased productivity: Streamline workflows with message templates, internal notes, and skills-based routing
• Comprehensive features: Leverage call recording, IVR, multi-language support, and robust security features for a complete solution

To learn more, book a demo!

The global A2P messaging market was valued at USD 71.50 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.4% from 2025 to 2030, far outpacing email and other communication channels.

This impressive growth is fueled by the need for businesses to connect with their customers in a direct, reliable, and immediate way—a need that A2P SMS messaging perfectly fulfills. 

Businesses can engage their audience effectively by adopting automated systems to send targeted messages. A2P SMS has become a cornerstone of modern customer communication, from marketing campaigns to critical alerts. 

In this article, let’s explore the fundamentals of A2P SMS messaging, its benefits, and some top use cases of A2P SMS.

What is A2P (application-to-person messaging)?

A2P messaging, also known as A2P SMS, is a communication method where businesses use automated systems to send messages directly to consumers or mobile users.

This form of communication is used for various purposes, such as marketing promotions, appointment reminders, order confirmations, or customer service alerts. 

A2P messaging is widely used across industries such as retail, healthcare, and financial services.

How does A2P SMS work? 

A2P SMS uses automated software systems to send text messages from applications to consumers. Businesses integrate these platforms with their CRM or marketing systems to trigger messages for specific actions. 

The messages are delivered via mobile network operators or cloud-based services. This system allows businesses to scale their messaging efforts, sending thousands of messages simultaneously while maintaining a personal touch.

A2P messaging vs P2P messaging

A2P and P2P (Person-to-Person) messaging differ in their usage and structure. Whereas A2P is used for business communications, such as promotions and notifications, P2P is meant for personal conversations. 

The table below outlines the key differences between these two messaging types.

Use cases of A2P texting 

These use cases explain how A2P SMS helps businesses engage with customers efficiently across various industries:

Alerts and notifications

A2P messaging is used to send important alerts, such as account activity or service interruptions, keeping customers informed in real time.

Example: Banks send alerts about suspicious account activity, or service providers notify customers of outages.

Mobile marketing

A2P SMS is also quite effective for sending promotional offers and deals directly to customers’ phones. It’s an ideal medium for reaching customers with time-sensitive deals.

Example: A retailer sends an SMS campaign offering a limited-time discount code for a holiday sale or a flash promotion for Black Friday.

Appointment reminders

Businesses in healthcare, hospitality, and services use A2P texting to remind customers of scheduled appointments. This reduces no-shows and improves customer satisfaction.

Example: A dental office sends a reminder about an upcoming appointment.

Voting and surveys

A2P SMS facilitates customer feedback through surveys or voting systems, making it easy to gather insights.

Example: TV shows request votes from viewers, or businesses send customer satisfaction surveys.

Two-factor authentication (2FA)

A2P SMS is commonly used to send verification codes as part of multi-factor authentication, which adds an extra layer of security.

Example: E-commerce platforms send one-time passwords for account login.

Customer support

A2P messaging can be used for automated customer support, providing responses or updates.

Example: Airlines send flight status updates or tech companies send issue resolution steps.

Order and delivery updates

A2P SMS keeps customers updated on the status of their orders and deliveries. It’s an essential tool for e-commerce businesses to keep customers informed about their purchases.

Example: Online retailers send shipment and delivery time updates.

Benefits of A2P SMS for businesses

A2P SMS offers several benefits for businesses. Here’s a closer look at some key advantages:

High open and engagement rates

Text messages boast a 98% open rate, significantly higher than other channels like email. This means businesses can be confident recipients will see their messages. A2P SMS is an ideal channel for delivering critical updates or promotional offers.

For instance, brands like Sephora and Domino’s use SMS to send promotions and updates, knowing that their messages are almost guaranteed to be read​.

Direct and immediate consumption

Text messages are delivered instantly and read almost immediately. This makes SMS ideal for time-sensitive information. 

For example, FedEx uses SMS to provide real-time shipping updates, ensuring customers receive important delivery information instantly.​

Cost-effective

SMS is a more affordable marketing tool compared to traditional methods like TV or print ads. Retailers often use SMS for flash sales or limited-time offers. Fashion brands like H&M send SMS to announce exclusive sales, reaching large audiences at a fraction of the cost​

Better deliverability

SMS messages have a higher deliverability rate than emails, as they’re less likely to get caught in spam filters. This reliability makes it ideal for customer service notifications, such as appointment reminders from healthcare providers like CVS.​

Scalability

A2P SMS allows businesses to easily scale messaging campaigns, from sending thousands of messages during promotions to personalized notifications. 

Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, SMS platforms allow you to adjust your messaging campaigns.

Increased efficiency

Automated A2P SMS campaigns help businesses improve operational efficiency. Companies like Amazon use SMS to send order confirmations and delivery updates, automating customer service tasks and reducing manual effort​.

Improved customer experience

SMS improves the customer experience by providing timely and relevant information such as delivery notifications, appointment reminders, or customer service alerts. This way businesses show they value their customers’ time and needs​.

Detailed analytics

A2P SMS platforms provide detailed insights into customer behavior, such as message open rates and click-through rates. Marketing platforms like EZ Texting allow businesses to track campaign performance and adjust messaging strategies accordingly​.

A2P 10DLC in the US 

A2P 10DLC (10-digit long code) is a messaging system in the U.S. that enables businesses to send application-to-person (A2P) SMS using standard 10-digit phone numbers. 

Introduced by U.S. carriers, A2P 10DLC offers higher throughput, better deliverability, and improved compliance for business messaging compared to traditional P2P methods. 

To use A2P 10DLC, businesses must register their brand and campaign details with The Campaign Registry (TCR) to meet regulatory and carrier requirements. This ensures transparency and reduces spam. 

It’s commonly used for notifications, marketing, and customer service, offering a scalable and cost-effective solution for business communication.

Regulations regarding A2P SMS

Regulations on A2P SMS messaging protect consumers from spam and ensure businesses maintain transparency and accountability. Key global frameworks include:

• Sender ID registration: Register sender IDs with carriers to improve message deliverability and avoid blacklisting
• Content restrictions: Adhere to content guidelines, avoiding spam, scams, and harmful content
• Opt-out mechanisms: Provide clear and easy-to-use opt-out options for recipients (e.g., replying “STOP”)
• Carrier compliance: In the U.S., carriers enforce specific guidelines, such as those for 10DLC (10-Digit Long Code) numbers, requiring businesses to register their campaigns and adhere to throughput and content standards
• Consent: Businesses must obtain explicit consent from recipients before sending A2P messages. This aligns with regulations like the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) in the U.S. and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in the EU

Understanding consent types in A2P messaging

A2P messaging requires varying levels of customer consent based on the purpose of communication. For instance:

• Customer-initiated messaging: Implied consent: When a customer initiates a conversation, such as asking about a product or service, their action implies consent to respond.
• Informational messaging: Express consent: Customers explicitly agree to updates like account changes, fraud alerts, or appointment reminders.
• Promotional messaging: Explicit consent: Businesses must ensure customers have confirmed their agreement to receive marketing content.

Non-compliance can lead to fines, legal actions, or carrier bans. TCPA violations can cost up to $1,500 per unsolicited message. Businesses must stay informed to ensure lawful messaging.

