AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Plivo, the cloud communications platform that enables businesses to engage with their customers, is a Leader in the G2 Cloud Communication Platforms Grid® for Winter 2021 and the Momentum Grid® for Cloud Communication Platforms Leader. Plivo received the highest Satisfaction score of any vendor on the Cloud Communication Platforms Grid and exhibits the strongest growth trajectory based on user satisfaction scores, customer adoption, and digital presence.

Plivo offers a communications platform with carrier connectivity in more than 190 countries. Its API platform represents a simple, quick, and scalable way to modernize customer communications.

“Plivo congratulates the other organizations highlighted on the G2 Grids and is proud to be considered a Leader,”” said Venky B, co-founder and CEO, Plivo. “Along with being recognized as a Leader, Plivo also had the highest growth trajectory of any product on the grid during the reporting period. Seamless cloud communications are becoming more and more crucial in today’s business environment, and we intend to continue setting a positive example for the industry.”

G2 releases quarterly reports by category, ranking vendors across a variety of factors. To develop its scores, G2 applies an algorithm to reviews from its user community and data from social networks and other online sources. Satisfaction scores are based on end-user satisfaction and customer review quality and quantity. Market Presence scores are based on public information, including company growth and other metrics. Momentum scores are calculated based on growth of customer adoption, digital presence, and customer satisfaction scores.

About Plivo

Plivo is a communications platform that enables businesses to connect, engage and interact with their customers in more than 190 countries. Thousands of businesses — like IBM, Workday, Nutanix, and Gojek — rely on Plivo to deliver better customer experiences globally. The Plivo team brings deep experience in communications and modern software to address the needs of today’s businesses — quality, scale, innovation, and agility. Founded in 2011 and with global offices, Plivo is backed by investments from Andreessen Horowitz, Qualcomm Ventures, Battery Ventures, and Y Combinator.

Your company has settled on Plivo to handle its voice and messaging communications, and now it’s your job to start integrating Plivo into your company’s applications. Don’t worry — Plivo has an SDK to help you out. Let’s see how to make outbound calls and handle incoming calls through Plivo's voice API in a Java application.

Install the Plivo SDK

We’ll presume you already have Java installed. The easiest way to install the Plivo SDK is by using IntelliJ IDEA. Install it, create a new project, and choose a dependency manager and Java SE SDK for the new project. Then edit pom.xml, add these lines, and save the file.

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.plivo</groupId>
  <artifactId>plivo-java</artifactId>
 <version>5.9.3</version>
</dependency>

If you don’t want to use IntelliJ IDEA, you can download the jar file from our GitHub repo.

Find your Auth ID and Auth Token

You have to have proper credentials before you can use the Plivo API. We provide an Auth ID and Auth Token in the Account section at the top of the overview page of the Plivo console.

Choose a phone number

You need an voice-enabled Plivo phone number if you want to receive incoming calls. Check the Numbers screen of the Plivo console to see what numbers you have available. You can also rent numbers from this screen.

Use PHLO to set up an outbound call

Now you can turn to PHLO, Plivo’s visual workflow design studio, to set up the workflow for an outbound call. Click on the PHLO icon on the left navigation bar, then on Create New PHLO. In the window that pops up, click Build My Own.

Let’s start with a very simple workflow. From the list of components on the left side, drag and drop the Initiate Call component onto the canvas, then connect the Start node to the Initiate Call node using the API Request trigger state.

Now you can add configuration information for the call in the right pane. Valid phone numbers begin with a plus sign and a country code. Add a caller ID number in the From field and a destination number in the To field, then click Validate to save the configuration.

PHLO lets you use variables for From and To values, but we’re keeping it simple for this example.

Now drag the Play Audio component onto the canvas. Connect the Initiate Call node to Play Audio using the Answered trigger state. In the Configuration panel, enter the text you want to play for the call recipient, then click Validate.

That’s all we’re going to do for now — we told you it was simple. Give the PHLO a name by clicking on the pencil icon in the upper left, then click the Save button in the upper right.

