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What is SMS Pumping: Plivo’s Quick Guide
Learn about SMS pumping, the risks it poses to businesses, how fraudsters generate fake traffic to exploit them, and how to prevent it.
In the digital age, SMS remains a cornerstone for user authentication, particularly through One-Time Passwords (OTPs). However, this reliance has made businesses vulnerable to a growing threat: SMS pumping fraud.
What is SMS pumping?
SMS pumping, also known as Artificially Inflated Traffic (AIT) or SMS toll fraud, is a fraudulent scheme where attackers exploit SMS-based services to generate large volumes of fake traffic. This is typically achieved by:
- Automated Bots: Using bots to flood online forms with fake OTP requests.
- Premium Rate Numbers: Directing these requests to phone numbers that incur higher charges, often controlled by the fraudsters or complicit telecom operators.
The perpetrators profit by receiving a share of the revenue generated from these inflated SMS charges, leaving businesses to bear the financial burden.
Real-World Impact: The Twitter Case
A notable example of SMS pumping's financial impact is Twitter (now X). In 2023, Elon Musk revealed that the platform was losing approximately $60 million annually due to SMS pumping fraud. The scheme involved over 390 telecom operators worldwide, who were either complicit or negligent in allowing the abuse of SMS services.
How does SMS pumping work?
The process typically unfolds as follows:
- Targeting Vulnerable Endpoints: Attackers identify websites or applications that send OTPs via SMS.
- Flooding with Requests: Bots submit numerous fake requests, often using disposable or premium-rate phone numbers.
- Revenue Generation: Each SMS sent to these numbers incurs a cost, which is shared with the fraudsters.
This leads to significant financial losses for businesses, as they pay for messages that serve no legitimate purpose.
Signs Your Business Might Be a Target
Be vigilant if you notice:
- Unusual Traffic Patterns: A sudden spike in OTP requests, especially from unfamiliar regions.
- Sequential Number Requests: Multiple OTP requests to consecutive phone numbers, indicating automated bot activity.
- Low Conversion Rates: A high number of OTPs sent but a low rate of successful authentications.
Preventive Measures: Safeguarding Your Business
To protect against SMS pumping fraud, consider implementing the following strategies:
- Rate Limiting: Restrict the number of OTP requests per user or IP address within a specified time frame.
- Bot Detection: Use CAPTCHA or other bot detection mechanisms to prevent automated submissions.
- Geo-Blocking: Limit OTP requests to regions where your user base is located.
- Traffic Monitoring: Regularly analyze traffic patterns to identify and mitigate suspicious activities.
Plivo’s Solutions to SMS Pumping
Recognizing the growing threat of SMS pumping, Plivo is proud to offer two innovative tools, free of charge, designed to protect your business from fraudulent SMS traffic:
- SMS Pumping Protection for OTP Traffic: This solution is specifically built to safeguard your SMS API endpoints that handle OTP traffic. By detecting and preventing fraudulent OTP requests, it helps ensure your messaging services remain both secure and cost-effective. Read more about SMS Pumping Protection here.
- Fraud Shield for Verify Applications: Designed for applications leveraging Plivo’s Verify API, Fraud Shield delivers advanced fraud detection by analyzing traffic patterns, identifying anomalies, and blocking suspicious activities. This ensures your verification processes stay protected from abuse. Read more about Fraud Shield here.
Learn more about Plivo’s tools for combating SMS pumping by requesting a trial.
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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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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!
WhatsApp Agent Setup: How to Launch AI-Powered Conversations at Scale
Learn how WhatsApp agent setup works using Plivo to launch AI-powered, no-code agents that handle support, sales, and engagement at scale.
Your customers are on WhatsApp but are your agents?
If you’re still relying on manual replies, scripted chatbots, or email follow-ups, you’re leaving response time and revenue on the table.
The smarter path? AI-powered WhatsApp agents. They’re full-service, no-code agents that can resolve issues, qualify leads, and send personalized offers 24/7.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through WhatsApp agent setup using Plivo and understand how these agents help you automate conversations that convert.
What is a WhatsApp AI agent?
A WhatsApp AI agent is an automation designed to operate over the WhatsApp Business API. Unlike scripted bots, agents are built to understand intent, pull in context from your internal systems, and complete business tasks like answering account-specific questions or initiating transactions.