Use Plivo CX for your A2P SMS marketing campaign

Launching SMS campaigns can be overwhelming, especially when you’re struggling to reach the right customers, like a clothing brand missing out on holiday shoppers.

Without the right SMS marketing strategy and tools, targeting the right audience is a challenge.

As an omnichannel customer service platform, Plivo CX simplifies campaign management for businesses looking to launch product announcements, flash sales, and new collections through targeted A2P SMS campaigns

Plivo CX helps you connect with your audience in a personalized and automated manner, delivering higher engagement and driving better ROI. 

Here’s why you should choose Plivo CX to launch targeted SMS campaigns:

• Select your audience: Target the right customers with lists and segments

• Choose the channel: Engage customers through SMS, MMS, Email, or WhatsApp
• Send now or later: Manage and schedule campaigns for optimal timing and ROI

• Create your message: Use templates or AI Assist for quick, custom content

• Performance insights: Track key metrics to optimize your campaigns and maximize ROI

• Copywriter AI: Create personalized messages with Plivo CX using AI-powered suggestions and advanced audience segmentation. 

What’s more, Plivo CX taps into Plivo’s proprietary premium carrier network that is spread across 220+ countries. As a result, you can reduce your SMS marketing costs by up to 70% while reaching the right customers at the right time and driving instant engagement.

Sign up for a free demo and see how Plivo CX can optimize your A2P SMS campaigns!

In 2024, approximately 60% of customers report that long holds and wait times are the most frustrating parts of a service experience. So, for every additional minute, businesses risk losing loyal customers and new opportunities for growth.

Worryingly, this risk does not end here. Repetitive inquiries and inefficient workflows can strain even the most experienced agents, leading to burnout and reduced productivity. 

This is where AI call center agents can help transform operations. Trained on specific datasets, AI can manage simple tasks like answering FAQs and handling complex queries with real-time sentiment analysis.

This article will explore the most impactful ways AI agents can help brands optimize customer experience.

What are AI call center agents?

AI call center agents are virtual assistants that manage customer service interactions typically handled by human agents. They are powered by artificial intelligence and use machine learning to interact with customers via phone, chat or messaging apps.

AI agents can understand and respond to a wide range of frequent customer queries, resolve issues and perform transactions with minimal human intervention. In a way, this is a more intuitive way compared to resolving customer queries through voice prompts and keypad inputs.

In 2023, 40% of contact center workers in the U.S. reported that AI has made their work easier, particularly in handling customer information tasks.

10 ways AI can optimize call center operations

A Gartner study indicates that 80% of companies are utilizing AI to enhance customer experience, with many planning further adoption by 2025. This is because, unlike traditional call center operations that struggle with long wait times, repetitive tasks, and an overwhelming number of customer inquiries, AI call center agents can accelerate and optimize call center operations. Here is how:

1.Round-the-clock availability for continuous support

AI call center agents operate 24/7, ensuring customers can access continuous support. Whether it is midnight inquiries or early morning complaints, businesses are always ready to interact and resolve requests.

Continuous support is necessary if your business operates globally and needs to support customers across different time zones. Some common use cases include answering FAQs, processing transactions, and escalating complex cases to human agents when necessary.

AI call center agents are also highly scalable and can simultaneously handle any number of customer interactions. This ensures your call center remains agile and adaptive, regardless of demand volume. 

Additionally, the flexibility allows call centers to maintain superior service levels without hiring additional staff.

2.Automation of repetitive tasks and FAQs

Call center agents often have to spend much time on manual and mundane tasks such as data entry and status updates. AI call center agents can take it away from their plate and automate these routine interactions, reducing processing time and optimizing workflows.

It also allows human agents to focus on more complex issues requiring problem-solving and critical thinking. Moreover, customer service automation resolves customer issues 52% faster, increasing overall productivity.

Some of the other areas where AI call center agents can help include:

• Order tracking and status updates
• Call summarization and transcription
• Ticket creation and management
• Real-time language translation
• Sentiment analysis
• Agent assistance with real-time suggestions
• Knowledge base management and updates
• Personalized customer interactions

3.Personalization of customer interactions

According to a study by McKinsey, 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions from companies, while 66% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen. To this end, call center AI agents can analyze customer data and tailor interactions based on preferences, history, and behavior.

AI agents can also track patterns in past interactions and customize real-time responses to provide a highly personalized experience. For example, if a shipment is delayed due to weather, the AI agent can notify and even offer a coupon code for the inconvenience.

Here are a few areas where personalization works best:

• Customer greetings and onboarding
• Tailored product or service recommendation
• Issue resolution based on history
• Proactive support based on customer behavior
• Loyalty programs and VIP experiences
• Personalized follow-ups and check-ins

4.Call routing and intelligent escalation

If appropriately trained, AI call center agents can handle most complex queries. However, they may face challenges when situations require critical thinking, advanced reasoning or solving multi-step problems. 

At times like this, transferring these complex queries to a human agent is critical to maintaining a consistent customer experience.

AI call center agents use intelligent call routing to direct customers to the appropriate agent or department. Human agents are also presented with relevant information about callers and their intent to make the process quick and easy. This can boost agent productivity while enhancing customer experience.

5.Handling high volumes and reducing wait times

AI call center agents are designed to handle high call volumes effortlessly, eliminating the need to hire extra staff. This allows your business to maintain high performance and responsiveness even during times like seasonal rushes or promotional spikes.

Additionally, customers get access to help without long wait times or hold music. AI agents can guide them through self-service options, providing added assistance so that agents don’t feel overburdened and pressured. 

Moreover, they can determine a customer’s intent and cues, identifying the top reasons for reaching out to offer quick and personalized service.

6.Real-time sentiment analysis for improved interaction

AI call center agents detect customer sentiment and analyze verbal cues, tone and language patterns in real-time or past conversations. They can determine if the interactions are positive, negative or neutral, allowing human agents to judge situations and respond accordingly.

Sentiment analysis can further help in the following:

• Enhancing customer satisfaction by prioritizing issues based on the tone of the customers 
• Driving proactive engagement by tailoring responses to match the customer’s emotional state
• Alerting the manager of the customer’s emotion and allowing them to listen to the interaction and guide the agent
• Improving marketing strategies by analyzing customer reviews, social media comments, and survey data

7.Predictive insights for proactive support

Implementing predictive analytics within call centers can improve efficiency and productivity by up to 60%, allowing for better handling of peak call times and reduced customer wait times.

By analyzing past customer interactions and historical data, AI call center agents can predict future behavior and preferences. This is done by collecting data from various sources, such as past purchases, browsing history, and even social media history. 

The data is subsequently organized and analyzed to identify patterns that people might overlook.

It can help in:

• Providing proactive support by enabling companies to get in touch with customers before they report an issue
• Identifying low and peak times and enabling businesses to allot duties to agents accordingly, avoiding overstaffing or understaffing
• Identifying cross-selling and up-selling opportunities to help companies deliver targeted offers

8.Streamlined onboarding and training

AI call center agents can accelerate onboarding and help newly hired agents gain confidence faster. They can also provide real-time guidance to human agents as they handle interactions by offering replies, suggestions, and relevant information based on the context of the conversation.

When reps cannot handle a difficult conversation, AI call center agents can instantly pull up the necessary information from the integrated knowledge base and CRM systems, eliminating the need to search for information manually. This way, they enable reps to respond faster and more accurately and help new hires navigate customer conversations more confidently. 