Run the PHLO to make a call

Now you can trigger the PHLO and test it out. Copy the PHLO ID from the end of the URL of the workflow you just created. You’re also going to need your Auth ID and Auth Token. Create a Java class in the project — let’s call it PlivoVoiceApplication — and paste this code into it:

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package com.example.demo;
import com.plivo.api.Plivo;
import com.plivo.api.PlivoClient;
import com.plivo.api.exceptions.PlivoRestException;
import com.plivo.api.models.phlo.Phlo;
import com.plivo.api.models.phlo.PhloUpdateResponse;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

import java.io.IOException;

@SpringBootApplication
@RestController
public class PlivoVoiceApplication {


	public static void main(String[] args) {
		SpringApplication.run(PlivoVoiceApplication.class, args);
	}
	
	@GetMapping("/outbound")
	public PhloUpdateResponse triggerPhlo() throws IOException, PlivoRestException {
		final String authId = "<auth_id>";
		final String authToken = "<auth_token>";
		PlivoClient client = new PlivoClient(authId, authToken);
		String phloId = "<PHLO_ID>";
		Plivo.init(authId, authToken);
		Phlo phlo = Phlo.getter(phloId).client(client).get();
		PhloUpdateResponse response = Phlo.updater(phloId).run();
		return response;
	}

}

Substitute actual values for <auth_id>, <auth_token>, and <PHLO_ID>. Save the file and run it from Intellij.

Boom — you’ve made an outbound call.

Note: To setup your Java dev environment using the Spring framework in less than five minutes, refer to the Java Quickstart guide using Spring framework.

Set up inbound calls

Of course outbound calls are only half of the equation. Plivo supports inbound calls as well. To see how, let’s create another PHLO and again specify Build My Own. This time, drag the Play Audio component onto the canvas and connect the Start node to it using the Incoming Call trigger state. In the Configuration panel, enter some text to speak to the caller when the call is answered, then click Validate to save the configuration. Give this PHLO a name, then click Save.

Before you can receive a call using this PHLO, you have to assign it to a Plivo number. Go back to the Plivo console and click on Phone Numbers on the left nav bar. From the list of Your Numbers, click on the number you want to use. On the next screen, from the Application Type dropdown, choose PHLO. From the PHLO Name dropdown, choose the PHLO you just created. Then click Update Number at the bottom of the screen.

Guess what? You’re done! You don’t have to run a program for this PHLO to work. Just call the Plivo number you specified and you should hear the message you configured read by Plivo’s text-to-speech processor.

Conclusion

And that’s all there is to sending and receiving voice calls using Plivo’s Java SDK. Don’t use Java? Don’t worry — we have SDKs for PHP, Python, Node.js, Ruby, .NET Core, .NET Framework, and Go.

Haven’t tried Plivo yet? Getting started takes only five minutes. Sign up today.

Plivo’s Browser SDK lets you make voice calls using a web browser and a Plivo voice application, so you can build engaging and high-quality voice calling into your web apps. We’re now making Browser SDK available under an Apache (APLv2) open source license, so anyone can now make contributions to our Browser SDK code. You don’t even have to be a developer to contribute — we love documentation feedback and bug reports as well.

What are the benefits of open source code?

Open source software offers a number of advantages to both developers and users:

Transparency: Open source code fosters trust among users — in this case our customers and the Plivo community. Sharing our code puts our development work out in the open, and promotes the idea of creative problem-solving at scale.

Bug-fixing: Like all software companies, Plivo occasionally releases code that has bugs. When a bug is spotted in proprietary software, the only people who can fix it are the original developers. With open source code, a larger community of users can access, test, and change the code, which means bugs tend to be exposed more quickly and corrected more rapidly.

Customization: Open source applications may be customized by anyone with coding skills. This makes the code more malleable and flexible to meet specific business needs. It gives you more freedom to make the tweaks and edits you want.

Agility: Access to open frameworks leads to rapid development and quicker releases of new and updated software.

Quality and reliability: With open source code, feedback is more readily accessible, as open source software inherently promotes peer review. The global community can also introduce new concepts and capabilities faster. Our internal teams can review and implement this community feedback to produce extremely robust, tried, and tested code.

In summary, open source code is written by developers and for developers, and celebrates the values of collaboration, transparency, and community-oriented development. We’re excited to give our customers the opportunity to gain and share experience by contributing their code.

The Plivo Browser SDK codebase wraps the functions of Browser SDK as an ES module. To get started, check out the Browser SDK GitHub repository, and refer to our SDK overview and SDK reference documentation. For release notes, see the changelog.

