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Compare 10 AI voice agents for real estate in 2026. Evaluate response time, CRM integration, multi-channel support, and scalability to find the right solution.

AI voice agents in real estate are all about response time, coverage and quick follow-through. If your system can't answer calls immediately, qualify intent, book tours and update your CRM without manual cleanup, it's not helping you win more deals; it's adding another layer for you to manage.

This guide isn't for browsing tools. It's for operators deciding whether to commit to AI voice agents in 2026 and ship something that actually helps you scale. We compare 10 platforms based on how they perform after signup, how fast you can go live, what breaks under real lead volume, and what it takes to keep them working week after week.

Top 10 AI Voice Agents for Real Estate (2026)

The goal here is simple: Helping you choose an option that you can launch confidently, not replace after the first integration headache.

1. Plivo

When aiming to build and scale AI voice agents for real estate, you care about two things: reaching prospects first and converting more inquiries into confirmed showings. Plivo excels here since it gives you production-ready AI voice agents that place instant callbacks, answer listing questions from your data, and book tours directly on your agents' calendars. They operate reliably across phone, SMS, WhatsApp and chat without stitching together telephony, AI models and messaging vendors.

Plivo is the AI agent builder platform for voice-first, omnichannel experiences—built on a carrier-grade telephony network trusted by Uber, Meta, Zomato, and thousands of businesses worldwide. Business teams can launch agents without writing code using Vibe agent. Engineering teams can orchestrate custom voice agents in code with full control. The foundation is Plivo's global communications infrastructure spanning 190+ countries: 15+ years of proven reliable infrastructure, low latency, and the call quality enterprises demand.

Core Capabilities:

Inbound & Outbound AI Voice Agents: Handle live calls end-to-end, qualify intent, route intelligently and escalate to human agents when needed.
Multi-Channel Agent Coverage: Run the same AI agent across phone, SMS, WhatsApp and chat with shared context across channels.
No-Code AI Agent Builder (Vibe): Build and deploy voice agents using plain-English instructions, no prompt engineering or coding required.
Build your way: Business teams launch with no-code tools; engineering teams build custom voice agents with full-code control. You're never forced into a single way of working.
Vertically Integrated Telephony (CPaaS): Voice runs on Plivo's own global telephony infrastructure, avoiding third-party carrier dependencies.
Low-Latency Voice AI Stack: Integrated TTS, STT and LLM orchestration enables sub-500ms response latency, critical for natural voice conversations.
Enterprise-Grade Reliability: Built on Plivo's proven CPaaS platform with 99.99% uptime, 15+ years of reliable infrastructure, and global carrier connectivity across 190+ countries.
CRM & Workflow Integrations: Pull customer context in real time and write call outcomes back to CRMs and support tools automatically. Connect Follow Up Boss, kvCORE, BoomTown, Salesforce, HubSpot, Google Calendar, Outlook, and your MLS/IDX feed.
You own the stack: You get to choose your speech-to-text (STT), text-to-speech (TTS), and LLM while keeping prompts and data portable and avoiding lock-in.

Best fit if you:

Need real-time voice agents that can operate continuously at scale.
Want to avoid stitching telephony, AI and messaging vendors together.
Plan to deploy across multiple channels, not voice alone.
Have defined workflows for lead qualification, routing or follow-ups.

Not a fit if you:

Only need a lightweight voice demo, basic IVR or short-term experiment.
Want a fully turnkey, real estate-specific tool with no configuration or workflow control.
Don't plan to integrate voice agents into your CRM, data stack or operations.

2. Luron AI

Luron AI is best suited for teams that need 24/7 AI voice agents that never miss calls and qualify leads automatically. It supports multilingual conversations and keeps pacing tight across accents and speaking styles. The system handles inbound and outbound voice conversations in dozens of languages and automates bookings and follow-ups without human staffing.

Core Capabilities:

Instant call answer & qualification: AI answers every call, gathers intent, and qualifies leads without hold times.
Multilingual support: Handles AI conversations in 45+ languages to cover diverse lead sources.
Inbound & outbound support: Manages both types of calls and can also run outbound follow-ups.
SMS, chat & email automation: Extends voice agents to text and messaging channels for a unified engagement approach.
CRM & integration options: Connects to existing phone systems via SIP trunking and can integrate with CRMs and ticket systems.

Best fit if you:

Want 24/7 lead capture and qualification without adding staff.
Need multilingual voice conversations for global or diverse markets.
Expect to automate bookings, follow-ups and reminders on voice and messaging channels.
Have a CRM or existing phone system you must integrate with.

Not a fit if you:

Only need a simple inbound answering or IVR replacement without automation.
Want a solution focused on voice only, with limited channel reach.
Prefer fixed, transparent pricing tiers publicly listed.

3. Callers AI

Callers AI is a platform for automating customer conversations with human-like voice agents that handle both inbound & outbound calls and messaging channels, powered by your brand's data and tone. It's focused on scaling high-volume voice interactions while maintaining contextual continuity across channels in a single branded voice experience.

Core Capabilities:

Omni-channel AI interactions: Voice agents run across phone, SMS, WhatsApp and chat from a central AI brain.
Human-like voice calls: Agents answer and place calls in a natural conversational style.
Lead workflows & use cases: Supports lead qualification, cold call automation, appointment confirmation, retention flows and more.
24/7 availability & language breadth: Designed to handle calls and messaging around the clock, in multiple languages.
Context remembering: Conversations carry context across voice and messaging so follow-ups feel continuous.
Integrations & automation: Connects to CRMs and tools (300+ integrations) so call outcomes can update your systems.

Best fit if you:

Want both inbound and outbound AI calling with consistent, natural-tone responses across channels.
Need an AI system that can qualify leads, confirm appointments and manage follow-ups automatically.
Are scaling high call volumes 24/7.
Prefer a central "brain" that keeps context across channels and workflows.

Not a fit if you:

Only want a basic voice or outbound dialer with limited cross-channel logic.
Need a tool focused exclusively on simple IVR or basic routing without AI conversation layers.
Prefer a product you can set up and forget in minutes without upfront configuration or workflow definition.

4. SquadStack AI

SquadStack AI is best suited for teams that want AI-assisted sales and voice engagement workflows supported by configurable human-in-the-loop automation. It blends automated outreach and qualification with options to escalate to human agents where needed, helpful for revenue teams that are focused on pipeline speed.

Core Capabilities:

Automated Lead Engagement: AI enabled workflows proactively contact prospects and qualify them using data-driven sequencing.
Voice & Messaging Channels: Supports outbound dialing, ringless voicemail, SMS and multi-touch sequences.
Human-in-the-Loop Escalation: Configurable handoffs to live agents when conversations need human judgment.
Sales Workflow Automation: Built-in logic for lead routing, prioritization and follow-ups across channels.
CRM Integration + Data Sync: Sync outcomes and engagement data back to CRMs like Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.

Best fit if you:

Want inbound and outbound automated voice interactions with natural conversation flows and multilingual capability.
Need AI that handles lead qualification, follow-ups and reminders as part of sales or customer engagement sequences.
Are automating sales outreach and conversational workflows alongside voice calls.

Not a fit if you:

Need an AI platform focused on low-latency, bespoke voice agent infrastructure tied tightly to your own telephony stack.
Are building a multi-channel bot with CRM/telephony hooks and developer control from the ground up at scale.

5. Telgent

Telgent leans into MLS and portal context. It is best for businesses that want always-on voice AI calling with automated scheduling, intelligent call handling and quick setup. Its platform emphasizes immediate activation, seamless integration with existing phone systems and natural AI responses that handle calls, schedule meetings and engage customers day and night.

Core Capabilities:

24/7 AI voice calling agents: Always-on call automation that answers and routes customer calls at any hour.
Lead engagement & scheduling: Automatically books appointments, meetings and showings based on natural language conversations.
Inbound call handling: AI answers incoming inquiries, qualifies intent and routes prospects with minimal human intervention.
Automated inquiry responses: Provides instant answers to property questions and responds to rental or sales leads.
Integration with real estate systems: Works with Zillow, Realtor.com, MLS platforms, Follow Up Boss, kvCORE, BoomTown, Salesforce and HubSpot for CRM continuity.

Best fit if you:

Need round-the-clock call handling that captures leads and books appointments without missing inquiries.
Want your voice AI to integrate with core real estate tools and CRM systems so client details are synced automatically.
Are focused on lead conversion and showing scheduling as part of your customer engagement workflows.

Not a fit if you:

Only require basic outbound calling with simple scripts rather than inbound + scheduling automation.
Expect a no-config, plug-and-play voice bot that requires zero setup or customization.
Want a platform that handles only one channel (voice only) without extending into SMS/WhatsApp/chat automation.

6. AIOnCalls

AIOnCalls is positioned as a virtual receptionist that never misses calls or opportunities. Best for teams that want an always-on voice AI assistant that handles inbound and outbound calls around the clock, engages callers in natural language, qualifies leads, books appointments and updates CRM data.

Core Capabilities:

24/7 Inbound & Outbound Voice Handling: AI answers and places calls around the clock across all hours and holidays.
Lead Qualification & Follow-Up Automation: Qualifies callers in real time and automates follow-ups via voice, SMS and email.
Appointment Scheduling & Calendar Invites: Books appointments and sends confirmations during calls.
CRM & Workflow Integrations: Integrates with CRMs like Zoho, HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Google Calendar for real-time lead syncing and activity logging.
Multilingual Conversations: Supports multiple languages and can handle simultaneous call sessions.
Live Agent Escalation: Transfers complex calls to human agents when needed.
Real-Time Analytics & Transcriptions: Provides live call monitoring, transcripts, sentiment analysis and dashboards.

Best fit if you:

Need an AI voice agent that never misses inbound calls and engages leads immediately, 24/7.
Want automated lead qualification, booking and follow-ups in voice, SMS, and email without human staffing.
Are integrating call outcomes and engagement data into CRM or calendar workflows.
Operate in industries where speed-to-lead matters and missed calls are costly.

Not a fit if you:

Only need simple IVR or on-premise call routing without conversational automation.
Prefer a pure telephony or developer API platform without built-in AI conversational layers.
Are looking for a voice agent with deep, specialized industry templates.

7. Brilo AI

Brilo AI is a business-focused AI phone and voice call agent platform that enables teams to automate real-time voice interactions across industries like real estate. It promises fast setup, natural human-like voice responses, 24/7 coverage, integration with business tools and built-in analytics, all without needing a technical team to get started.