9.Perform quality control

Quality control is necessary to maintain a consistent customer experience. AI call center agents help managers conduct thorough quality assessments, gain actionable insights and tailor training programs to boost agent performance and improve customer satisfaction.

Here are a few ways AI call center agents can help perform quality control:

• Analyze call transcription by generating accurate call transcripts. This allows managers to review interactions and identify weak areas that can be improved through targeted training
• Assess call transcripts to reveal trends, common issues, and customer preferences to enable managers to make data-driven decisions for process enhancements
• Evaluate agent performance based on customer service goals and benchmark

10.Reduce call wrap-up times

AI call center agents can analyze real-time interaction or post call recordings to generate accurate call summaries based on the conversation. Based on the insights, AI generates a summary highlighting key information such as customer complaints, resolutions and the need for any follow-up. 

This reduces the average amount of time spent on each call, allowing agents to complete post-call tasks faster.

Experience the power of AI in customer service with Plivo CX

AI call center agents are gradually becoming a must-have for recalibrating call center operations. However, it is important to note that AI's key function is to support human agents and augment their skills, not replace them.

To deliver a truly exceptional customer experience, humans' empathy, understanding and personal connection will need to be combined with AI's accuracy, agility and speed.

As an all-in-one omnichannel customer service platform for MSMEs and enterprises, Plivo CX offers reliable support, accelerating the delivery of efficient and personalized service. 

The platform empowers businesses to run operations smoothly with intuitive AI-powered chatbots, IVR, and a unified agent desktop that brings disparate channels, such as email, voice, SMS, WhatsApp, and live chat, in a single window pane. 

What’s more, you can train the OpenAI-powered chatbots on custom company datasets so that the customer query response contains only the most appropriate and accurate information.

Some of the stand-apart features of Plivo CX include:

• Omnichannel support: View, track, and manage customer conversations across channels on a unified platform
• Available 24/7: Attend to customers around the world with continuous support
• Easy escalations with notes and summaries: Summarize conversations and escalate to human agents when necessary
• Comprehensive customer insights: Analyze real-time or recorded conversations to identify areas of opportunities and improvements
• Agent coaching tools: Guide your human agents with features such as call recording, barge, and whisper to improve performance
• Automated ticketing: Categorize and prioritize incoming tickets, ensuring that urgent issues are addressed promptly
• IVR: Create automated phone menus to guide callers and route them to the right department or agent
• Integration with CRM for better support: Pull customer information effortlessly from your existing CRM and tech stack

Book a demo now to start a free trial.

FAQs

1.Are AI call center agents secure?

Yes, reputed AI systems adhere to strict security and data privacy standards, ensuring customer data is handled securely. Many AI agents integrate directly with CRM systems and follow industry regulations to protect customer information.

2.How can AI call center agents improve customer experience?

AI agents provide quick, 24/7 support, reducing wait times and resolving common issues immediately. They can also route calls to the right departments, personalize interactions, and adjust responses based on customer sentiment, all of which contribute to a more satisfying customer experience.

3.Can AI call center agents help reduce operational costs?

Yes, AI call center agents can significantly reduce operational costs by handling high volumes of inquiries without the need for additional human agents. This helps businesses save on staffing and overtime costs while improving efficiency.

Every customer call holds valuable information about what they really want and how they feel about your company. Now that we can improve customer experience with artificial intelligence (AI), manually reviewing hundreds of sales calls to analyze the most or least effective talking points is a thing of the past.

Analyzing phone calls with AI reveals what resonates with customers and what doesn’t. If your call center AI tools highlight frequent inquiries about billing issues or service plans, you need to refine your service plan documentation and improve billing transparency.

The global AI market in the call center segment is projected to exceed $4 billion by 2027. This means many businesses are using AI call analysis to save time and improve customer experience. Whether you’re new to AI call analysis or looking to improve your existing strategies, this blog offers valuable insights to help you succeed.

How does AI call analysis work?

You can use AI to analyze phone calls and find valuable insights into customer needs and preferences. Here are some key approaches:

Transcribe audio to text

An AI call analysis tool transcribes conversations from audio to text in real time. This lets you search through call transcripts for specific sentences or phrases without listening to every call.

Say you notice a sudden spike in complaints about a product or service. You can quickly surf through call transcripts and search for specific words to pinpoint customer complaints. This way, you derive meaningful insights from customer calls in less time.

Sentiment analysis

An AI-based call analysis tool goes beyond words. It finds trends in conversation, including repeated keywords, speech patterns, and even customer sentiments and tone.  

The tool extracts emotions from various sources, including customer emails, chatbot histories, customer service call transcripts, comments on returns and refunds, and customer feedback or surveys.

Keywords and topic detection

Phone call analysis with AI automatically identifies key topics and keywords discussed during calls. This helps you spot trends, like recurring questions about a particular feature or a product, allowing you to update FAQs, training materials, or even product documentation.

The benefit? It significantly reduces call handling times and pushes agents to provide accurate and timely responses, automatically improving customer service.

Predictive analysis

AI call analysis has the power to analyze past interactions and predict future behaviors. So if a customer frequently asks about a product upgrade, you might proactively reach out with customized offers or share new product updates with those customers.

Using AI for customer service also facilitates market segmentation. Analyzing data on customer behavior, preferences, and demographics helps you identify segments that are likely to be the most profitable. 

This approach lets you focus on high-value customer segments, leading to lower costs for acquiring new customers.

Benefits of using AI to analyze phone calls

Analyzing phone calls with AI offers numerous advantages that can transform customer service operations, including:

Learning customer sentiments

Talking to hundreds of customers each day, it’s easy to misinterpret a good call for a bad one and vice versa. An AI-powered sentiment analysis helps understand how customers feel during interactions. It assesses the tone and emotion behind their words for you to pinpoint areas of frustration or satisfaction and tackle them head-on.

For example, if AI detects a high level of frustration in calls about a specific service, it prompts you to inform your marketing team or provide additional training to agents who may lack the necessary information to effectively address customer concerns.

Identifying trends

AI for customer service uncovers emerging trends in customer inquiries and concerns. Analyzing call data over time reveals recurring issues or topics, such as a rise in questions about a new product feature.

Use this insight to adapt your offerings, enhance marketing strategies, or update training materials to better equip your team.

Improving training and development initiatives

AI call analysis also identifies common challenges agents face. You can apply these insights to tailor training sessions for addressing specific skills or knowledge gaps.

For instance, if calls reveal that agents struggle with handling billing-related inquiries, you can help them understand the pricing structure and discount options to improve their confidence.This ultimately leads to a more competent team.

Step-by-step guide to implementing AI for call analysis

Here’s a step-by-step guide to using AI to analyze phone calls.

1. Choose an AI-powered communication tool

When it comes to AI call analysis, several popular options stand out. These are a few platforms and key features to consider when setting up your audio streaming platform:

• Gong: Provides an in-depth analysis of sales calls.
• CallRail: Focuses on marketing analytics and monitoring call performance and customer interactions.
• Telldesk: Offers real-time call analysis and helps identify trends and customer sentiment.