Haven’t tried Plivo yet? Getting started is easy. Sign up today.

Your company has settled on Plivo to handle its voice and messaging communications, and now it’s your job to start integrating Plivo into your company’s applications. Don’t worry — Plivo has an SDK to help you out. Let’s see how to make outbound calls and handle incoming calls through Plivo's Voice API in a Python application.

Install the Plivo SDK

We’ll presume you already have Python installed. Change to the directory into which you want to install the Plivo Python package and run

pip install plivo

or you can download the source code from our repo and run

python setup.py install

Find your Auth ID and Auth Token

You have to know your credentials before you can use the Plivo API. We provide an Auth ID and Auth Token in the Account section at the top of the overview page of the Plivo console.

Choose a phone number

You need an voice-enabled Plivo phone number if you want to receive incoming calls. Check the Numbers screen of the Plivo console to see what numbers you have available. You can also rent numbers from this screen.

Use PHLO to set up an outbound call

Now you can turn to PHLO, Plivo’s visual workflow design studio, to set up the workflow for an outbound call. Click on the PHLO icon on the left navigation bar, then on Create New PHLO. In the window that pops up, click Build My Own.

Let’s start with a simple workflow. From the list of components on the left side, drag and drop the Initiate Call component onto the canvas, then connect the Start node to the Initiate Call node using the API Request trigger state.

Now you can add configuration information for the call in the right pane. Valid phone numbers begin with a plus sign and a country code. Add a caller ID number in the From field and a destination number in the To field, then click Validate to save the configuration.

PHLO lets you use variables for From and To values, but we’re keeping it simple for this example.

Now drag the Play Audio component onto the canvas. Connect the Initiate Call node to Play Audio using the Answered trigger state. In the Configuration panel, enter the text you want to play for the call recipient, then click Validate.

That’s all we’re going to do for now — we told you it was simple. Give the PHLO a name by clicking on the pencil icon in the upper left, then click the Save button in the upper right.

Run the PHLO to make a call

Now you can trigger the PHLO and test it out. Copy the PHLO ID from the end of the URL of the workflow you just created. You’re also going to need your Auth ID and Auth Token. Create a Python source code file — let’s call it trigger_phlo.py — and paste this code into it:

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import plivo

auth_id = '<auth_id>'
auth_token = '<auth_token>'
phlo_id = '<PHLO_ID>' # https://console.plivo.com/phlo/list/
phlo_client = plivo.phlo.RestClient(auth_id=auth_id, auth_token=auth_token)
phlo = phlo_client.phlo.get(phlo_id)
response = phlo.run()
print str(response)

Substitute actual values for <auth_id>, <auth_token>, and <PHLO_ID>. Save the file and run it with the command

python trigger_phlo.py

Boom — you’ve made an outbound call.

Set up inbound calls

Of course outbound calls are only half of the equation. Plivo supports inbound calls as well. To see how, let’s create another PHLO and again specify Build My Own. This time, drag the Play Audio component onto the canvas and connect the Start node to it using the Incoming Call trigger state. In the Configuration panel, enter some text to speak to the caller when the call is answered, then click Validate to save the configuration. Give this PHLO a name, then click Save.

Before you can receive a call using this PHLO, you have to assign it to a Plivo number. Go back to the Plivo console and click on Phone Numbers on the left nav bar. From the list of Your Numbers, click on the number you want to use. On the next screen, from the Application Type drop-down, choose PHLO. From the PHLO Name drop-down, choose the PHLO you just created. Then click Update Number at the bottom of the screen.

Guess what? You’re done! You don’t have to run a program for this PHLO to work. Just call the Plivo number you specified and you should hear the message you configured read by Plivo’s text-to-speech processor.

Conclusion

And that’s all there is to making and receiving voice calls using Plivo’s Python SDK. Don’t use Python? Don’t worry — we have SDKs for PHP, Java, Node.js, Ruby, .NET Core, .NET Framework, and Go.

Haven’t tried Plivo yet? Getting started takes only five minutes. Sign up today.

Businesses often sends text messages from a random number, so it’s hard for recipients to know whether they can trust an unsolicited text. And it’s not difficult for criminals to spoof a caller ID on a text message, which makes SMS an attractive channel for bad actors. Their messages can include links to sites that steal authorization credentials or personal information — a form of phishing that some people call smishing (but we’re not going to, because what an awful word).