Core Capabilities:

24/7 AI voice call agents: Always-on AI phone agents handle inbound calls and customer engagements at any hour.
Human-like voice interactions: Conversational voice responses built to sound natural and engaging.
Appointment booking & scheduling: Voice agents can book appointments with synced calendars and handle reminders.
CRM and business integrations: Integrates with a broad range of business apps (6,000+ app connections claimed) to sync customer context and outcomes.
Real-time analytics & insights: Live call transcripts, sentiment analysis, intent tracking and topic detection support actionable insights post-call.
Lead qualification automation: Agents engage prospects, capture intent and route high-value leads in real time.

Best fit if you:

Need 24/7 automated voice engagement that never misses inbound or high-volume calls for lead capture, scheduling or support.
Need a platform that books appointments, manages follow-ups and drives customer engagement without manual management.
Plan to integrate the voice agent with CRM, calendar tools and analytics pipelines to maintain context across systems.

Not a fit if you:

Simply need a basic phone tree, IVR or traditional call routing system.
Are focused solely on developer-centric API telephony without AI built in.
Require industry-specific compliance guarantees (HIPAA, PCI, etc.) documented publicly.

8. VocalDesk

VocalDesk is an AI-enabled voice and contact automation platform that helps teams automate calling, lead follow-up, support interactions and scheduling. Its focus is on automated voice conversations and multi-channel engagement with CRM integration and configurable workflows that replace manual outreach tasks.

Core Capabilities:

Automated Voice Conversations: Handles inbound and outbound calls using AI to engage, qualify, and route callers.
AI-Driven Lead Qualification: Automated conversation flows that marks lead intent and priority.
Appointment Booking & Reminders: Schedules meetings and sends reminders as part of automated flows.
Multichannel Messaging: Engages customers across voice, text and messaging platforms.
CRM & Workflow Sync: Connects with CRM systems and business tools to log interactions and maintain records.

Best fit if you:

Want to automate call handling and lead follow-up without manual dialing.
Need a solution that combines voice and messaging outreach with CRM context.
Are focused on lead qualification and scheduling as part of broader sales engagement.

Not a fit if you:

Only need basic call routing or IVR without AI handling.
Require explicit developer control over telephony APIs.
Rely on hard metrics like latency, concurrency limits or multi-region telephony SLAs.

9. Calldock

Calldock is an AI voice agent platform intended for instant lead engagement, automatic qualification and scheduling. Its system calls leads within seconds of form submission, conducts natural conversations and integrates with calendars and workflows to automate follow-ups and booking.

Core Capabilities:

Instant lead callbacks: Calls website leads within ~60 seconds of a submission, boosting early engagement.
Calendar booking: Agents can book appointments directly to your calendar during live calls.
Multi-channel follow-up: Agents send SMS and email follow-ups as part of the call workflow.
Seamless handoff & callbacks: You can trigger human handoffs in natural language and schedule intelligent callbacks.
API, webhooks, & integration ecosystem: Support for APIs and pre-call webhooks lets you fetch context before calls and connect with Gmail, Google Calendar, Slack, Zapier and thousands more.
Developer playground & documentation: Provides API documentation and code examples for triggered calls and automated workflows.

Best fit if you:

Want immediate lead engagement that happens in seconds.
Need voice agents that qualify, book and follow up automatically across voice, SMS and email.
Plan to integrate voice engagements with calendar and business workflows.
Need a voice agent that works with easy templates for common industries with minimal setup.
Want a low-code or no-code setup that goes live with simple configuration.

Not a fit if you:

Need proper inbound/outbound calling with API integration.
Require deep telephony infrastructure control or enterprise telephony SLAs.
Are building highly custom dialogue systems that need proprietary LLM tuning beyond the existing templates.

10. Ylopo

Ylopo is a digital marketing and lead gen platform built for the real estate industry. It combines lead capture, nurturing, AI voice calling, AI texting, branded websites and marketing automation into one system that integrates with CRMs and helps real estate teams generate and convert leads.

Core Capabilities:

AI Voice Follow-Up: Automatically calls new and existing leads to qualify interest and connect them to agents.
AI Text Conversations: Runs two-way SMS conversations to nurture leads until they're ready to talk.
AI² Voice + Text System: Combines calling and texting into one coordinated follow-up engine.
Automated Appointment Transfers: Delivers live transfers or booked appointments when leads are qualified.
Lead Generation & Nurture: Includes PPC ads, remarketing and IDX websites to capture and feed leads into AI follow-up.
CRM & Website Integration: Syncs AI conversations and lead activity with CRMs and branded real estate websites.

Best fit if you:

Want lead capture with nurturing as a unified system rather than isolated voice interaction tools.
Are a realtor or team that wants AI to automatically engage leads by text and phone, not just manage manual contacts.
Need branded websites with IDX search and integrated lead capture feeding into automated follow-up.
Plan to keep leads engaged over longer time horizons (e.g., 90-day voice follow-up).
Value combined marketing + AI follow-up rather than a single channel (voice only).

Not a fit if you:

Are looking for pure AI voice agent infrastructure like a telephony-first CPaaS platform.
Need tools focused on enterprise-grade telephony performance, low-latency voice systems or custom telephony workflows.

What Matters Most in AI Voice Agents (Beyond the Basics)

1. Telephony Ownership vs. Vendor Stitching

Many AI voice tools rely on third-party telephony stitched together with AI layers. This often introduces latency, call drops and limited routing control at scale.

What to prioritize:

Built-in telephony with direct carrier connectivity
End-to-end control over call routing and quality
Fewer external dependencies

Plivo runs on its own global CPaaS and carrier-grade telephony stack, removing third-party voice dependencies.

2. Real-Time Performance (Latency & Uptime)

Voice conversations break down quickly when responses lag or calls fail. Sub-second latency and high uptime aren't "nice to have"—they're mandatory.

What to validate:

Sub-500ms voice response latency
99.99% uptime or better
Real-time STT, TTS, and LLM orchestration

Plivo's vertically integrated Voice AI stack is designed for low-latency, real-time conversations on proven infrastructure.

3. Multi-Channel Context, Not Disconnected Bots

Leads move between calls, SMS, WhatsApp and chat. Treating each channel as a separate bot creates broken experiences and duplicate work.

What to look for:

Shared context across voice and messaging
Unified conversation history
Seamless handoffs between channels

Plivo supports multi-channel agents that share context across phone, SMS, WhatsApp and chat from a single system.

4. Integration Depth (CRM, Calendars, Workflows)

Voice agents don't operate in isolation. Without deep integrations, they become another silo your team has to manage.

Prioritize platforms that:

Read from and write to CRMs in real time
Trigger workflows during live calls
Integrate cleanly with calendars and support tools

Plivo integrates directly with CRMs and business systems, allowing agents to act on live data and update records automatically.

5. Built for Scale, Not Just Launch

Many tools work well for pilots but struggle under sustained call volume or multi-region deployment.

Ask:

Can this run continuously without degradation?
Are pricing and performance predictable as usage grows?
Will this still work when channels or regions expand?

Plivo's AI agents are built on infrastructure that already powers enterprise-grade voice and messaging at global scale.

FAQs

What's the fastest way to go live without breaking existing operations?

Start with a single, contained flow like after-hours inbound calls or instant lead callbacks. Connect your phone numbers, CRM and calendar, define escalation rules and launch! You can expand coverage once live data validates the flow.

How do I ensure voice quality doesn't feel robotic or laggy?

Voice quality depends on latency and telephony control. Platforms with integrated telephony and real-time STT/TTS orchestration keep responses sub-second, which is critical for natural conversations that callers don't hang up on.

How does the agent stay accurate and compliant with real estate data?

The agent should pull from a restricted, curated knowledge source (MLS, IDX, listings) and operate within defined guardrails. When questions exceed scope like pricing nuance, legal terms, fair-housing-sensitive topics, it escalates to a human automatically.

What happens when call volume spikes or multiple leads call at once?

Calls don't fail—they should queue. High-intent conversations can be routed to live agents, while others are qualified, scheduled or followed up asynchronously. Every outcome is logged so nothing gets lost.

How does this fit into my CRM and follow-up workflows?

The agent reads live CRM data during calls and writes outcomes back automatically in the form of notes, disposition, next steps and booked appointments. Your team picks up conversations with full context instead of starting from scratch.

Try Plivo Free

Curious how an AI voice platform performs in your workflows, not just in theory? Plivo offers a free trial account with credits so you can experiment with voice, SMS, WhatsApp and chat services before committing. When you sign up, you get trial credits, can add a phone number and start testing features like real-time voice interactions and multi-channel engagement using APIs or visual tools like PHLO. This lets you validate performance, integrations, and call flows with your actual data—all without upfront cost.

Plivo's trial lets you test core capabilities immediately, making it easy to see how quickly you can build, launch, and refine agents that handle calls, qualify leads and update systems in real time.

Get started with your free trial now and begin building your first agent today.

Jan 20, 2026

5 mins

Best AI Voice Agents for Customer Support and Service (2026): What to Deploy Now

Compare 10 AI voice agent platforms for customer support. Get a practical 30-day pilot framework, implementation workflow, and outcome-driven selection guide.

1) Plivo — The fastest path to production-grade AI voice agents for customer support

A recent Gartner survey found that most customer service leaders plan to explore or pilot conversational GenAI in 2025—making a clear, near-term mandate to deliver something that works on the phone channel, not just in chat. That's your cue to build a reliable voice front door with an AI agent builder platform designed for voice-first, omnichannel experiences.

Why Plivo is #1

Plivo is the AI agent builder platform that lets you build your way. Whether you're a business leader who needs to launch fast or an engineering team building custom workflows, Plivo meets you where you are. Start with no-code tools that let non-technical teams deploy agents in hours. Go deeper with low-code orchestration for more control. Or build from scratch with full-code frameworks that integrate into your existing stack. You're never forced into a single way of working.

What it does for you

Plivo's Voice AI stack is modular by design. Want speed? Use the fully integrated platform—STT, LLM, TTS, and telephony—pre-configured and ready to go. Want control? Orchestrate your agents using code with Plivo's Agentic STT models and Telephony, alongside your preferred LLM providers. Want just the connectivity layer? Use audio streaming or SIP trunking and bring everything else yourself. You decide where Plivo ends and your stack begins.

Underlying it all is a reliable, carrier-grade telephony platform that scales for enterprises—global PSTN/SIP connectivity, number provisioning and porting, call routing with failover, recording with consent, and clean human handoff with full context into your CRM or help desk.