Depending on your objective, choose a platform that best suits your business. Consider these features when making your choice for an AI-powered communication tool:  

• Ease of integration with your existing CRM system
• Detailed analytics and visual dashboards
• Real-time call analysis
• Sentiment analysis
• User-friendly interface

2. Categorize calls

Choose call centers AI tools that categorize calls in real-time based on issue types, product inquiries, and customer satisfaction levels. This feature provides managers with better insights into common customer concerns and agent performance, making it easy to identify trends and training needs. 

For example, Plivo creates an AI-driven call summary within a few seconds, as opposed to manual note-taking, which could take minutes or more, depending on the complexity of the call.

Plivo segments calls by:

• Subaccount
• Geo-location
• Hangup details
• Carrier network
• Device metadata

3. Speech-to-text transcription

Choose an AI call analysis tool that captures user input with real-time transcription to perform sentiment analysis.

Plivo, for instance, offers support for speech recognition in 27 languages and their regional variants. It also offers pre-built use-case-specific IVR models with pre-answer that lets you specify what happens after a call is transferred but before it’s picked up.

Additionally, it filters profanity, detects and masks inappropriate content in transcriptions, and improves speech recognition accuracy with a list of hint words expected from the speaker. These features lead to better AI call analysis and save your business from legal risks and penalties due to profanity in content.

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4. Perform qualitative call analysis

Poor call quality directly impacts sales and customer satisfaction. When customers can't effectively communicate with your team, you risk losing sales opportunities and existing clients.

The solution is to choose a platform that performs — Plivo.

Tools like Plivo’s call debug UI quickly find the root causes of these issues, helping businesses mitigate these risks, improve overall call quality, and enhance customer experience.

With this feature, you get answers to:

• Who initiated the call?
• How and from where was the call initiated?
• Where did it terminate?
• Which device, operating system (OS), browser, and mic was used?
• Who hung up the call and why?
• What other legs were involved in the call flow?

Moreover, it collects feedback from end users using the Call Quality Feedback API. This process determines the root cause through correlations between audio quality metrics and various attributes, including network conditions, geolocation, and device metadata.

5. Generate comprehensive reports

A detailed summary of key call quality indicators such as latency, MOS, and packet loss makes complex data more accessible. You can tailor reports to suit different stakeholders, ensuring the information is relevant and easy to understand.

Plivo lets you access all or any of the call insights data within the console using existing views, or even push data to third-party AI tools/platforms.This makes the call not only more accessible but also actionable.

6. Implement continuous KPI performance monitoring

Key metrics provide insights into customer satisfaction. Regularly collecting feedback will help you stay in tune with customer needs and expectations.

Keep an eye on the following metrics:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Measures loyalty by asking how likely customers are to recommend your product to others on a scale from 0 to 10.
• Customer Effort Score (CES): Assesses how easy or difficult it is for customers to interact with a company.
• First Contact Resolution (FCR): Indicates the percentage of customer issues resolved during the first interaction.

For example, tracking NPS reveals how likely customers are to recommend your service, while CES measures how easy it is for them to get their issues resolved. 

Incorporate Plivo’s VoIP solution for improved customer experience

Plivo easily integrates with existing AI tools/systems. It’s really a simple five-step process:

1. Sign up: Create an account on Plivo.
2. Purchase number: Acquire a number through the Plivo console or API.
3. Attach number: Link the number to your application.
4. Establish connection: Use the following XML instruction to start streaming:

<Response>
<Stream bidirectional="true" keepCallAlive="true">wss://yourstream.websocket.io/audiostream</Stream>
</Response>

‍

5. Send audio back: Stream audio back to Plivo using the websocket connection for real-time conversational interactions.

Once integrated, you can facilitate real-time call analysis and action on live audio data. With automated call transcriptions, you can easily dive into sentiment analysis, allowing you to understand customer emotions instantly. This capability ensures that you maintain high-quality calls, even during peak times, so your customers consistently receive top-notch service.

Plivo also offers a feature called Queueing, which enables AI analysis to capture and process all calls in the queue. Combining detailed debug logs with AI insights helps identify recurring call patterns and issues to encourage proactive problem-solving before escalation.

All of these powerful features come at a competitive price of just $0.003 per minute per stream for VoIP and audio streaming. Use AI to analyze phone calls with Plivo and improve your customer service experience.

Contact us today to learn more about how Plivo can improve customer experience with AI.

Twilio and Vonage are among the most well-known Communications Platforms as Service (CPaaS) providers. Gartner reviews highlight Vonage's robust, user-friendly features, which make it a reliable platform for businesses of all sizes. In contrast, Twilio stands out for its developer-focused, highly customizable APIs, appealing to businesses seeking more control and flexibility.

However, for businesses seeking the best of both worlds, Plivo offers a compelling alternative. It blends Twilio’s developer-friendly interface with Vonage’s comprehensive features, making it an ideal choice for scaling businesses looking to keep their communication costs in check.

In this blog post, we’ll compare Twilio vs. Vonage, and look closely at Twilio features, integrations, Vonage capabilities, and pricing. We’ll also explore how Plivo offers a strong middle ground for businesses seeking a balance between Twilio’s and Vonage’s unique offerings.

Twilio vs. Vonage: A quick comparison 

The table below focuses on comparing Twilio and Vonage, providing a brief overview of their functionalities.

Read on for an in-depth analysis of Twilio features, Vonage capabilities, Vonage API features, and pricing structures.

Twilio vs. Vonage: Detailed features comparison 

Both Twilio and Vonage offer powerful APIs and tools to enhance messaging, voice, and video capabilities, but they differ in key areas that could impact your decision. Here’s a detailed comparison of Twilio and Vonage features to help you find the best fit for your business.

Twilio SMS API features and use cases

• MMS support: Drive two-way engagement with cross-channel messaging for MMS and more using a single API.
• ‍Screen-sharing and live chat: Add live chat, share screens, and create custom video players.
• ‍Personalized messages: Customize messages for reminder notifications, delivery updates, and more.

Use cases

• Appointment reminders
• Delivery notifications
• Emergency alerts
• Send marketing messages
• Account notifications
• Verifications and OTPs

Vonage SMS API features and use cases

• Fraud Defender: Protect your revenue and reputation with real-time alerting and automatic blocking of suspicious traffic.
• Two-way messaging: Allow your customers to reply to messages for an interactive, chat-like experience.

• Call queuing: Automatically queue high-volume traffic to the carrier networks under each carrier’s regulations.
• Message concatenation: Split and seamlessly reassemble longer text messages according to carrier specifications.

Use cases

• Automated notifications
• Missed appointments
• Failed delivery attempts
• Order status updates and shipping alerts
• Promotional campaigns with detailed offers
• Service outage or maintenance alerts

Twilio Verify API features and use cases

• Actionable insights: Access dashboards showing conversion and success rates by region and channel, along with SMS fraud trends to optimize fraud prevention.
• Silent network authentication: Authenticate securely without user interaction, protecting accounts and transactions seamlessly within your app.
• Improved compliance: Build compliant healthcare and financial applications without requiring personally identifiable information (PII).
• Route optimization: Verify and use premium telephony routes on Twilio's Super Network to prioritize deliverability and speed.
• Multiple delivery channels: Deliver OTPs through SMS, WhatsApp, voice, and email, all via a single API.