It was only a matter of time before someone came up with a way to instill trust in businesses’ outgoing messages, and that someone is Google. Verified SMS is a new service that adds sender verification and branding to business SMS messages so recipients can trust incoming messages at a glance.

How Google Verified SMS works?

With Google Verified SMS, a business can register source phone numbers with Google through a messaging provider partner. Google then verifies each message the business sends and includes the sender’s business name and logo and a verification badge in the message thread.

To receive Verified SMS messages, individuals must tick a setting in the Messages app on their Android device. Today, Verified SMS only works with Android version 5.2 or greater, and it’s not available globally. The service has launched in nine countries to start:

• United States
• Canada
• Mexico
• Brazil
• India
• Philippines
• United Kingdom
• Spain
• France

Look for Google to offer support in more countries in the future.

Verified SMS and RCS

The new service uses the Rich Communications Services (RCS) protocol, a global protocol available to all carriers for sending messages with more functionality than the older SMS standard. The GSM Association, which is responsible for RCS, has published a Universal Profile that, when supported by mobile network operators and hardware manufacturers, guarantees compatible interconnections. Last year the four major US carriers agreed on a Cross-Carrier Messaging Initiative to jointly implement RCS in a way that’s compatible with the Universal Profile.

Verified SMS is a Google-only initiative that works only through Google’s Messages app. In November, Google announced that every Android user (except those in China and Russia) can use RCS by setting Android Messages as their default texting app.

Eventually, RCS will provide end-to-end encryption by default, which will make it more secure than SMS. For now, the encryption feature is in beta and works only on one-on-one chats when both parties use Android Messages.

Google Verified SMS helps businesses enhance their conversations with users, build trust, and prevent scams. Sign up for our newsletter to get notified when Google Verified SMS becomes available to Plivo customers.

SMS messages offer a way to directly send customers delivery notifications, account alerts, and two-factor authentication texts, as well as marketing and other customer service messages.

However, it can be surprisingly complicated to send SMS messages at scale. Rules, regulations, and restrictions vary by country and carrier. It’s important to choose an SMS API provider that can provide the features, carrier networks, and infrastructure you need to get your messages delivered consistently and correctly.

As a sender, there’s a lot you can do to maximize success. We’ve put together this SMS best practices guide so you can focus on content that captures your recipients’ attention and worry less about the risk of delivery failure. Use this guide to help you craft, format, and send great messages.

SMS best practices FAQ

What are the different types of SMS content?

The industry defines three main types of SMS content: person-to-person (P2P), application-to-person (A2P), and promotional.

• P2P is a back-and-forth conversation between people that takes place via text. Examples include texting back and forth with a food delivery person, or taking an SMS survey where each question is followed by an answer.
• A2P is informational messaging that occurs when a consumer gives their phone number to a business and asks to be contacted in the future. Examples include appointment reminders, welcome texts, and alerts sent by a business to fulfill a consumer’s request. The consumer must agree to receive texts when they give the business their mobile number. A2P messages fall into two subcategories.
• Transactional — Non-marketing messages that provide important information to customers, such as a welcome message, an order confirmation, or a shipping update.
• Promotional — Messages sent that contain a sales or marketing promotion. Any call to action (such as a coupon code to an informational text) may place the message in the promotional category.

What are the different SMS source number types?

In the United States and Canada, three SMS number types are available:

• Long code with A2P support. This is a standard, local 10-digit number
• Toll-free numbers
• Short codes, five- or six-digit numbers specifically for SMS and MMS messages to mobile phones

What are the different types of opt-in consent?

As a sender, you must obtain consumer consent (opt-in) for each message, depending on the type of content you send to the consumer. There are three types of consent with which you should be familiar:

• Implied consent — If the consumer initiates the text message exchange and the business only responds to each consumer with relevant information, then no verbal or written permission is required.
• Express consent — The consumer gives permission for a business to contact them before the business sends a text message. Consumers can give permission over text, on a form or website, or verbally. Written permission also works.
• Keyword consent — Keyword consent requires the consumer to signal their consent to receive text messages by having them text a specific keyword to a number. For example: Text START to 12345 to subscribe to alerts.

Before you send a message, determine which content type, number type, and opt-in requirements suit your communication. This quick reference table can help you determine what kind of message you have, what number to use, and how to get opt-in consent.