Segment-by-segment fit

If you're SMB, launch fast with no-code tools that let you deploy agents in hours, plus a simple dashboard and connectors for Shopify and Calendly. If you're mid-market, use low-code orchestration for more control, with a modular stack that lets you use what you need—swap in your preferred LLM, STT, or TTS. If you're enterprise, build with full-code frameworks that integrate into your existing stack, plus a modular Voice AI stack to pick-and-choose what you need, governance features (RBAC, audit transcripts, data residency), and contact center integration for high availability and reporting.

Start with Voice, go everywhere

Voice is the hardest channel to get right—and it's where Plivo leads. But the same flexible building experience extends to WhatsApp, SMS, RCS, and Chat. Build once, deploy across channels, and meet customers wherever they are.

Suitable for

Fintech customer service: consent-first flows, secure keypad capture, dispute status, and callbacks.
Healthcare scheduling: multilingual intake, appointment changes, escalations with a summarized handoff.
Retail and logistics: order status, returns, delivery windows, and SMS/WhatsApp follow-ups.

No more choosing between a locked-in platform that's easy but limiting, or a DIY approach that's flexible but painful. Plivo gives you both—simplicity when you want it, depth when you need it.

Explore the Voice API, check pricing, review compliance, handle numbers & porting, browse case studies, or jump into the quickstart.

2) Google Dialogflow CX — Complex, branching flows without spaghetti

Key features

Dialogflow CX uses a flow-and-page model to capture state and branching, so you can manage multi-step intents like returns, warranty claims, and multi-factor verification without dozens of brittle intents. It supports voice and text and includes versioning, experiments, and test tools. For telephony, you can use partner gateways or SIP; for global reach, put Plivo at the edge and connect to CX.

Why it matters

Complicated support journeys need explicit state. CX gives you that structure. If your "Where's my order?" workflow forks based on identity checks, fulfillment method, and policy windows, you can keep logic readable and testable. CX also plays well with multilingual experiences and mixed initiative, so callers can change course mid-conversation.

Implementation steps

Start with a single high-volume journey and draw it as a CX flow. Add a fallback page with a short menu for noisy lines. Ground the bot in your knowledge base and order system, then add handoff rules. Put Plivo in front for numbers, routing, and recording consent, and pass summaries back to your ticketing system.

Suitable for

Teams with multiple brands or product lines, where branching grows quickly and consistency matters across regions.

3) Amazon Lex + Amazon Connect — AWS-first voice automation that ops can own

Key features

Lex handles the speech and NLU for voice and text. Connect adds the contact-center fabric: routing, IVR, call recording, and agent desktop. It's a natural fit if your data and apps live in AWS and security prefers IAM-managed access. For global numbers or bring-your-own carrier control, front with Plivo and route into Connect.

Why it matters

Staying inside AWS accelerates procurement, security reviews, and monitoring. You can call Lambdas for tool use, search knowledge with Kendra, and use Connect metrics and contact flows your ops team already knows. That shortens time to value and concentrates governance in one place.

Implementation steps

Define one call flow in Connect (ID&V → status lookup → handoff). Build Lex intents from your top FAQs. Add Plivo for number management, routing, and failover. Send summaries back to your CRM or help desk. Keep a barge-in plan for noisy environments and a keypad fallback for payment flows.

Suitable for

IT-led programs where AWS standardization, auditability, and a single pane of glass for monitoring are priorities.

4) IBM Watson Assistant — Governance-first deployments in regulated industries

Key features

Watson Assistant supports omnichannel conversations with documented security and governance options, including deployment paths designed for regulated workloads. If your risk office leads the decision, IBM provides clear guidance on audit logging, data handling, and architectural choices. Add Plivo to handle PSTN/SIP, call consent prompts, and compliant recording policies.

Why it matters

Financial services and healthcare teams often need auditability from day one. When you need clear data-handling boundaries and deployment models that align with internal controls, IBM's documentation and support track help you pass reviews without months of back-and-forth.

Implementation steps

Map your data-classification rules to Watson's deployment options. Keep contact recordings and transcriptions in your approved storage. Use Plivo's routing and consent prompts to standardize intake across regions. Summarize calls into your case system for full traceability.

Suitable for

Organizations with heavy compliance needs, strict data residency, or formal audit trails for every customer interaction.

5) Cognigy.AI — IVR modernization with fine-grained voice control

Key features

Cognigy combines a visual designer with a voice gateway that supports streaming ASR, interruptibility, and transfer control. It integrates with multiple speech providers and enterprise systems like SAP and Salesforce. This lets you tune barge-in sensitivity, error handling, and handoff cues rather than living with a one-size-fits-all IVR.

Why it matters

If callers still hear a menu tree, you're wasting time and goodwill. Cognigy helps you replace rigid menus with natural conversations and graceful escalation. You keep the levers you need—timing, sensitivity, fallback prompts—so the agent feels human, not scripted.

Implementation steps

Start with the two intents that create the most queue time. Set barge-in thresholds conservatively and widen them after you test in live traffic. Put Plivo at the edge to manage numbers, recording policies, and failover. Send summaries with disposition tags to your CRM.

Suitable for

Enterprises with legacy IVRs, high call volumes, and a clear need to reduce effort without ripping out the contact-center core.

6) Salesforce Agentforce — CRM-native service automation where your team works

Key features

Agentforce brings AI agents into the Salesforce console and data model. Your service team stays in the view they know, while the agent handles common intents, drafts summaries, and routes cases. Add Plivo for calling so every phone interaction lands in Salesforce with the right context.

Why it matters

When everything you need to resolve an issue already lives in Salesforce, keeping the agent there shortens integration time and improves analytics. Supervisors can coach on the same dashboard and review case summaries, while admins maintain clear governance over data and automations.

Implementation steps

Pick one queue with repetitive calls. Tie identity checks to account data and warranties. Keep a "press 0 for a human" fallback and make sure the agent passes a clean summary with next steps. Use Plivo for the phone edge so call recordings and consent are consistent across regions.

Suitable for

Service teams that treat Salesforce as the system of record and want automation to feel native—not bolted on.

7) Zoom Virtual Agent for Phone — A 24/7 receptionist and concierge

Key features

Zoom's Virtual Agent for Phone handles greetings, routing, and the most common requests. You train it from existing docs and site content, then turn it on for after-hours or full-time reception. It's built for quick wins like appointment scheduling, store hours, and simple status checks with transfers when needed.

Why it matters

If reception lines clog your switchboard, a front-door voice agent can deflect simple questions without new headcount. As you add skills, you can expand from triage to completing tasks. For broader reach, connect Plivo to add global numbers and transactional notifications via SMS or WhatsApp.

Implementation steps

Start with greeting, business hours, and routing. Add appointment booking next. Keep live-agent transfers one click away. If you outgrow the PBX perimeter, bring Plivo in to manage numbers and cross-channel follow-ups.

Suitable for

Single-number switchboards, high-volume reception desks, and teams that need a quick, always-on front door.

8) Sierra — Enterprise "autonomous" agents with category momentum

Key features

Sierra focuses on enterprise-grade AI agents for customer service with an emphasis on agentic workflows. The leadership and market traction give executives confidence to back bigger bets. If you're evaluating multi-channel automation with rigorous SLAs, Sierra is a credible short-list option. Plug it into Plivo for reliable telephony, recording consent, and global routing.

Why it matters

Momentum reduces perceived risk. When you need cross-functional buy-in, a vendor that's already in enterprise production helps. You still need the phone edge right: numbers, routing, and failover that won't buckle under peaks.

Implementation steps

Define two end-to-end journeys (e.g., ID&V + order update; returns approval). Keep human handoff one step away and capture every call summary in your case system. Instrument containment and transfers, then iterate weekly.

Suitable for

Large teams planning multi-channel agents and looking for vendor accountability with clear deliverables and timelines.

9) Tidio (Lyro) — SMB eCommerce chat that pairs well with voice

Key features

Tidio blends live chat, an AI agent, and eCommerce integrations. It's a practical way to resolve repetitive questions, free up your team, and capture intent while buyers are on your site. Add Plivo for a simple order-status line and SMS/WhatsApp updates so customers get answers by phone as well as chat.

Why it matters

eCommerce teams need fast coverage more than complex architectures. You can start with FAQs, then add checkout and account questions. When phone calls spike—promos, holidays—route a basic voice flow through Plivo and keep your agent consistent across channels.

Implementation steps

Load your top FAQs and shipping policies, add a returns flow, and set clear handoff rules. For voice, route a single Plivo number to a lightweight agent that authenticates by order ID and ZIP code, then offers a callback option during peaks.

Suitable for

Lean teams that want to reduce repetitive chat volume now and add phone coverage without standing up a full contact center.

10) Robylon — Multi-channel AI agents focused on support teams

Key features

Robylon specializes in AI-driven customer support across voice, chat, email, and messaging. It integrates with help desks like Zendesk and Freshdesk, supports multiple languages, and offers analytics dashboards designed for service leaders. It's a pragmatic fit if your help desk is the hub of your operation.

Why it matters

You want human-like conversations that escalate cleanly. Robylon's positioning around support workflows means your ticketing, SLAs, and dispositions stay intact. For reliable calling, use Plivo for numbers, routing, and recording consent so your phone channel matches the quality of your chat channel.

Implementation steps

Start with account updates and appointment scheduling. Ground the agent in your help-desk knowledge base and macros. Track resolution time and transfer reasons; refine weekly.

Suitable for

Mid-market support teams who want a focused system that plugs into existing help-desk processes and expands to voice without heavy lifting.

How to run a safe, high-signal pilot in 30 days

Define success first

Pick three metrics: containment, transfer rate, and average resolution time. Write a one-line target for each and a go/no-go threshold. Everyone should know what "good" looks like before you take your first call.

Start with narrow, high-volume intents

"Where's my order?", appointment changes, returns, account updates. These are predictable, frequent, and measurable. Script your handoff sentence so agents never start from zero.

Build the right guardrails

Add a consent prompt, a keypad fallback for sensitive inputs, and a short backup menu for noisy environments. Keep the escalations simple: one route for billing, one for everything else.

Ground every answer

Connect the agent to your CRM/help desk and knowledge base. If the answer doesn't exist in your source of truth, escalate. Summarize every call into the ticket with disposition and next steps.

Iterate weekly

Review 20 call transcripts together. Fix the top three friction points. Update prompts and knowledge. Ship changes. Repeat.

FAQ

What's the fastest way to launch a voice agent without changing my stack?

Keep your telephony and routing on Plivo, connect your preferred conversation engine, and ground it in your CRM/help desk and knowledge base. Start with one number, one intent, and a simple fallback.

How should I measure success in the first 30 days?

Track containment, transfer rate, and resolution time. Listen for barge-in moments and interruptions—they reveal prompt and timing issues that you can fix quickly.