Use cases

• Login protection
• Signup verification
• Improve message deliverability
• Personalize messaging and voice calls
• Stop SIM swap fraud
• Enrich data and risk models

Vonage Verify API features and use cases

• Pre-designed templates: Customize message templates, pre-record voice calls, and configure retry intervals for optimal user experience.
• Multi-channel authentication: Authenticate users across WhatsApp, email, Silent Authentication, SMS, and voice channels.
• Dynamic code generation: Generate unique verification codes in real-time to improve security for logins and transactions.
• Customizable workflows: Set up tailored verification workflows to match specific user journeys and security needs.

Use cases

• Fraud prevention during high-risk activities (e.g., large transfers)
• Protection for subscription sign-ups and recurring services
• Age verification for restricted content or purchases
• Secure access to financial or healthcare applications

Twilio Voice API features and use cases

• Interactive Voice Response (IVR): Build a self-service auto attendant menu that customers can navigate in multiple languages.
• Call transcriptions: Record and transcribe call conversations for live captions and future reference.
• Speech recognition: Use speech-to-text to enable voice forms, surveys, and lead qualification.
• Call tracking: Track caller details, call time, and integrate data into your CRM.

Use cases

• Self-service customer support
• Real-time call transcriptions for compliance
• Voice-based lead qualification
• Automated call tracking in CRM systems
• Customer surveys through voice forms

Vonage Voice API features and use cases 

• Automatic speech recognition: Add voice control and enable easy-to-use self-service with automatic speech recognition in over 120 languages.
• Call forwarding: Direct calls to different numbers or devices based on predefined rules or conditions.
• Real-time call control: Provide businesses with the ability to manage and control calls in real-time, including muting, recording, or transferring calls.
• Call recording: Record incoming and outgoing calls for future reference or compliance purposes.

Use cases

• Automated phone menus for customer self-service
• Compliance recording for financial and healthcare services
• International businesses establishing a local phone presence

Twilio Customer Engagement Suite

Twilio Flex

Twilio Flex allows you to manage interactions with customers across channels such as phone calls or emails. You can:

• Use your current voice carrier and phone number with Flex.
• Surface responses to customer questions to save time.
• Gain insights on customer conversations, track KPIs, and configure custom dashboards.
• Augment existing solutions with a custom IVR.
• Customers can engage via SMS, WhatsApp, voice, Facebook Messenger, WebChat, and more.

Twilio Engage

Twilio Engage makes it easy to launch email campaigns quickly and effectively. It helps you create emails with AI-generated headings, text, and images—cutting down hours of work. Built on clean, reliable data, it ensures your messages reach the right audience with greater impact.

The platform also provides tools for automating tasks, helping teams run effective campaigns with less effort and better results.

Vonage Contact Center

Vonage offers a powerful omnichannel contact center solution that lets agents handle all kinds of customer interactions, both internal and external.

The platform combines everything you need to keep your team productive, from team collaboration tools and workforce management to call routing and real-time analytics. This makes it a great fit for a variety of Vonage use cases, whether you're in sales, customer support, or even remote team management.

With Vonage, you can route calls to the right agents based on their skills, making sure customers are connected to someone who can help. The dynamic IVR system understands customers in dozens of languages. The AI-powered features support:

• Live sentiment analysis
• Call monitoring
• Whisper
• Barge

These features help coach agents in real time and ensure quality support at every step.

The accelerating demand for Voice AI finds companies RaftLabs building practical, domain-specific applications, primarily for high-stakes sectors like hospitality. Moving past generic call bots, Raftalabs prioritizes context-aware conversations for a human-like response. This powerful approach enables businesses to reduce costs while delivering excellent, empathetic customer engagement.

Twilio vs. Vonage customer support

When it comes to customer support, both Twilio and Vonage offer distinct approaches to assist businesses and end-users. This comparison highlights the key differences in their customer support plans.

Twilio customer support plans

• Developer plan: Provides basic support with API status notifications and web support, but no guaranteed response times.
• Production plan: Offers more robust support, with guaranteed response times for priority issues (3 hours for P1, 6 hours for P2, and 9 hours for P3), live chat support, and phone support, with a minimum monthly cost based on usage.
• Business plan: Delivers faster response times and higher-touch support, including phone and live chat. The pricing scale depends on monthly spending, starting at a minimum of $250 for the production plan.

Vonage customer support plans

• Standard plan: Caters to simple, non-critical Vonage use cases that require reliable support (8 am-5 pm) with best-effort response times. It includes access to the online knowledge base, email support, web support, and chat support, but doesn’t offer phone support.
• Priority plan: Offers 24/7 support with a service level objective for response times and phone support. It also includes service status notifications and a 99.99% platform availability service level agreement (SLA), starting at $750 per month.
• Premium plan: Caters to high-volume, mission-critical use cases, offering 24/7 support with guaranteed SLAs for response times, phone support, and access to the same platform availability SLA.
• Premier plan: Provides top-tier support, including a designated support engineer, customer solutions management, best practices guidance, quarterly roadmap webinars, and regular health checks and business reviews.

Twilio vs. Vonage: Pricing

Let’s compare Twilio pricing vs. Vonage pricing to get a clear view of how their cost structures compare.

Twilio pricing

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Vonage pricing

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Twilio vs. Vonage: Pros and cons

We’ve outlined the pros and cons of Twilio vs. Vonage to understand which solution provider better suits your business.

Twilio pros and cons

Pros

• Users appreciate Twilio's user-friendly setup, with clear instructions and an intuitive interface that makes integrating applications quick and easy, saving time and effort during onboarding. (Source)
• Several users have specifically enjoyed Twilio's feature that converts MMS messages to SMS. (Source)
• Some users have praised Twilio's developer documentation as thorough and immensely helpful. (Source)

Cons

• Some users have complained about poor customer support and that they had to resort to the community to solve a problem. (G2, TrustRadius)
• The cost gets high, especially for high-volume messaging requirements (Source)

Vonage pros and cons

Pros

• Several users have praised Vonage for its extensive feature set and wide range of integrations, stating that it covers almost every feature and integration imaginable. (Source)
• Users also enjoy its high-quality voice and video calls and easy configuration. (Source)
• Users have complimented Vonage Business Communications for its user-friendly interface, particularly when making changes to user profiles, voicemail passwords, and other settings. (Source)

Cons

• Some users have complained about frequent call drops due to a technical glitch. (Source)
• Several users have expressed frustration with the extension limit of three devices in Vonage, as it restricts their ability to work efficiently across multiple locations. (Source) 
• Users have also reported the software being complex and confusing, particularly when trying to find specific contacts or navigate certain features. (Source)

Here’s a quick breakdown of company sizes based on G2 data for both CPaaS providers:

• Twilio: 50.2% small businesses, 30% mid-market, 19.8% large enterprises.
• Vonage: 67.2% small businesses, 23.3% mid-market, 9.5% large enterprises.

Introducing Plivo: A reliable API solution

As the best communication platform for businesses, Plivo offers reliable coverage in over 220 countries and territories, ensuring your messages and calls reach users worldwide. 

In addition to global coverage, Plivo stands out among the three providers for its user-friendly interface, transparent pricing, and a well-rounded combination of customizable features. It has earned strong reviews from users on platforms like G2.

Moreover, Plivo’s user base predominantly consists of small businesses, with 79.1% of its users coming from this segment, 16% from mid-market companies, and 4.8% from large enterprises. This makes Plivo an ideal choice for growing businesses that need a scalable, cost-effective CPaaS solution.