‍

How do I craft good message content?

Here are some tips for making your content more valuable to recipients and less likely to be flagged as spam.

• Use one recognizable number — Each campaign should use one primary phone number, ideally for both text messages and voice calls.
• Use one recognizable domain name — Each campaign should be associated with a single web domain. Although a full domain is preferred, you can use a URL shortener to deliver custom links.
• Use natural language — Use natural language in your messages, and don’t use nonstandard spellings, such as “H! h0w ar3 you do1ng?”
• Set expectations on frequency — If you plan to send five texts a month, then disclosing “five messages a month” on the first interaction leads to a positive user experience.

What SMS message content should I avoid?

Carriers continuously monitor messages traveling through their networks. Your content may be subject to review, so knowing what types of content to avoid will keep your messages from being flagged. Here are the content types to avoid:

• Promotional messages on toll-free numbers
• Phishing messages that appear to come from reputable companies but in fact trick consumers into revealing personal information
• Fraud or scam messages that involve wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain
• Deceptive marketing messages that do not meet the standard held by the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Truth In Advertising rules
• S.H.A.F.T. (sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, and tobacco) content
• Sensitive content such as
• Betting-related content — game bet, lucky draw, etc.
• Debt restructuring/refinancing offers
• Debt relief offers
• Payday loan offers
• Home loan offers
• Education loan offers
• Insurance quotes (unsolicited)
• Earn money from home job offers

What triggers a carrier review?

In addition to reviewing messages for disallowed content, carriers also monitor for disallowed sending practices. Avoid these disallowed sending practices, which can trigger a review and result in the suspension of sending rights and more.

• Ignoring opt-out requests or other forms of opt-out avoidance (for instance, sending texts from a new phone number from the same business)
• High opt-out rates. A daily opt-out rate (total number of unique consumer phone numbers divided by the unique opt-outs that were sent messages within a 24-hour period) greater than 5% is flagged for monitoring. An opt-out rate of 10% or higher may result in immediate suspension of services.
• Snowshoe sending (applies to toll-free numbers only) or spreading messages across many source phone numbers, specifically to dilute reputation metrics and evade filters
• Using multiple numbers for similar content without first informing the carrier of the phone numbers ahead of time to have them excluded from monitoring
• URL cycling or the utilization of multiple destination URLs on the same message content for the specific purpose of diluting reputation metrics and evading filters

SMS best practices: key takeaways

• Match your content with an approved SMS number type.
• Each SMS number type has different requirements for user opt-in consent.
• Consumers can revoke consent at any time and in any way. Consumer opt-out requests must be honored, whether they are made by phone call, email, or text.
• Carriers continuously monitor messages traversing their networks. They don’t preapprove or whitelist messaging content, but they may review any message content as part of an account review.
• Use of disallowed content can trigger an account review which may result in suspension of sending rights, restriction of high-throughput access, the suspension of provisioning rights for new phone numbers, and/or suspension of all network services.

There are a lot of nuances to sending great SMS messages. This post is just a quick overview of the basics. Download our SMS Best Practices Guide: A How-to Guide to Maximize Success for the US and Canada for more insights and tips.

Watch this short video to learn more.

Your company has settled on Plivo to handle its voice and messaging communications, and now it’s your job to start integrating Plivo into your company’s applications. Don’t worry — Plivo has a Ruby SDK to help you out. You can use it write Ruby applications that send and receive SMS messages.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need a Plivo account — sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already. If this is your first time using Plivo APIs, follow our instructions to set up a Ruby development environment.

Send an SMS message

Now you’re ready to start. Create a file called SendSMS.rb and paste into it this code.

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require 'rubygems'
require 'plivo'

include Plivo

client = RestClient.new("<auth_id>", "<auth_token>")
message_created = client.messages.create(
  '<sender_id>',
  ['<destination_number>'],
  'Hello, world!'
)

Replace the auth placeholders with actual values from the Plivo console. Replace the phone number placeholders with actual phone numbers in E.164 format (for example, +12025551234). In countries other than the US and Canada you can use a sender ID for the message source. You must have a Plivo phone number to send messages to the US or Canada; you can rent a Plivo number from Phone Numbers >Buy Numbers on the Plivo console or via the Numbers API. Save the file and run it.