How do I implement consent, recording, and PCI/PHI safely?

Play a clear consent prompt before any recording. Use keypad input for payments or sensitive data. Store recordings and transcripts in approved systems and keep audit logs.

When is Dialogflow CX better than Lex, IBM, or Cognigy?

Choose CX for complex branching flows and multilingual journeys; Lex when your team standardizes on AWS; IBM when governance and deployment control are paramount; Cognigy when you're modernizing IVR with fine-grained voice settings.

How do I handle accents, noise, and barge-in in production?

Use a robust ASR, tune your barge-in sensitivity, and keep a keypad fallback. Test in noisy environments and shorten prompts. Summaries help human agents pick up without asking callers to repeat themselves.

Conclusion: Build the voice edge once, then scale what works

A measured result to anchor ROI. McKinsey reported that, at one company with thousands of agents, applying generative AI raised issue resolution and lowered handling time—small percentage gains that compound into real savings at scale. That's the kind of lift your leadership expects—and the reason to start with a focused pilot that moves one metric.

Bring your "brain" of choice, but keep the phone edge on Plivo so every call connects, every consent is captured, and every handoff carries context. Define three KPIs, pick one journey, and go live with a human fallback. Review transcripts weekly, then scale to the next two intents.

Ready to hear what real-time voice feels like? Build your agent or talk to an expert today.

Jun 19, 2025

5 mins

RCS Marketing 101: Your Complete Guide

Discover how RCS marketing delivers rich, branded messages that drive engagement for your business.

SMS marketing works, but let’s be honest: it feels a bit outdated compared to modern apps.

But what if you could send rich, interactive messages with branded content, images, buttons, and carousels straight to your customers’ native messaging apps?

Rich communication services (RCS) makes that possible.

If you’re ready to explore how RCS marketing can transform your engagement strategy, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know. Let’s get started.

What is RCS marketing?

RCS marketing uses rich communication services to send interactive, branded messages through a customer’s default messaging app. It’s a modern upgrade to SMS that lets businesses share images, buttons, carousels, and more — all without needing third-party apps.

A user on Reddit summed up this perfectly:

Screenshot of a Reddit comment explaining what RCS is — *RCS explained by a Reddit user*

RCS lets you send messages that are visually branded with logos and colors while remaining interactive. This turns static updates into an app-like experience inside a message.

This shift is part of a broader industry move, led by Google and backed by major mobile carriers, to upgrade messaging infrastructure and make RCS the default standard on Android devices.

As support continues to grow, businesses are adopting RCS as part of their customer engagement strategy. Platforms like Plivo make that adoption easier with a reliable, enterprise-grade gateway to deliver rich, reliable RCS campaigns at scale.

RCS vs. SMS marketing: A quick comparison

Marketers today are looking for ways to deliver more interactive and visual communication, and RCS is clearly leading the way.

While SMS still works well for simple alerts, it lacks the creativity and engagement that RCS marketing offers.

Let’s take a quick look at RCS vs. SMS marketing.

Key feature	SMS marketing	RCS marketing
Message length	Limited to 160 characters; with longer messages split	Up to 8,000 characters in a single message
Multimedia	Supports only plain text and links; needs MMS for multimedia	Natively supports high-resolution photos, videos, audio, and GIFs
Security and verification	No built-in sender verification	Includes verified sender profiles with business name, logo, and custom colors
Read receipts	No standardized way to know if a message was delivered or read	Provides delivery and read receipts for real-time engagement tracking
Typing indicators	Doesn't show when the other party is typing	Displays typing indicators, creating a more conversational feel
Interactive buttons	Not supported; calls to action (CTAs) are limited to plain text links	Allows interactive buttons with predefined replies and actions
User experience	Static, text-heavy, and transactional	Dynamic, visually rich, and conversational — feels more like a mobile app
Analytics and reporting	Basic delivery tracking (if supported by carrier)	Advanced analytics: opens, clicks, conversions, and user behavior tracking

4 key benefits of RCS marketing

RCS marketing makes messaging feel more natural for both you and your customers. And since you can see what’s working and what’s not, it’s easier to pivot your strategy and get better results.

Here are its four key benefits.

1. Improved user interaction

One of the biggest advantages of RCS marketing is how seamless it makes the experience for your customers. Instead of typing out replies or clicking a link to open a website, users can just tap a button right inside the message.

Want them to book a demo, check order status, or browse products? It’s all possible with just a tap.

Fewer steps mean less effort, and that leads to more people following through. In fact, individuals spend up to 37 seconds engaging with RCS messages, which is a lot longer than most other types of mobile messaging.

Image showing the engagement results of RCS messaging — *People engage more with RCS than any other platform*

That extra time and interaction can make all the difference when you’re trying to convert interest into action.

2. Consistent brand experience

RCS marketing doesn’t just tell people who you are — it shows them.

Verified business profiles help people know they’re getting messages from the real brand. Every message shows your brand’s logo, name, colors, and a checkmark. These small details make it clear that the message is coming from a genuine source.

Image showing that MAYI - HOMES sends a verified RCS message with branding — *Verified RCS message from MAYI - HOMES*

This consistency matters because 88% of people are more likely to buy from a brand they trust.

3. In-depth analytics

With RCS marketing, you can track open rates, button clicks, and how people interact with each part of your message.

You get clear visibility into what’s working and where users are dropping off.

This makes it much easier to measure the return on investment (ROI) and fine-tune your campaigns. The more you understand how people engage, the better you can shape your messaging for results.

4. Higher conversion potential

RCS marketing makes it easier for customers to take action — whether that’s browsing products, booking a service, or making a purchase — all within the message itself.

With fewer clicks and no need to switch apps, the path to conversion feels effortless. And when it’s that easy, more people follow through.

For example, EaseMyTrip used RCS to run a post-COVID travel survey. They added quick-tap answer options and followed up with a thank-you coupon. The campaign saw a 4x higher click-through rate than email, 10x more survey completions, and a 2.7% increase in conversion rate.

5 major use cases of RCS marketing

Here are five major use cases showing how brands are using RCS marketing effectively.

1. Product promotions

RCS makes product promotions feel more like browsing a store than reading a message. Brands can send image carousels that customers can swipe through to explore new arrivals, check product details, and see what’s available without leaving their messaging app.

Verified RCS message highlights a 25% off promotion on all items — Verified RCS message from Daily-donuts

Example: A fashion retailer promoting its spring collection could send an RCS message featuring a carousel of outfits with styled images, prices, and buttons like “View Lookbook” or “Shop Now.”

Tapping a button could open a mini product page inside the chat, letting customers browse and buy without switching apps.

2. Abandoned cart reminders

The average cart abandonment rate is over 70%, which means most shoppers never make it to the finish line. RCS marketing can help bring them back by making the reminder more engaging and easier to act on.

You can send a message that shows exactly what they left behind, along with a clear button to complete the purchase. It’s visual, straightforward, and the entire experience stays within their messaging app.

Example: A home electronics store could follow up with customers who left a pair of wireless earbuds in their cart. The RCS message might include a product photo, the price, and a “Buy Now” button that takes them straight to checkout.

3. Appointment confirmations and reminders

A PhD thesis from Manchester Metropolitan University found that forgetfulness is the most common reason people skip their appointments.

RCS makes it easier for both businesses and customers to stay on the same page. You can send a message that shows the appointment details along with a simple calendar view. Add buttons to confirm, reschedule, or cancel — all within the chat.

Image depicting an interactive RCS booking confirmation message — Booking confirmation via RCS with quick action buttons

Example: A dental clinic could use RCS to remind patients of upcoming cleanings. The message might show the date, time, and location of the appointment, plus a “Confirm” button and options to “Reschedule” or “Cancel.”

Patients can respond instantly, helping the clinic manage its schedule more efficiently.

4. Customer surveys and feedback

Getting feedback is important, but most customers lack the time or patience to complete lengthy forms. RCS marketing makes it easier by allowing brands to ask short, targeted questions and receive quick responses.

Plus, the rich features of RCS let you include images, ratings, or multiple-choice options, making feedback feel more like a conversation.

Example: A restaurant could send an RCS message after a meal asking customers to rate their experience with simple buttons like “Excellent,” “Good,” or “Needs Improvement.”

The message might also include a photo of the dish they ordered and a quick question like, “What did you like most?” This quick interaction makes it easy for customers to respond and gives the restaurant valuable insights.

5. Customer support follow-ups

After a support request is resolved, following up shows customers you care and helps close the loop on their experience. But if the follow-up message gets buried in an email inbox or goes unnoticed, that opportunity to connect is lost.

With RCS marketing, you can send a quick message to check if everything’s working fine. You can include helpful buttons like “Change Password,” “Manage Account,” or “Talk to Support.”

Support bot provides instant replies and follow-ups for customer queries — AI-powered support for account management

RCS marketing myths and realities

Despite RCS marketing’s growing adoption and proven results, some common misconceptions still hold businesses back from trying it. Let’s look at a few of the biggest myths and what’s actually true.

Myth 1: RCS marketing is too expensive

At first glance, RCS business messaging can seem like a pricey upgrade. Rich visuals, tap-to-action buttons, and branded layouts look premium, so it’s easy to assume they come with a hefty cost.

But cost alone doesn’t tell the full story.

What you get in return matters more. RCS drives significantly stronger engagement with higher click-through rates, increased interactions, and better overall outcomes.

Take Club Comex, the loyalty program of North American paint brand Comex. They sent two rich and interactive RCS campaigns to their members and saw a 10x higher click-through rate, which helped increase revenue by 115%.

That’s the value side of the equation. Better targeting and richer content mean more people click, engage, and convert.

Myth 2: RCS marketing doesn’t reach enough users to be worth it

This concern made sense in the early days of RCS, when adoption was still catching up. But the landscape looks very different now.

In June 2024, the 12-month growth of RCS users reached 36.3%, showing faster uptake than other messaging channels. More Android devices support RCS by default, and it’s being rolled out across more networks globally. Even Apple has announced support, which means RCS is on track to reach a massive number of smartphone users worldwide.

With that kind of growth and widespread support, the hesitation around RCS is starting to fade. Brands can confidently invest in RCS marketing knowing it will connect with more customers than ever before.

Myth 3: RCS gets treated like spam and ends up ignored just like emails

Unlike email, RCS messages appear directly in the user’s primary messaging app alongside personal conversations. They include rich media and interactive elements, making them more engaging and less likely to be ignored.

This creates a more natural, conversational experience that drives higher open and response rates than traditional marketing channels.

Why choose Plivo for your RCS marketing needs

With RCS, you can turn simple messages into rich, branded conversations that feel more like chatting than broadcasting.