Here’s a quick rundown of Plivo’s API solutions.

• SMS API: Plivo’s SMS API lets businesses send and receive text messages globally. Whether you're sending promotional offers, appointment reminders, or verification codes, Plivo makes it simple to integrate SMS into your application.

• Voice API: Plivo's Voice API allows you to make and receive high-quality voice calls, automate workflows with IVR (Interactive Voice Response), and even build custom call centers. It’s great for businesses looking to add voice functionality to their apps or improve customer service by handling calls efficiently with auto attendants.

• Verify API: Plivo’s Verify API streamlines user authentication with two-factor authentication (2FA), using SMS, voice calls, or email for businesses that need to securely verify users, or add extra layers of security during sign-ins.
• WhatsApp Business API: With Plivo’s WhatsApp Business API, you can engage with customers on the world’s most popular messaging platform. Plivo simplifies the integration of WhatsApp into your business’s communication strategy, enabling you to send order updates, customer support messages, and promotional content.

Audio streaming: Plivo’s audio streaming feature gives you access to the raw audio stream of your voice calls by transmitting live audio to your backend. Your sales team can use it to:  

• Build voice-based AI applications that respond to support queries.
• Get real-time transcription or sentiment analysis.
• Create IVR systems with conversational support to handle customer requests. 

It stands out for its robust customer support options, especially for premium users, who prefer 24/7 access to assistance. From getting started to scaling, Plivo's support team provides assistance with troubleshooting, guidance, and solutions.

Plivo’s API solutions provide businesses with flexible, scalable communication tools, whether for global SMS, voice calls, secure verifications, or WhatsApp messaging. Their reliable network coverage and responsive support ensure your business stays connected and efficient, no matter where your customers are.

Book a demo to see for yourself.

One-time password (OTP) scams are a growing threat to businesses and consumers alike.

In 2021, US consumers lost a staggering $13.9 billion to fraud, with OTP scams accounting for a significant portion of these losses. This rising trend poses serious financial and reputational risks for businesses.

But what exactly is OTP fraud, and how do scammers exploit it? Let’s see.

What is OTP fraud?

An OTP is sent to individuals by mobile phone or email. It’s used to authenticate transactions, such as logging into accounts or making payments.

Fraudsters, however, exploit this security feature through various tactics. These include SIM swapping, phishing emails, fake tech support calls, and social engineering. They design each of these methods to trick individuals into revealing their OTPs.

How does OTP fraud work?

OTP fraud takes place when an attacker uses the OTP system to gain unauthorized access to someone’s financial accounts or online profiles. Here’s how it works:

1. Targeting victims: Fraudsters often select targets based on their online behavior, weak points in communication methods like SMS or email, or publicly shared information on social media.
2. Launching the attack: They employ phishing techniques to impersonate legitimate organizations, such as banks or e-commerce platforms. They focus on creating a sense of urgency through emails, SMS, or phone calls to trick targets into taking action.
3. Collecting personal information: The phishing messages lead to fake websites that look like trusted ones. Here, targets unknowingly provide personal details like usernames and passwords.
4. Trapping with OTPs: The fake website triggers the OTP and sends it to the target’s phone. Fraudsters then use various methods to steal the OTP, such as:

• Social engineering: The attacker may try to convince the individual to share the OTP, claiming it is for account verification.
• Malware Interception: If malware infects the individual’s device, it intercepts and captures the OTP without the user’s knowledge.

5. Taking over the account: With the user credentials and OTP, the fraudster can access the account. This allows them to perform unauthorized transactions, steal data, or take control of future OTPs.

Common methods used by scammers

OTP phishing attacks take many forms, each targeting different vulnerabilities in users.

Below are some common OTP fraud tactics:

Smishing

Smishing is a term that combines “SMS” and “phishing.” Here, fraudsters use fake text messages to trick individuals into downloading malware or sharing sensitive information, like OTPs.

Smishing attacks have become more common. In 2023, 75% of organizations reported facing these types of attacks.

Scammers often hide their identity by spoofing phone numbers or sending texts from email accounts. For example, smishing texts often include links or attachments that seem safe but lead to fake websites.

These imitation sites look like real financial or service provider portals, where users may unknowingly enter their login credentials and OTPs. This gives scammers access to real accounts.

SIM swapping

SIM swapping occurs when fraudsters trick a mobile carrier into transferring a victim's phone number.

Here’s how it works:

• Attackers gather personal information like names, addresses, or answers to security questions, often through phishing, data breaches, or dark web purchases.
• This information is used to impersonate the victim and contact the mobile carrier, claiming that the scammers lost or damaged the SIM card. They then ask the carrier to transfer the victim's phone number to a new SIM.
• If the carrier fails to verify the request, the fraudster takes control of the number. From there, they intercept calls, texts, and verification codes, allowing them to bypass security and access sensitive accounts.

This growing problem has had a significant financial impact.

In 2023 alone, SIM swapping fraud caused over $48 million in losses, targeting both individuals and companies

So, to protect your business from SIM-swapping attacks, combining the right technology with a proven approach is essential.

Using Plivo, you can validate phone numbers smoothly, ensuring fraudsters can’t take advantage of SIM swaps.

The Plivo Lookup API helps detect SIM swaps in real time. It offers phone number validation and key analytics to assess risks. Some of the critical data it provides includes:

• Current and original network details
• Roaming status and network changes
• Risk scores and unusual patterns that indicate fraud

Businesses can spot suspicious activity and take action before any harm occurs with these insights.

SMS pumping

SMS pumping, or artificially inflated traffic (AIT), is a cybercrime aimed at businesses that rely on SMS for sending OTPs or app download links.

In this type of attack, bots fill out a company’s online forms with fake phone numbers controlled by attackers. Believing these to be real requests, the business sends out SMS messages to these fake numbers.

For businesses, SMS pumping increases messaging costs, wastes resources, and can overwhelm systems.

Plus, if customers see too many unnecessary OTPs, it may damage their trust in the company.

To address this, Plivo has two built-in security layers—Fraud Shield and SMS Pumping Protection—that help protect Verify and Messaging traffic from SMS pumping attacks. Both features use an advanced detection model to identify artificially inflated traffic and block suspicious messages before they’re sent, helping reduce exposure to fraud and unnecessary costs.

The Geo Permissions feature also gives you control over where messages are sent by allowing you to enable or disable countries and apply message-per-hour thresholds based on your risk tolerance.

Voice phishing (vishing)

Vishing, or voice phishing, is a type of scam where fraudsters use phone calls to trick people into sharing sensitive information, like login details, credit card numbers, or bank account info. Scammers exploit this data for identity theft and financial fraud, making vishing widespread and costly.

In 2023, over 56 million U.S. adults — about 21% of the population — fell victim to phone scams, resulting in losses totaling $25.4 billion.

In vishing scams, attackers often impersonate trusted organizations and use phone calls to create a sense of urgency and trust. They also build a personal connection over the phone, reacting to what the victim says and using emotional cues.

How OTP scams impact businesses

Here’s how scammers misuse OTPs and why this should be a major concern for businesses:

Account takeovers

Stealing or tricking users into sharing their OTP allows fraudsters to bypass security, gain control of accounts, and access private information or funds.

This can harm trust and cause legal problems for businesses, especially those handling sensitive data or finances.