$ ruby SendSMS.rb

Note: If you’re using a Plivo Trial account, you can send messages only to phone numbers that have been verified with Plivo. You can verify (sandbox) a number by going to the console’s Phone Numbers > Sandbox Numbers page.

Receive an SMS message

Of course sending messages is only half of the equation. Plivo supports receiving SMS text messages in many countries (see our SMS API coverage page and click on the countries you’re interested in). When someone sends an SMS message to a Plivo phone number, you can receive it on your server by setting a Message URL in your Plivo application. Plivo will send the message along with other parameters to your Message URL. You can implement this using a Sinatra web app.

First, create a file called receive_sms.rb (or whatever name you like) and paste into it this code.

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require "sinatra"

get "/receive_sms/" do
  from_number = params[:From]
  to_number = params[:To]
  text = params[:Text]
  puts "Message received — From: #{from_number}, To: #{to_number}, Text: #{text}"
end

Save the file and run it.

$ ruby receive_sms.rb

You should then be able to see your basic server app in action on http://localhost:4567/receive_sms/.

That’s fine for testing, but it’s not much good if you can’t connect to the internet to receive incoming messages and handle callbacks. For that, we recommend using ngrok, which exposes local servers behind NATs and firewalls to the public internet over secure tunnels. Install it and run ngrok on the command line, specifying the port that hosts the application on which you want to receive messages.

$ ./ngrok http [portnum]

Ngrok will display a forwarding link that you can use as a webhook to access your local server using the public network.

Now you can create an application to receive SMS messages (follow our Quickstart guide for details).

Conclusion

And that’s all there is to sending and receiving SMS messages using Plivo’s Ruby SDK. Don’t use Ruby? Don’t worry — we have SDKs for PHP, Java, Node.js, Python, .NET Core, .NET Framework, and Go.

Haven’t tried Plivo yet? Getting started is easy and takes only five minutes. Sign up today.

Ask any of our customers — Plivo offers a great communications platform as a service (CPaaS). Using a cloud platform for communication services beats maintaining your own infrastructure. When you use a cloud CPaaS provider, you don’t need to buy and maintain expensive equipment, or handle carrier relationships in-house. You also don’t need expensive expert developers to keep the software updated.

But even when you choose the simplicity of a cloud platform, nobody gets up to speed right away, and everyone bumps up against roadblocks now and then. When you hit one of those speed bumps, you need knowledgeable tech support — and that’s an area where Plivo shines.

Excellent support was critical for Deckers Brands, a California-based footwear retailer that sells products in more than 50 countries. It needed a way to automate order and shipping status messages, and turned to Plivo for its ability to reliably send a high volume of SMS messages. Rollout went smoothly, says Deckers’ Jacob Martinez, but there were times when the team needed a little hand-holding. “Anytime we’ve ever reached out to Plivo for any questions, we’ve gotten responses quickly and with answers that make sense,” Martinez says.

We hear a lot of feedback like that. In this post, part of an ongoing blog series in which we highlight lessons learned from challenges we’ve faced and how we have turned them into opportunities for success, we talk about how our personalized onboarding assistance helps customers get up and running quickly and our support keeps them successful.

Personalized onboarding assistance

Getting started with new software can be tough. With a platform as comprehensive as Plivo, it can be difficult to figure out how to start. We’ve developed quickstart guides for our Messaging API, Voice API, and SIP trunking, but sometimes you can make progress faster when you talk to another human being.

That’s why Plivo provides personalized assistance to all new customers at no extra cost. A Plivo solutions engineer works with each customer’s dev team to lay out requirements, guide them through implementation, weigh in on a testing plan, and help with debugging if necessary. When the customer is ready to go live, the SE and our support team take special note so they can handle anything urgent. We stay available for as much time as it takes for the customer to prepare for launch. After launch we assign each customer a customer success manager to provide ongoing assistance and advice.

A consultative approach to support

We’re still here for you after you’ve gotten up and running. When you need help, the first thing you can turn to is our documentation, which provides concept tutorials, getting started documents, how-to guides, and reference materials.

If you still have questions, you can visit our support portal, support.plivo.com. It provides resources to answer frequently asked questions, implementation guides, and details about all the elements of Plivo’s platform.