Plivo gives you the tools to make that shift without the hassle. From verified messaging to smart automation, everything works together to help you connect better and respond faster.

When combined with AI Agents and a unified customer data platform, RCS becomes more than just messaging. You can deliver personalized experiences at scale, automate everyday interactions, and keep conversations flowing without lifting a finger.

Here’s what you get with Plivo’s RCS API:

Real-time personalization: AI Agents tailor conversations using customer profiles and behavior triggers to improve engagement and conversions.
Multi-channel fallback: If RCS isn’t supported, messages automatically switch to SMS to ensure delivery and maintain consistent communication.
Conversational automation: AI Agents handle FAQs, process orders, schedule deliveries, and route complex queries within RCS.
All-in-one messaging platform: Manage RCS, SMS, WhatsApp, Voice, and more from a single dashboard.
Reliable performance: 99.99% uptime and global infrastructure keep your campaigns running smoothly.

With Plivo’s no-code tools, you can quickly launch AI-powered RCS messaging across channels and deliver a consistent customer experience from day one.

See how you can launch your first RCS marketing campaign with Plivo by requesting a demo today!

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Jul 20, 2023

5 mins

How I Built Our Internal /askplivo AI-Powered Chatbot for Slack

Slack AI chatbot: Step by step process on how to successfully build an AI-powered Slack chatbot. Read more to gain valuable insights and inspiration for building your own AI chatbot.

SMS

Plivo’s CTO Michael Ricordeau writes …

I’ve been exploring AI and wanted to test a few things on my own because that’s what I enjoy doing as CTO at Plivo. I wanted to learn about OpenAI tools and build something useful for the company at the same time. The result was our new /askplivo chatbot for Slack.

We have a lot of resources on our website, including API documentation, blog posts, and use case guides. It can be challenging for our employees to navigate through them and find what they want.

Occasionally, I would see questions popping up on our Slack channels about a feature, or telecom regulations (I’m looking at you, 10DLC), or country coverage. If we could have a Q&A chatbot assistant capable of answering questions instead of waiting (desperately, sometimes) for a co-worker to reply we could be more productive.

For instance, imagine you’re a Plivo support engineer and a customer is asking whether Plivo supports SMS in France. (I use France as an example because that’s where I’m from, but you can use any other country; we support more than 190.) With a chatbot, you could get an answer in less than a minute.

Because my goal was to learn more about AI and OpenAI, I started exploring how I could build a chatbot that used Plivo’s content enhanced with the power of AI. I wanted something that would be smart enough to answer with relevant information and not hallucinate, which is a well-known problem.

Designing the AI chatbot

I like Python for prototyping and MVP because the syntax is simple, and I’ve been using it for 20 years. Granted, it’s not super performant, but I’m not planning to build the next Google here. I wanted a lightweight web framework, so I used Flask to expose the API to interact with Slack and RQ to process jobs in the background.

For AI, I found LangChain, a Python (and TypeScript) framework that abstracts many of the LLM and indexing parts. It’s well-integrated with the OpenAI API.

To store, index, and query (search) the data, I wanted to use a vector database. I had many challenges choosing one: I tried RedisSearch and FAISS but ended up using Qdrant; the cloud version offers a free tier that was good enough for my use case, and it’s written in Rust, so it’s memory-efficient.

Finally, I picked Fly to host the software. I wanted to test Fly because it’s cheap and easy to deploy and scale with a Dockerfile, and I didn’t want to use Heroku anymore.

Here’s how everything fits together:

Technical details and pain points

Building the application was both fun and a learning experience.

I had high hopes for using FAISS, but it’s not compatible between x86_64 and arm64 architectures, so if, like me, you’re developing on an arm64-based Apple M1/M2, you cannot build your FAISS index file and upload it to your x86_64 server — and the Fly hosting platform doesn’t support arm64. I turned instead to Qdrant.

To feed the data in the Qdrant vector database, I took the Plivo website sitemap.xml file, scraped all of the URLs, extracted the content, and transformed it into LLM embeddings, then inserted it in Qdrant. If you do this, be warned that OpenAI will bill you for the embeddings.

Next, I loaded the documents. LangChain, by default, tries to load all documents in memory, so I got quite a lot of OOM killer in my Fly instance. I didn’t want to triple the memory usage (and my bill), so I built a data importer to process documents in chunks instead of loading everything in one shot. Also, LangChain has no GitHub data importer, so I wrote one.

At this point, I had the resources I needed for the chatbot hosted on Fly. I should note that while most of the tools I used are lightweight and fast enough for our use case, OpenAI can be a bottleneck. If you use the GPT-4 model, response time can take up to two minutes, depending on the complexity of your question. I had to change the API timeout for the OpenAI Python SDK to 180 seconds.

Once I had the back end set up, the next step was to create the Slack bot app from the Slack admin console. I’ve documented the process of configuring and deploying the application in the README page of the project’s GitHub repository.

Why don’t we consult the oracle?

After a few hours of development time, I had a working chatbot. Here’s what using it looks like.

Et voilà!

Want to develop something like the /askplivo bot? Check out my code — it’s open source, so feel free to use it and fork it. You’ll find there’s room for improvement and a few challenges to overcome:

The search query is optimized for text. Most of the time, it won’t use the GitHub indexed code; I need to dig into that.
It occasionally hallucinates responses — making up a 10DLC API resource, for instance. I’m planning to experiment with Anchor GPT to fix that.
If you add new documents, you have to re-index all documents from scratch, which is slow and costly.
There is no chat session concept — each question/response is always unrelated to the previous ones. I’m not sure we need this feature.

If you use the code, and especially if you enhance it in a way it can benefit others, feel free to contribute and send a PR.

Jul 19, 2023

5 mins

Leadership Talk: The Modern State of Customer Support

Join Plivo support lead Renu Yadav as she explores the evolving landscape of customer support, challenges faced by reps, essential skills, and changing technology.

Event

Customer Service

Leadership Talk: The Modern State of Customer Support

The customer service industry has undergone a revolution these last few years—teams have embraced remote and hybrid operations as standard, and sophisticated contact center technology has enabled businesses to push beyond the established limits of customer support.

We sat down with Renu Yadav, the head of customer support of the #1-rated cloud communications platform on the market, for a candid discussion about the modern state of customer support and the evolution of technology trends within the industry.

Contacto: How has the landscape of the Customer Support industry evolved in the past few years, and what key factors were most impactful?

Renu: Significantly.

Ten years ago, phone support was the only option because businesses just wanted to have people that customers can talk to. Now there are so many choices that if a business makes it hard to get help, customers will take their business elsewhere.

Support is not limited to just phone or email support. Customers are now using multiple channels to interact with businesses, including live chat, and social media. Social media is no longer just a marketing platform, it has become a major channel for customers to interact with businesses.

There is also a need to have a global approach to support, and they need to be able to provide support in multiple languages and time zones.

AI and automation are being used to automate tasks, such as answering FAQs and answering routine questions. This frees up support agents to focus on resolving more complex issues.

There is a shift from transactional, reactive support to proactive, personalized, and experience-driven support. It is no longer seen as a cost center, but rather as an opportunity to differentiate from competitors and build customer loyalty.

Support is moving to a strategic department, capable of driving improvements across the business.

What are the biggest challenges that Customer Support reps face today, and how can they be overcome?

Renu: The responsibilities of a support agent look very different compared to a few years ago. Support teams are not required to just follow processes and perform routine tasks. Those can be achieved via automation. They need to come up with customized and tailored solutions to resolve issues faster.

Keeping up with product changes: Companies and products are rapidly innovating and updating their offerings. Support agents need to stay current with the latest product features and changes. Regular product training, refreshers, and product assessments can help support teams stay updated with product changes. At Plivo, we also review ticket trends to plan out refreshers on a biweekly basis.
Meeting rising customer expectations: Today’s customers expect fast, personalized support. Customers value getting their issues resolved in their first interaction with the support team. However, this can be a challenge if the issue is complex or if the representative doesn’t have the right information or authority to resolve it. To address this, companies can empower their representatives with the right resources, enable them with decision-making tools, and streamline their escalation processes. Cultivating a customer-centric culture across the organization can help align all departments toward meeting and exceeding customer expectations.
Working remotely: While remote work has impacted everyone, the impact is more on teams that need to work in groups. It was way easier to train, identify ticket trends, outages, coordinate with other stakeholders, manage escalations, and even get help on any issues in real-time. The shift to remote work has brought new challenges for customer support representatives, such as isolation, burnout, and communication difficulties. This can be mitigated by promoting a strong remote work culture, encouraging regular communication and team-building activities like off-work catchups so that the teams get to build a rapport and not all discussions are work-related.

Overcoming these challenges often requires a combined approach of people, process, and technology.

In your opinion, what are the most important qualities or skills that a customer support rep should possess to excel in their role?

Renu: That’s a great question, one that when I am interviewing candidates for my team I always like to ask. From my perspective, the most important skills vary by customer and situation:

Resilience, empathy, and patience: Dealing with customer complaints and issues can be stressful, and not every interaction is positive. Resilience and the ability to handle stress are key to maintaining a positive attitude and a high level of service. So is the ability to understand and share the feelings of customers. Customers often reach out when they are frustrated or upset, and an empathetic response can help calm them down and assure them that their concerns are being taken seriously.
Time management skills: Unlike other teams, Support work is not project/timeline based. It’s the number of calls/tickets they can handle in a day. This number is not stable and keeps changing on a day-to-day basis. They need to be able to prioritize and juggle multiple tasks at the same time. So time management is a crucial skill.
Business communication: Representatives need the ability to explain complex solutions in simple terms, as well as deep attention to detail to ensure they don’t miss any critical points while debugging an issue.
Teamwork: Support is often a team effort, and representatives need to work well with their colleagues to solve customer issues, share knowledge, and improve service processes.
Problem-solving & decision-making skills: Support teams also need to be able to think critically and come up with effective solutions to customer problems. This is becoming more and more critical in today’s fast-paced world. Agents are expected to be quick on their feet and able to come up with innovative solutions.

With that said, how can the right tool elevate a customer support representative’s ability to properly address a customer’s needs?