In fact, the average cost of a data breach in 2023 was $4.45 million, underscoring the serious financial impact of such security failures.

Unauthorized transactions

With OTPs, scammers can authorize fraudulent transactions. If they gain access to a customer’s account, they can make purchases, transfer funds, or exploit stored payment methods.

As a result, businesses may face chargebacks, financial losses, and increased scrutiny from payment providers due to such fraudulent activities​.

Fake account registration and spamming

Some scammers use stolen OTPs to create fake accounts on business platforms, taking advantage of promotional offers or testing one-time passcode security.

Fake registrations can distort the numbers, affect data accuracy, and lead to spam, resulting in unnecessary management overload.

Spreading malware or phishing attacks

If scammers access your business email or social media accounts, they can send phishing messages or malware links to your contacts.

Scammers make these messages look authentic, so recipients are more likely to trust and open them. This spreads the scam further and damages your reputation. It also puts your clients, partners, and employees at risk.

Practical tips for protecting against OTP fraud

To effectively protect your business from OTP fraud, it's important to take a proactive approach. Implementing strong security measures can significantly reduce risks.

Here are some practical tips for businesses to safeguard against OTP fraud:

Implement 2FA with fraud prevention

Two-factor authentication (2FA) adds an important layer of security by requiring both a password and an OTP.

However, despite its effectiveness, many organizations are still not fully adopting this security measure. In fact, a recent survey found that 64% of organizations haven't fully adopted multi-factor authentication (MFA).

This is concerning because research shows that MFA can block over 99.9% of account takeover attacks. Without MFA, businesses are leaving their accounts — and their customers — vulnerable to fraud.

Plivo's 2FA/OTP capabilities can help overcome OTP verification vulnerabilities. Adding these extra layers of security prevent account takeovers, reduce fraud risks, and secure high-value transactions.

Additionally, Plivo provides several advanced features to further enhance security:

• Geo permission management: Control which countries your Plivo account can send SMS or make calls to, blocking high-risk areas.
• International toll fraud protection: Manage connections to premium numbers and set blacklists to prevent toll fraud.
• Pattern-based alerts: Get notified about unusual SMS or voice activity, like sudden drops in delivery rates, to detect potential fraud early.

Given the growing risk of cyberattacks, it’s more important than ever to implement 2FA. By doing so, you can better protect your business and customers from fraud.

Monitor and track OTP delivery effectiveness

Delays or failed OTP deliveries can frustrate users, damage trust, and open doors for attackers to exploit system weaknesses.

With Plivo’s real time delivery reports, businesses can monitor OTP performance globally. This helps track delivery rates and identify potential issues. 

Businesses can use this data to quickly address problems and ensure they deliver OTPs promptly and securely.

Limiting OTP validity and attempt frequency

Setting a time limit for OTP validity and limiting the number of attempts helps prevent misuse and reduces fraud risk.

Businesses can also lower the chances of attackers guessing or intercepting valid codes. This ensures that only legitimate users can complete the authentication process within the allowed time.

Regularly update your security protocols and stay compliant

Staying compliant with security standards ensures that businesses are using the latest practices to protect data. This helps guard against new fraud techniques and reduces the risk of breaches.

Choose a OTP service provider, such as Plivo, that ensures continuous compliance with security standards. Plivo designs its OTP solutions to adhere to regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

With advanced security features and detailed reporting, Plivo makes it easier for businesses to stay compliant and protect sensitive user data.

Choose a secure algorithm

Use strong algorithms like HMAC-based one-time passwords (HOTP) or time-based one-time passwords (TOTP).

These options are reliable because they generate unique and hard-to-predict OTPs. Their cryptographic methods help protect against common attacks, ensuring secure authentication.

Provide multiple delivery options

Flexibility is important for OTP delivery. Offering choices like SMS, email, or voice ensures users can receive their OTPs in the way that suits them best. 

This also improves user experience and offers a backup if one method doesn't work.

Educate users on security best practices 

Teaching users about security best practices for OTPs reduces the risk of fraud and strengthens overall protection. Encourage users to create strong, unique passwords, avoid sharing OTPs, and recognize phishing attempts.

Regularly remind them about the importance of safeguarding their accounts and following secure authentication processes to prevent unauthorized access.

Prevent OTP fraud with the help of Plivo today

When selecting an OTP provider, it's important to choose one that offers both robust security and user-friendly features. Plivo provides a secure and adaptable OTP solution, designed to fit your unique needs.

Plivo’s OTP services simplify the authentication process, offering global SMS delivery, instant reporting, and customizable templates for easy implementation.

Whether it's safeguarding transactions, verifying users, or securing sensitive information, Plivo’s OTP services offer the reliability and flexibility necessary for your security needs.

Want to see how Plivo can assist in preventing OTP fraud? Contact us today.

A voice API is a tool that software developers use to make and receive phone calls programmatically. With a voice API, they can use various channels, phones, browsers, and virtual assistants.

 It connects web or mobile applications to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), enabling seamless voice communication without needing extensive telecom expertise, time, and developer resources.

Voice APIs are highly configurable, easily integrated, and scalable tools, providing cost-effective communication for businesses.

‍How much does a voice API cost? 

A voice API costs typically range from $0.003 to $0.014 per minute for outbound calls and $0.003 to $0.022 per minute for inbound calls, depending on call type, provider, and features. 

Prices may differ due to factors like infrastructure, service quality, and additional features like real-time analytics or automated routing. 

Using a voice API makes more financial and logistical sense for businesses than investing resources into developing advanced voice calling features from scratch. By choosing a best-in-class voice API provider, companies can integrate various voice capabilities with a shorter development span and achieve a better ROI. 

Plivo offers cost-effective solutions with competitive pricing while maintaining high-quality services.

Here’s a quick comparison of pricing for each type of voice call between Plivo and Twilio to give an idea of voice API cost structures and offerings.

‍How can a voice API give customers a better experience? 

Integrating a voice API enables businesses to offer personalized, efficient customer support services on browsers or apps with advanced voice features. It can help reduce voice call traffic and wait times in contact centers. These APIs can route calls efficiently through the phone network, including toll-free phone numbers, ensuring smooth call handling.

Unlike older inflexible phone network systems, a programmable voice API supports AI-powered virtual assistants that can receive calls 24/7, understand user requests, and guide customers through their queries as effectively as human agents. With voice recognition and text-to-speech features, customers can express themselves naturally and receive the assistance they need without delay.

The voice bot can also record calls and collect contextual data to prepare agents to resolve the issue when they take over quickly. This streamlined process saves time and preserves the unique, personal touch of voice calling.

Features like click-to-call, voice control, and hands-free interactions also increase flexibility, allowing users to have an interactive and engaging call. 

Wouldn’t it be nice to simply say the query out loud and receive a clear response instantly?

A voice API makes this possible by enabling your company to answer customers' questions instantly without navigating through endless clicks. Voice API seamlessly integrates voice solutions into browsers or apps to transform the customer experience. 

There’s more to it:

• Interactive and hands-free features: Customers can use click-to-call, voice commands, or hands-free interactions, enhancing convenience.
• Personalized customer support services: Offer tailored assistance with AI-powered virtual assistants and voice recognition features. These tools help customers articulate requests naturally and get relevant responses.
• 24/7 availability: AI-powered virtual assistants answer calls anytime, providing immediate assistance, even outside business hours.
• Enhanced agent support: Voice bots can record calls, gather context, and equip agents with the information they need to resolve issues swiftly when human intervention is required.