Even the best documentation and online support, however, can’t solve all problems. That’s why we offer a range of support plans to meet any organization’s needs, from a free basic plan that provides access to support engineers 24x7 to premium support that comes with a three-hour service-level agreement (SLA). Businesses that need assistance can gain access to dedicated solution engineers for guidance on complex integrations and issue resolution. Plivo is one of the few CPaaS providers that offers technical support on a one-on-one, per-customer basis.

Our support team provides you with all the technical guidance you need, as you need it. In fact, we pride ourselves on white-glove customer support. To us, that means keeping an eye on how you’re doing and reaching out when we see a problem. It means having a positive, can-do attitude. We understand that glitches can be frustrating, so we do our best to offer solutions quickly. Our support team is made up of genuinely nice people who are strongly motivated to help customers and know a lot about our platform. So even though you may run into a snag, we’re usually able to get you past it quickly and with a smile on your face. We’re not saying you’ll be calling us just to chat with the support team — but we’re not saying you won’t.

Ensuring customer success

Our commitment to our customers doesn’t end when their systems are working. To help you get the most from us, we want to know about your business and how you use Plivo. We provide every customer with a dedicated customer success contact who acts as their organization’s personal ambassador. Your customer success manager will get to know you and your business issues. They can suggest solutions. They can hold your hand over carrier connectivity, billing, and renewal issues. They’ll keep you in the loop about new Plivo solutions and policies. And they’ll act as your advocate with other Plivo team members.

Our customer success team has a great track record of keeping customers happy. They’re one of our not-so-secret weapons in our mission to provide superlative customer experience.

Our relationships carry the day

With telecommunications, not all problems come from the customer side of the connection. Often businesses have issues with carrier networks and connectivity, and sometimes you have to deal with the carriers to fix things. But you shouldn’t have to — you should be able to rely on your API provider to troubleshoot and resolve issues from end to end.

Plivo customers know that we’ll get them back in business quickly. Our support teams can take the lead in troubleshooting network issues. We have direct carrier relationships with dozens of telecom providers around the world, and dedicated in-house teams for each country’s providers. They understand the complex telco laws and regulations, which means we can resolve issues faster than API vendors that have to rely on aggregators, gateway providers, and resellers.

The ultimate goal of CPaaS tech support is uptime. Plivo guarantees 99.99% API uptime on all its services, and you can see how well we meet that promise on our status page. Go on, take a look — we’re proud of our record. Or ask our customers, who’ll tell you things like, “The support team is commendable in terms of the time to respond and the quality of response.”

We’re proud when we hear comments like that, and we hold ourselves accountable to delivering that kind of high-quality support to all of our customers. Everyone at Plivo cares about your success. Our positive, proactive approach to customer service makes us stand out from our competitors.

Learn more about our new support plans and how they might help your team.

ICYMI, read the first post in our Lessons in CPaaS Technology Leadership blog series, Our Own Carrier Network Matters.

We’ve introduced European origin-based pricing for outbound calls made via our Voice API and Zentrunk SIP trunking. Plivo customers are now being charged lower rates for selected calls in the European countries. The per-minute pricing is now automatically determined by the caller ID information sent when placing the call.  

Origin-based pricing means calls to the same destination have different prices depending on where each call comes from. Historically, calls originating from different locations would generally have the same underlying rates. But back in 2017, cross-border calls within Europe were regulated down to local and national rates, rather than the international rates that were applied to calls originating outside of Europe. This meant that calls within the boundaries of Europe became cheaper, while calls originating in a non-European country became more expensive.

In response to this, Plivo built origin-based routing, which ensures that calls originating from a European Economic Area (EEA) number, and terminating in a select group of 10 countries, are routed to an intra-European gateway, and calls from non-European numbers are routed through an international non-European gateway. Origin is determined by the caller ID of the call, whether it be configured in the API, PBX, or Plivo’s console via SIP trunking.

Plivo customers will now see lower costs for calls originating from any of the European countries below that terminate in Austria, Hungary, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Spain, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, or Poland:

We plan to expand our coverage by adding to the list of 10 termination countries in the coming months. For a full breakdown of pricing for each respective country, check out our pricing pages for voice and Zentrunk.

Getting started is easy. All you have to do is rent a number or verify a number you rent on the Plivo console from one of the qualifying countries above, then configure that number as your caller ID. The intra-European gateways will be automatically selected for your calls, and you can immediately take advantage of the lower price per call.

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