Renu: Without the right tool, a support rep would have to do way more work than necessary. In the right hands, an effective tool can:

Streamline routine tasks: Things such as ticket assignment to representatives, tracking the status of tickets, and adding options to have views on which tickets need to be prioritized. This frees up representatives’ time so that they can focus on resolving issues.
Provide a comprehensive view of the customer: Tools that integrate with various channels and systems can provide a comprehensive view of the customer. This includes the customer’s history, preferences, and previous interactions. This information can help representatives provide personalized and informed support.
Collect feedback from customers: Tools that allow customers to provide feedback can help organizations understand how their customers are experiencing their support. This feedback can be used to improve the support process and make it more customer-centric.
Provide a knowledge base or FAQ section: An detailed knowledge base or FAQ section can help customers find answers to their questions without having to contact a support representative.
Enable collaboration and escalation: Tools should also enable collaboration and escalation. This can help ensure that issues are escalated to the appropriate people when necessary.
Offer in-depth reporting and analytics: A support tool should not only be able to generate basic reports but also have the ability to create custom reports that can help organizations analyze customer interactions and identify trends. This data can be used in so many powerful ways.

With the rise of self-service options and automation, how do you see the role of Customer Support representatives evolving in the near and distant future?

Renu: It will have both positive and negative impacts, right?

The size of the teams will become smaller and smaller. AI and automation will be expected to handle routing queries. So the agents will be required to work on complex problems that require a human touch.

At the same time, the work is becoming more challenging so the focus going forward will be on the quality of teams and not the size of the teams.

Support is evolving from transactional to consultative support, from handling simple issues to resolving complex problems, and from being order takers to being customer advocates. They are now expected to be product experts who can help customers solve problems and help differentiate between competition.

Representatives are now tasked with resolving more complex issues which require them to think critically and creatively to solve problems. The insights gained from support interactions with customers influence product development, marketing, and other areas of the business.

These changes will free representatives from routine tasks and enable them to focus on the complex, challenging aspects of customer support that require a human touch but this also means that support agents will need to be committed to continual learning and adaptation.

So the overall contributions of the support teams will become increasingly valuable.

How do you think the increasing importance of customer experience and satisfaction has shaped the Customer Support industry, and what steps should companies take to prioritize these areas?

Renu: From a business perspective, it is not just important to get a customer on contract, it is more critical to retain the customer. That is where customer experience and satisfaction play a huge role. Companies can use customer support to differentiate themselves in a crowded market, and foster customer loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth.

Any company looking to prioritize customer experience and satisfaction within their business should:

Understand customer expectations: Regularly survey customers, monitor feedback, and stay abreast of market trends to understand what customers expect from their support experience.
Implement the right technology: Leverage technology to automate routine tasks, provide omnichannel support, personalize customer interactions, and gain insights from customer data.
Measure the right metrics: Look beyond traditional efficiency metrics (like average handle time) and measure metrics that reflect the quality of the customer experience, such as Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS), and Customer Effort Score (CES).
Foster a customer-centric culture: Make customer satisfaction a company-wide goal. All departments, not just customer support, should understand their role in contributing to the customer experience.
Review and improve: Regularly review your customer support operations and use customer feedback and data to identify areas for improvement. This process of continuous improvement is crucial in maintaining a high-quality customer experience.

With more options available to customers than ever before, how have customer expectations changed over the past few years?

Renu: Customers today expect businesses to provide instant, 24/7, multi-channel support with self-service options and transparency.

Customers expect more convenience: Customers today are accustomed to getting what they want when they want it, and how they want it. This means that businesses need to offer convenient customer support options, such as 24/7 support, live chat, and self-service options.
Customers expect more personalization: Customers today expect a personalized experience, and this is no different in customer support. Businesses are using data and analytics to personalize their customer support interactions, tailoring them to the individual customer’s needs and preferences. This can help to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Customers expect more transparency: Customers today want to be kept informed about the status of their issue and what is being done to resolve it. Businesses need to be transparent with their customers and communicate with them throughout the customer support process.
Customers expect more empathy: Customers today want to feel like they are being heard and understood. Businesses need to be empathetic to their customers and understand their frustration. This will help to build trust and rapport with customers.
Customers expect more speed: Customers today expect their issues to be resolved quickly. Businesses need to be responsive and resolve customer issues as quickly as possible.

Can you share any insight on the use of data and analytics in customer support? How can data-driven approaches enhance the overall customer experience?

Renu: Data is huge right now. And I am not talking about customer data. I am talking about issue data and ticket data. If used the right way, there is so much key information to be pulled:

What kind of issues do we receive on a daily, weekly, monthly basis?
What product are we facing the most issues on?
Are there any enhancements required in the product?
Which support channel do customers find most convenient?
To track escalations.
To find which customers are raising the most queries.
What are our response and resolution times?
What training do we need to create for our teams?
How satisfied are our customers?

By using data, support can move from a reactive function to a strategic one, capable of driving improvements across the business.

What channels do you personally find to be the most effective for resolving the support needs of your customers?

Renu: The effectiveness of different customer support channels depends on the nature of the customer’s issue and the customer’s preferences. Phone support is not a great tool for customers if they need to be put on hold for a long time. On the other hand, though, email support won’t necessarily be the best tool for customers who have an urgent issue that needs to be looked into immediately.

In my opinion, using a combination of tools can ensure that businesses are able to provide support that meets the needs of all of their customers.

Self-service options are a great way to reduce the number of queries coming to support agents and allow them to focus on more complex problems. I also think that it is important to build an extensive FAQ section so that customers can easily find answers to common questions.

I also think that chatbots and AI can be valuable tools for customer support. They can provide instant, 24/7 support for simple inquiries or issues, and they can also gather initial information before escalating more complex issues to human agents.

I have one final question for you before I let you go. If you had one feature on your customer support tool wishlist, what would that be and why?

Renu: It would be the ability to integrate with other tools and systems. This would allow customer support representatives to have a single view of the customer, which would make it easier to resolve issues and provide better support.

For example, if a customer has a problem with their order, the customer support representative could see the customer’s order history, shipping information, and payment information. This would allow the representative to quickly identify the issue and resolve it.

The ability to create custom reports is a close second. It is not enough to only work on issues and meet KPIs. It is also essential to find trends and patterns. This can help in so many ways, such as improving product offerings, streamlining processes, reducing response and resolution times, collaborating with internal teams, and so on.

Thank you for taking the time to chat with us—it sounds like you and your team are doing some amazing things at Plivo with the tools available to you. I look forward to speaking with you again soon!

Renu: Of course, my pleasure!

Jul 19, 2023

5 mins

13 SMS Marketing Tips for Ecommerce Businesses

13 SMS marketing tips to boost your ecommerce business with effective SMS marketing strategies. Leverage SMS marketing for your ecommerce business with Plivo.

SMS

The movie “Field of Dreams” made popular the saying “If you build it, they will come.” Sadly, for ecommerce businesses, just building it won’t bring in customers, no matter how strong your SEO mojo is. If you want to sell stuff you have to go tell people about what you sell — and that’s called marketing.

SMS marketing in particular involves sending promotional materials via text message — in contrast to transactional messaging, which encompasses things like delivery updates and one-time passwords.

SMS is the best communication channel for marketing. It’s highly available — consider how many people have cellphones and how high open rates are for text messages. It doesn’t require anyone to download a mobile app. And according to research by SAP SE, “70% of respondents say that SMS is a good way for a company to get their attention and 64% say that organizations should use SMS-based engagement more often.”

Build your subscriber base

Having said that, however, you can’t just buy a list of phone numbers and send unsolicited text messages to individuals with whom you have no business relationship. You must gather opt-in consent from message recipients first. Once you have that consent, you can add the contact information to your subscriber list.

How do you gain subscribers? Offer customers and potential customers incentives to be contacted. Typical incentives include cost savings, time savings (such as faster shipments), and early access to information, such as insider priority for sales.

Here are six ways to gather opt-in consent.

Put a signup box on your product pages.
Let customers tick a box to opt in to messaging when they first provide their phone numbers as part of their purchase information.
Display an exit intent popup when someone’s about to leave your site, asking for consent.
Offer a link to the subscriber signup page in email newsletters.
Give people a short code they can use to subscribe by texting a keyword.
Promote signups in social media campaigns.

Whatever methods you use, make it clear that you’re asking consumers to consent to receive marketing messages via SMS. Provide a link to your terms and conditions page, and let people know how they can unsubscribe from your list should they choose to in the future. Keep a record of their agreement in case you need to provide it for audit purposes.

7 types of SMS marketing offers

Marketing isn’t simply telling potential customers why they should buy your product, although you can certainly do that. Here are seven SMS marketing tips to help your ecommerce business boost revenue.

Promotion alerts: Tell consumers about sales and new product launches. With this and other SMS marketing tactics, be sure to include a link to a web page that recipients can click on to see the deal and, hopefully, spend money on it.
Exclusive deals: Create a loyalty program that includes an SMS promotions list and offer subscribers deals that they can’t get elsewhere. Send customers updates on their loyalty points and information about how to earn more.
Personalized recommendations: If you have the ability, use customer data to create personalized recommendations for products or services that customers might like given the fact that they’ve already bought some other service. Think Amazon’s “You might also like” recommendations, but delivered directly to customers’ mobile devices.
Abandoned cart reminders: Remind customers of items they left in their shopping cart, and consider offering a discount if they complete the purchase.
Review requests: Ask for positive reviews on relevant websites, such as Amazon, Google, and Yelp, as well as whatever review sites are popular with customers in your sector. Positive reviews serve as objective evidence of the value of your product, and asking customers to share their feedback can help foster brand loyalty.
Replenishment reminders: If you sell products that run out or get used up (such as food, beauty products, or health supplements) send SMS reminders to drive repeat purchases.
Product tips and guides: Are how-to tips marketing? Arguably — but giving customers information on how best to take advantage of the products they’ve bought can be valuable both to them as consumers and to you as a way to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Winning with SMS marketing

If you like these 13 tips, you might want to download our ebook guide to SMS marketing or look at our getting started guides for bulk messaging. Or you can skip straight to trying Plivo’s SMS API Platform by signing up for free.

Jul 17, 2023

5 mins

How to Write a Bank IVR Menu

Tips on how to write a banking IVR menu. Read more about IVR phone banking services and best practices at Plivo.

Voice API

If you’ve ever made a call and heard “For English, press or say 1,” you’ve encountered an interactive voice response system. IVR allows callers to access information by speaking a word (thus the “voice” part of the name) or pressing a key on a phone’s Touch-Tone keypad. IVR can serve up prerecorded messages, route calls to specific departments or individuals, or pull data such as bank balances from systems — all without the need to speak to an agent. IVR systems benefit consumers by getting them the information they want quickly, without having to wait on hold.