Voice APIs streamline communication and create a memorable, user-friendly experience that fosters trust and loyalty.

How can a voice API streamline communication processes?

A voice API makes interactions more efficient and aligned with business goals and needs. Here's how:

• Makes it easy for customers to connect: Unlike traditional voice calls confined to phone networks, a programmable voice API extends voice capabilities to an app or website. Users can use a click-to-call feature directly within an app or site.
• Adds efficiency to your team: Automating routine customer interactions allows voice bots to handle a significant portion of inbound calls. This reduces call traffic in the contact center, freeing human agents to manage complex or high-priority cases.
• Scales with business: As businesses grow, you can seamlessly expand voice-enabled services, ensuring consistent voice call handling without sacrificing quality. For example, businesses can use voice APIs to automate phone calls for marketing campaigns or appointment reminders.
• Supports developers: From a developer's perspective, a voice API integrates smoothly with other APIs and communication platforms. 
• Offers robust security: Programmable voice APIs often come with robust security features, including encryption and secure call record storage, in compliance with regulations like GDPR or HIPAA. 

Take, for example, CallHub.

They use Plivo's voice API to simplify communication for political campaigns, offering tools like power and predictive dialers. These features let campaigns reach voters efficiently, connecting them directly with representatives or leaving messages without manual effort. Browser-based calling also ensures volunteers' privacy, making it secure and straightforward for customers to interact.

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Choosing a voice API provider

Programmable voice APIs can range from basic functionality to feature-rich platforms that handle complex voice call flows and integrations. Here’s what to look for when evaluating a voice API provider:

Comprehensive call management features

A strong voice API should include fundamental voice call management functions to make, receive, and record calls, and global audio conferences. To ensure effective communication, look for APIs that offer configurable conference experiences, such as muting/unmuting participants, automatic call termination, and host controls.

Text-to-speech and accessibility options

Text-to-speech (TTS) is essential for both accessibility and user convenience. It converts text into spoken output, making automated systems more user-friendly, especially for multitasking or on-the-go customers. 

Ensure your provider's TTS capabilities support multiple languages and accents to cater to diverse customer needs.

Smart interactive voice response (IVR) systems

A voice API should enable the creation of intelligent, multi-level interactive voice response (IVR) systems that route calls efficiently. 

Smart IVRs can handle straightforward customer service tasks autonomously, incorporating:

• AI technologies for interactive experiences
• Intelligent call routing
• Integration with multiple channels
• Call recording and TTS capabilities

These capabilities help build customer-first IVR solutions that guide users seamlessly to the right department or agent.

Real-time call handling and notifications

Real-time features such as Answering Machine Detection (AMD) are invaluable for optimizing call strategies based on the type of response received. 

AMD helps identify whether an outgoing call is answered by a human or voicemail, which is especially beneficial for tasks such as lead follow-ups, customer updates, and automated voice surveys.

Integration with existing systems

The right voice API should facilitate integration with communication systems, including SIP-enabled hardware and software. 

This adaptability allows your business to maintain flexibility as communication needs evolve.

Audio streaming

Audio streaming, or media streaming, is a vital feature that sets advanced voice APIs apart. This functionality allows your application to deliver calls while duplicating call media to multiple recipients. It also enables real-time analysis and enhances features like sentiment analysis, conversational AI, call transcriptions, fraud detection, and voice biometrics.

Plivo stands out by offering all of these essential voice API capabilities. Moreover, it offers advanced features, such as:

• Play audio prompts: Plays pre-recorded audio files during a call, making it useful for IVR menus or announcements. This feature facilitates caller engagement and delivers professionalism in communication.
• Text to speech: Converts text into natural voice messages in various languages. It supports real-time updates like notifications, reducing dependency on pre-recorded audio and increasing flexibility.
• Dual channel call recording: Captures conversations with separate audio tracks for each participant. This allows for detailed analysis of interactions, making it ideal for call centers or compliance needs.
• Custom caller ID: Displays a specific phone number during calls, which builds brand trust and increases the likelihood of calls being answered. It’s particularly helpful for global and region-specific outreach efforts.
• Get digit input: Collects user responses via keypad entries, making it useful for gathering information such as account numbers or confirming choices during calls. It simplifies customer interactions and integrates effectively into IVR systems.
• Advanced call control: Gives businesses detailed control over call functions like transfer, mute, and hold. This capability supports smoother call handling and enhances customer support operations.
• Supervisor coaching: Allows supervisors to listen in on live calls and provide guidance without the caller being aware. This feature supports agent training and improves call outcomes as they happen.
• Call whisper: Plays a short message to the agent before connecting the call, providing context about the caller or the purpose of the call. It helps agents prepare better, leading to more tailored and effective support.

How does Plivo's voice API work?

Plivo's voice API is a robust framework that enables developers to manage voice communications programmatically with REST APIs to allow comprehensive control over call flows—from initiation to termination. 

Throughout a call's lifecycle, Plivo sends webhooks at various stages, prompting your application to respond with specific commands. This dynamic exchange between webhooks and responses provides granular control over call behavior, facilitating the creation of customized and efficient voice communication solutions.

What makes a good voice API?

A good API is easy to build. It offers flexibility and customization options to cater to different users’ needs and tailor a top-notch experience for your customers. 

Here’s what to look for:

SDKs and robust documentation 

A good voice API provider should offer developers comprehensive Software Development Kits (SDKs) and robust documentation to ease the development process. 

Plivo offers client SDKs for browser (JavaScript) and mobile (native iOS and Android) with no upfront costs. Plus, access extensive product documentation with quickstart guides, tutorials, and product overviews to cover various use cases.

Connect and control calls to any device 

Voice API should allow developers to build powerful voice workflows and integrate voice calling into web and mobile apps. 

With Plivo, you can connect phone calls over the PSTN to more than 200 countries without managing complex telecom carrier interactions. This flexibility extends to SIP-enabled devices and software, allowing seamless connection to your existing SIP infrastructure and enabling advanced communication features in the cloud.

Premium network

A premium network is essential for a voice API to deliver clear, uninterrupted audio quality, as it minimizes delays, reduces jitter, and ensures stable call connections. 

Plivo ensures premium voice quality through its Regional Points of Presence (PoPs), which reduce latency and maintain high call quality using one-hop, in-country carrier connections. 

Great developer support

Sometimes, a voice API can be complicated and needs assistance; make sure your provider offers 24x7 premium support backed by a consultative customer success team that provides the technical guidance and industry expertise developers need. 

Those additional support resources can  include:

• Extensive documentation and a rich knowledge base
• Up-to-date service status and product updates
• Regular product improvements and enhancements

Upgrade your business communication with Plivo's voice API

We've covered what a voice API is and what to look for in a provider—now it's time to put that knowledge into action. Upgrade your business communication with Plivo's voice API, a powerful, flexible voice API that meets your business needs.

If you'd like to receive customized rates with guided onboarding and premium support, get our volume prices. A team member will contact you to help determine whether an annual agreement suits you based on your personal use case.

Plivo’s simple, usage-based pricing model ensures that businesses only pay for what they use, making it a cost-effective choice.

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