A good IVR system is particularly useful for financial institutions, as many customer inquiries can be answered without taking up a representative’s time. Typical information for a bank’s IVR menu might include:

Choice of languages in which to hear the menu
Directory of departments, including technical support
Account information, including balance checks
Automated bill payment
Appointment booking
Callback option, if all representatives are busy
Informational recording on topics such as
Services offered Business hours Email addresses Website URL Social media handles Directory of branch locations

‍

IVR menu best practices

Whether you’re a bank, mortgage lender, stockbroker, or other financial services professional, following these best practices for IVR systems can help you create a better customer experience.

Menu options — Don’t overwhelm customers with too many options at each level. Fewer choices make things easier for callers, as they have to remember the ones they’re hearing. Use a maximum of five items at each prompt.
Special keys — If any keys are reserved for special functions, tell callers about them up-front. For example, “At any time you can press or say 9 to return to the previous menu, or press 0 or say ‘operator’ to speak to an operator.” And that’s another best practice — at every level, give customers an option to speak to a customer service representative.
Menu order — Put the most popular options first in the IVR system, so callers have to spend less time listening for what they want.
Option order — Present a task followed by its associated action rather than the other way around, so callers can recognize what they want to do and don’t have to remember “what number was I supposed to press?” For example, “To hear your account balance, press or say or say 1.”
Accepted input — Allow callers to respond not only via keypress but also via voice. Some customers prefer one way, some the other; give people what they want.
Pauses — Include a pause of a second or so before giving the choices on a submenu. That allows time for people who have the phone up to their ear to shift it back there after pressing a keypad key.
Confirm menu level — Start submenus with a short message that confirms the caller has reached the place they intended. For example, “OK, balances. Press or say 1 for your checking account balance; press or say 2 for your savings account.”
Allow barge-in — Allow callers to select an option at any time — don’t force them to listen to an entire menu before they can make a selection.
Repeat as necessary — By default, repeat the menu if the caller doesn’t make a selection within a few seconds.

‍

We offer more IVR best practice suggestions in a blog post, including our favorite: Don’t start off by telling callers, “Listen carefully as our menu options have changed.” No one cares.

A sample bank IVR

Every organization is different, so every organization’s IVR menu will be different too. We put this simple two-level menu together to give you some ideas. Undoubtedly your menu will require more levels. Also, there’s no single right way to map out a menu. In this example, we start out asking for a kind of account, but you might prefer to ask for a kind of task first and prompt for the account afterward.

Plan the entire menu tree before you start coding and before you start recording prompts.

Here’s our sample.

Thanks for calling Our Bank. How can we help you? You can press 0 or say “operator” at any time to reach a representative during business hours.

For personal banking services, press or say 1.
For business banking services, press or say 2.
For account inquiries, press or say 3.
For credit card services, press or say 4.
To apply for a new credit card, press or say 5.
For information on your card’s interest rate and other terms and conditions, press or say 6.

1: OK, personal banking.
For account balances and transaction history, press or say 1.
To transfer funds between accounts, press or say 2.
To make a bill payment, press or say 3.
To open a new account, press or say 4.
To report a lost or stolen card, press or say 5.

2: OK, business banking.
For account balances and transaction history, press or say 1.
To transfer funds between accounts, press or say 2.
To make a bill payment, press or say 3.
To open a new account, press or say 4.
For commercial loans and financing, press or say 5.

3: OK, account inquiries.
For account balances and transaction history, press or say 1.
To report a lost or stolen card, press or say 2.
To dispute a transaction, press or say 3.

4: OK, credit cards.
To check your outstanding balance, press or say 1.
To make a payment, press or say 2.
To report a lost or stolen card, press or say 3.
To dispute a transaction, press or say 4.

How to create an IVR system with Plivo

Plivo makes things easy for businesses that want to implement IVR. We’ve written IVR use case guides that show exactly how to create an IVR program in any of seven common web development languages, including annotated code samples.

If you’re not already a Plivo customer, sign up for free today and get started now.

Jul 12, 2023

5 mins

Introducing Real-Time Audio Streaming

Explore the benefits and use cases of instant transcription during live calls, including improved customer service and collaboration with real-time audio streaming service by Plivo.

Voice API

Building truly intelligent voice applications often means grappling with technical limitations such as:

Lack of real-time audio access
Difficulty integrating with AI models
Limited flexibility for scaling advanced use cases

Plivo’s audio streaming makes this easier. It lets you send real-time call audio to your applications, enabling AI-powered voice agents to respond dynamically. It also comes with features to analyze customer sentiment during calls, and automate tasks like call routing or transfer calls to human agents whenever necessary.In this blog, we’ll explore how audio streaming solves voice infrastructure challenges and help you to deliver next-level customer experiences. Let’s dive in!

How Does Audio Streaming Work?

With audio streaming, businesses transmit the raw media of a live call in real time to their applications or third-party systems.

This illustration shows how a call center might use audio streaming.

Plivo lets you stream audio by using XML instructions or APIs. First, you get a number with Plivo (by signing up on the console), then connect it to an XML application.

Here’s how it works:

XML instructions

With the XML element, you can stream raw media from a live phone call over a WebSocket connection. To begin streaming, return XML like this during the call.

    <Response>
<Stream streamTimeout="3600" keepCallAlive="true" bidirectional="true" contentType="audio/x-mulaw;rate=8000" statusCallbackUrl="https://yourdomain.com/callbacks">wss://<yourstream>.ngrok.io/audiostream</Stream>
</Response>
  

See our XML reference documentation for complete details.

API integration

Alternatively, you can use Plivo APIs to initiate and manage audio streams.

    curl -i –user AUTH_ID:AUTH_TOKEN \\
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \\
      -d '{"service_url": "wss://.ngrok.io/audiostream"}' \\
      https://api.plivo.com/v1/Account/{auth_id}/Call/{call_uuid}/Stream/
  

See our audio streaming API reference documentation for complete details.

Audio Streaming Use Cases

Businesses can use audio streaming in multiple ways, especially in tandem with machine learning-based engines and AI voice agents, to enhance value and improve customer experience.

Call centers can leverage Plivo’s audio streaming to extract insights from raw audio data, perform sentiment analysis, implement speech recognition, and analyze voice-related data, enhancing operational efficiency.

You can integrate Plivo’s audio streaming with AI/ML-based tools to provide real-time transcription services.

Similarly, you can integrate audio streams with third-party tools to facilitate live translation of audio content, enabling effective communication across different languages during conferences and meetings.

Here are some key use cases of Plivo audio streaming:

Smart IVR with dynamic call routing

Core Use Case: Transforming traditional IVR systems into smart, AI-driven IVRs that enable natural language understanding and intelligent call routing.

Example: A telecommunications company implements an AI-Powered IVR where customers can state their concerns naturally (e.g., "I want to upgrade my plan" or "I have a billing issue") instead of navigating menus.

The system interprets their input, evaluates sentiment, and routes the call to the appropriate team or provides immediate automated assistance, such as sending payment links or resolving common queries. If sentiment analysis detects frustration, the system escalates the call to a specialized agent for de-escalation.

24/7 customer support

Core Use Case: Maintaining consistent customer service quality beyond business hours using AI voice agents.

Example: An e-commerce platform deploys an AI Voice Bot to assist customers during off-hours. If a customer calls at midnight to track a delayed order, the bot retrieves real-time shipping updates from the database, informs the customer, and resolves their issue without human intervention.

Real-time speech recognition, transcription, and analysis

Core Use Case: Transcribing calls in real time by converting spoken language into text for immediate analysis, record-keeping, and automated processing.

Personalized training and real-time coaching for agents

This helps you leverage live call analysis to provide actionable feedback to agents for skill enhancement.

‍Example: During a customer call, the system evaluates the agent's tone and adherence to protocols, offering real-time coaching tips, such as suggesting a more empathetic response or adjusting the script to align with customer sentiment.

Outbound call automation with AI voice agents

Core use case: Automating outbound communication to improve engagement, gather insights, and provide proactive assistance to customers.

Promotional messages

Example: A retail company uses AI voice agents to inform customers about limited-time discounts and exclusive deals, personalizing the message based on purchase history.

Customer feedback surveys

Example: After a service interaction, the system calls customers to collect feedback through a quick, automated survey, ensuring a seamless user experience.

Proactive customer support

Example: An insurance company proactively calls customers to remind them of upcoming policy renewal deadlines, reducing the likelihood of service lapses.

Post-delivery feedback and assistance

Example: After delivering a product, an AI agent contacts customers to confirm satisfaction and offer assistance if issues arise, such as initiating returns or troubleshooting.

Automation of Voice Channel Operations

Core use case: Streamlining routine voice-based interactions to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer satisfaction.

Appointment booking

Example: A healthcare provider uses voice agents to schedule, confirm, or reschedule patient appointments via calls, reducing the need for manual coordination.

Service-related queries

Example: A telecom provider deploys voice agents to answer common service queries, such as "How can I change my plan?" or "What’s my current data usage?"

Delivery status updates

Example: A logistics company enables customers to call and inquire about shipment statuses, with the bot providing real-time updates from the system.

Accepting orders on calls

Example: A restaurant uses voice agents to take orders over the phone, confirm details, and provide estimated delivery times without requiring human intervention.

Get Started with Audio Streaming with Plivo

By integrating audio streaming with AI voice agents, businesses can provide advanced customer support, gain valuable insights into conversations, and improve customer interactions.

Couple it with speech recognition, AI call analysis and dual channel recording and have a kickass customer support toolkit.

But, to make the most of all these features, you need a CPaaS solution with superior voice infrastructure. Plivo offers superior voice network to launch context-aware voice agents and voice assistants trained on your proprietary knowledge base that transform the customer experience

Here’s why Plivo should be your first choice:

Superior call quality: Plivo ensures superior call quality through its partnerships with Tier 1 carriers and optimized routing
Low latency: Global Infrastructure enables low latency communications. 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

We can integrate with all top players in the market from STT providers, LLM models and TTS providers.

The best part? You get started by paying 40% less than all competitors.

All you have to do is:

Sign up with Plivo.
Procure a number via the API or console.
Associate the number with an application responsible for initiating a call to the agent and establishing audio streaming over the WebSocket to your application. A sample reference is shown below.

At Plivo, Audio streaming is priced at $0.0040 per minute per stream, over and above the expected charges for voice minutes associated with a call.

Note: Pricing is subject to change — check our pricing page for the most up-to-date information.

If you don’t already have a Plivo account, sign up today for free.

You can also connect with team Plivo to find out how we can help with your use case and get volume pricing for the same.

Supercharge your customers' interactions through audio streaming with Plivo powered AI voice agents.

Jun 27, 2023

5 mins

Announcing Two New Zentrunk APIs

New Zentrunk APIs: Introducing the launch of two new exciting Zentrunk APIs, Trunk Properties API and Call Object API. Check out the documentation for our new APIs and consider how they could help your business.

Zentrunk

We’re constantly and continually improving Plivo services, with particular attention paid to enhancements suggested by our users. Today we’re happy to announce two new APIs for Zentrunk, our SIP trunking service: the Trunk Properties API, which lets businesses create, modify, and update their SIP trunk configurations programmatically, and the Call Object API, which lets users retrieve Zentrunk call details records (CDR).

Trunk Properties API

Zentrunk users can already use the Plivo console to manage SIP trunk configuration and subresources such as credentials lists, IP access control lists, and origination URIs. But working in the console can be time-consuming when you have a lot of resources to manage. With the new API you can fetch and manage trunk properties programmatically, saving you time and effort. Our API documentation provides all the information you need to get started.

The Trunk Properties API offers Zentrunk users several benefits:

Improved developer experience: The API lets service providers and enterprises create, modify, and delete SIP trunks programmatically.
Access to subresources: The Trunk Properties API lets developers access subresources such as credentials, IP access control lists, and origination URIs, making it a complete trunk configuration management toolkit.
Ease of use: The API uses standard RESTful web services, making it simple to integrate with existing systems.
Enhanced security: The API supports authentication via Basic Auth, which enhances security.

Streamlined Zentrunk management

The Trunk Properties API transforms the process of setting up and managing SIP trunks. It offers an efficient and automated way to create, modify, and delete trunks. Its ease of use and real-time visibility features make it an excellent tool for service providers and enterprises. With the Trunk Properties API, users can streamline their SIP trunking service management and focus on delivering a better customer experience.

Call Object API

Our second new API addresses call details.

A call detail record, as you’d expect, contains all the details about a call. Until now you could view and export CDRs only by visiting Zentrunk > Logs on the Plivo console. The new Call Object API lets you retrieve CDRs for any completed calls using a variety of filters, saving you time and effort.

Zentrunk creates a Call object when an outbound call is initiated or when an inbound call is received. The Call object contains all of the information about completed calls. See our API documentation for complete details and code examples.

In brief, the Call Object API lets you retrieve all call records or retrieve calls for a given call UUID. The API supports filters that let you retrieve specific records based on different needs.

By using the Call Object API, Zentrunk customers can gain several benefits:

Real-time data: The API provides real-time access to call data, allowing businesses to access and analyze information as it becomes available, without having to wait for manual exports or generate reports through the console.
Improved automation: Businesses can automate the process of fetching CDRs and integrating their data into external systems for analytics, eliminating the need for manual data extraction.
Improved call analytics: Businesses can use CDR information to gain insights into call patterns, call durations, and call costs, helping them make data-driven decisions to optimize their communication strategies.
Efficient data retrieval: By using filters, businesses can perform targeted analyses of specific segments of their call data.
Increased security and fraud detection: CDR information can help organizations detect unusual call patterns and identify potential security threats or fraudulent activities.
Customized reporting: With data from the Call Object API, businesses can create reports tailored to their specific needs, allowing for more informed decision-making.

Try our new APIs

If you’re already a Zentrunk customer, we encourage you to peruse the documentation for the new APIs and consider how they could help your business. If you’re thinking about exploring the benefits of SIP trunking, we encourage you to sign up for a Plivo account, read our Quickstart Guide, and find out for yourself why people are so excited about SIP trunking.

Jun 21, 2023

5 mins

A Tour of the Plivo Console: Zentrunk

A menu-by-menu look at Zentrunk information and management capabilities exposed via the Plivo console. It’s easy to get started, sign up today!

Console

Zentrunk

SIP trunking lets you add phone lines that bypass the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and use VoIP instead. SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol, while trunking refers to an aggregation of multiple phone lines. Many businesses are moving to SIP trunking and away from traditional telephony to benefit from advantages such as quick provisioning, low costs, and no equipment to procure or maintain. Zentrunk is Plivo’s SIP trunking service.

You can create and manage outbound and inbound trunks from the Plivo console. The Zentrunk menu is the fifth icon on the console menu. When you click it, you’ll see an overview screen that gives you quick instructions on creating trunks.

Following the Overview submenu are choices for Outbound Trunks and Inbound Trunks. Under each, you can see a list of existing trunks and, as on the overview screen, there’s a button to create new ones.

Clicking on a trunk in the list brings up details about it. Here, for example, is what you might see for an outbound trunk.

You can modify trunk details and settings from this page, or delete a trunk you no longer use. The settings are covered in detail in our documentation.

You can get details about inbound trunks the same way by clicking on an item in the Inbound Trunks list.

If you want to set up a new trunk, our documentation guides you through the process and explains all of the fields and settings.

Moving down, the Other Settings menu brings up a screen that lets you set up geo permissions, which you can enable to help curb fraud.

Another Other Settings menu page lets you consent to Plivo storing and accessing logs and media packet capture files, which we can use to debug call quality and DTMF issues.

The penultimate menu choice, Logs, displays a log of outbound and inbound SIP calls. Clicking on a log entry displays a Message Details popup that gives you information about the call.

Finally, the pricing menu page gives you the costs for calls and phone number rental in every country in which Plivo supports SIP trunking.

Step right up for another tour

That’s a whirlwind tour through the Zentrunk features on the Plivo console. We’ve got similar looks for the Voice, Messaging, Lookup, and Phone Numbers menus.

Jun 14, 2023

5 mins

99 Reasons Why People Love Plivo

Uncover the powerful features, seamless integrations, exceptional customer support, and innovative solutions that make Plivo a popular choice for businesses worldwide. Sign up today!

Company

The latest quarterly G2 rankings are out, and Plivo leads the pack.

Plivo was named a Leader in the Communications Platform as a Service category. We received the highest Satisfaction score among products in our category — 99 out of 100, as voted by actual users of our platform.

To celebrate, one of my colleagues suggested we ask a generative AI platform for “99 reasons to love Plivo.” That might be challenging even for a human (yes, we’re biased in favor of biological life forms), but maybe nine reasons? That seems more doable.

We put the question to several generative AI platforms.

We gave all of them the same simple prompt:

“Give me nine reasons why people love the CPaaS platform Plivo.”

What we got back was interesting. Each of the platforms was able to quote many of the themes we pride ourselves on, but not always in the same way.

Every tool cited pricing as an advantage, touting Plivo as “cost-effective,” “affordable,” and “attractive,” among other things.

A couple of the platforms talked about the flexibility of our integration and development tools. A couple of others mentioned flexible pricing. One highlighted the flexibility of our premium support plans.

Scalability was on almost every list. One platform referred to it as “robust infrastructure.”

All but one had a bullet about reliability, but that one did call us reliable under both “robust infrastructure” and “proven track record.”

Every one mentioned our global reach — which comes in handy at those big tables at large family reunions.

They all mentioned our excellent customer support.

Most of the platforms mentioned security.

Finally, as we got down toward the end of the list, we got some varied responses: customizability, innovation, multiple communication channels, robust API, advanced features, comprehensive documentation, and proven track record.

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. And in fact we did say it ourselves, because generative large language models (LLM) like these tools train on large amounts of text, including, in all likelihood, our website and many other websites on which people have written about Plivo. They then string together likely combinations of words that can mimic expertise if the training based was good enough.

Generative AI platforms are not always right, however. In our case, while all of the good things were 100% correct, ChatGPT and Chatsonic noted that we offer video, and that’s not true. This is a good reminder not to rely on AI for your content. (This message was brought to you by your friendly local content marketer, who hopes to keep his job.)

Read what the robots wrote

Are you curious to see how each platform handled the answers? Let us know if you want us to post them verbatim on our LinkedIn page. Drop by there now and click that Follow button so you don’t miss them.

Jun 10, 2023

5 mins

Zentrunk Wins TMC 2023 Communications Solutions Products of the Year Award

Plivo’s Zentrunk won the prestigious TMC 2023 Communications Solutions Products of the Year Award with innovative features and exceptional customer experience.

Company

It’s easy to get started. Sign up for free.

Create your account and receive trial credits or get in touch with us.

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Request Trial

AI Voice Agents - The Complete Guide to Voice Chat (2025)

What is an AI voice agent?

Types of AI voice agents

Rule-based AI voice agent

AI-assisted voice agent

Conversational AI voice agent

Voice-activated voice agent

How does an AI voice agent improve customer engagement?

Use case: Get a quick update on order status, 24/7

Benefits:

Use case: Improve language learning for students

Benefits:

Use case: Improve patient outcomes in healthcare

Benefits:

Use case: Streamline routine financial services

Benefits:

Use case: Get personal shopping assistance

Benefits:

Features of an AI voice agent

Natural language understanding (NLU)

Personalization capabilities

Multi-language support

Integration with other platforms and services

Benefits of voice agents

Enhanced user experience

Better cost efficiency

Accessibility for users with disabilities

Data collection and analysis for improved services

24/7 availability

Future of AI voice technology

Key upcoming trends:

Launch an AI voice agent with Plivo

AI Voice Agents for Real Estate (2026): 10 Tools Compared, Real Limitations and What Actually Scales

Top 10 AI Voice Agents for Real Estate (2026)

1. Plivo

2. Luron AI

3. Callers AI

4. SquadStack AI

5. Telgent

6. AIOnCalls

7. Brilo AI

8. VocalDesk

9. Calldock

10. Ylopo

What Matters Most in AI Voice Agents (Beyond the Basics)

1. Telephony Ownership vs. Vendor Stitching

2. Real-Time Performance (Latency & Uptime)

3. Multi-Channel Context, Not Disconnected Bots

4. Integration Depth (CRM, Calendars, Workflows)

5. Built for Scale, Not Just Launch

FAQs

What's the fastest way to go live without breaking existing operations?

How do I ensure voice quality doesn't feel robotic or laggy?

How does the agent stay accurate and compliant with real estate data?

What happens when call volume spikes or multiple leads call at once?

How does this fit into my CRM and follow-up workflows?

Try Plivo Free

Best AI Voice Agents for Customer Support and Service (2026): What to Deploy Now

1) Plivo — The fastest path to production-grade AI voice agents for customer support

Why Plivo is #1

What it does for you

Segment-by-segment fit

Start with Voice, go everywhere

Suitable for

2) Google Dialogflow CX — Complex, branching flows without spaghetti

Key features

Why it matters

Implementation steps

Suitable for

3) Amazon Lex + Amazon Connect — AWS-first voice automation that ops can own

Key features

Why it matters

Implementation steps

Suitable for

4) IBM Watson Assistant — Governance-first deployments in regulated industries

Key features

Why it matters

Implementation steps

Suitable for

5) Cognigy.AI — IVR modernization with fine-grained voice control