Plivo’s WhatsApp AI agents can be trained to use your brand voice, integrated with your CRM or helpdesk, and customized to handle specific use cases, such as subscription renewals, cart recovery, refund processing, or customer onboarding.
They are accessible through a no-code interface and support a multilingual, omnichannel customer experience across WhatsApp, SMS, RCS, and voice.
What you need before setting up your agent
To go live with a WhatsApp agent, you need:
- A verified Meta Business Account
- An active WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) tied to a phone number
- Pre-approved message templates for outbound communication
- WhatsApp Business API access through a business solution provider (BSP) (Plivo offers this natively)
- A platform to design, train, and manage agents (Plivo Agent Studio)
Also read: How to Create WhatsApp Message Templates: A Complete Guide
Optional but recommended integrations:
- CRM (like Salesforce, HubSpot, or Zoho)
- Helpdesk (like Zendesk or Freshdesk)
- E-commerce or billing tools (Shopify, Stripe, etc.)
Step-by-step: How to set up a WhatsApp agent with Plivo
Follow this step-by-step guide for a smooth WhatsApp agent setup with Plivo.
Step #1: Choose your primary use case and define agent scope
Don’t build a generic bot. Start with why you’re automating. This could be handling support queries, sending order updates, re-engaging inactive customers, or managing subscription renewals.
Plivo provides a library of prebuilt AI agents for common use cases like cart recovery, lead qualification, appointment reminders, and product recommendations. You can choose to use one as-is or customize it to fit your business process. Each agent is compatible with WhatsApp and designed to operate across channels as needed.
Step #2: Build the agent using Plivo’s no-code platform
Since your API access is already set up, you can begin building your agent in Plivo’s Agent Studio. This is a visual, drag-and-drop builder where you create conversation flows using blocks that represent actions, responses, conditions, and triggers.
You can structure your flow to respond to specific keywords, match customer intent, route inquiries to different departments, or escalate to a live agent when needed. Each step in the journey can include media-rich responses like buttons, product carousels, quick replies, and file attachments.
Beyond logic design, you can also configure fallback rules for when the agent is unsure, and add human handoff conditions to ensure escalations happen smoothly with full context transferred to the live agent.
This step allows you to fully customize the agent’s tone, workflow, and logic to reflect how your brand communicates.4
Step #3: Train your agent with AI
Plivo supports integration with internal systems like your CRM, order management platform, inventory tools, or helpdesk. This means your agent can access real-time customer data, past orders, preferences, and policies to deliver personalized responses.
You can also connect your knowledge base, including FAQs, SOPs, product documentation, or policy articles. These resources train the agent to respond accurately and contextually, without needing scripted answers.
For natural language understanding, Plivo gives you the flexibility to choose the AI model that powers your agent.
Step #4: Test, launch, and monitor your agent
Once your flow is built and trained, run controlled tests:
- Check for flow accuracy and intent matching
- Review how it handles incomplete or unclear inputs
- Test human handoff and see if the agent transfers the full context
Plivo’s real-time dashboard lets you:
- Monitor delivery, engagement, and satisfaction metrics
- Track where users drop off in conversations
- Identify areas to improve agent logic or content
- Compare campaign and agent performance across channels
After launch, your agent keeps learning. As more customers interact, you’ll gather insight to improve how it responds or what paths it offers.
Plivo is purpose-built for WhatsApp AI agent deployment
Plivo’s platform is designed to help you move from idea to live AI-powered engagement without requiring engineering support or external consultants. When you use Plivo for WhatsApp agent setup, you get:
- Access to prebuilt agents for sales, support, and engagement
- Intuitive no-code builder (Agent Studio) that puts you in control
- Deep integration with your business systems for real-time, contextual replies
- Support for the best LLMs on the market, so your agent is trained with intelligence
- Built-in compliance with WhatsApp’s policies and global data laws
- Unified interface to manage messaging across WhatsApp, SMS, RCS, and Voice
- Enterprise-grade infrastructure with 99.99% uptime and expert onboarding support
Automate outcomes with WhatsApp agent setup in Plivo
Smart WhatsApp automation starts with smart setup. With Plivo's no-code platform, you can automate customer conversations, boost sales, and scale support — all without a development team.
Plivo offers the tools to build agents that reflect your brand, the infrastructure to scale securely, and the intelligence to adapt with your customer needs.
Whether you're trying to cut support wait times, recover abandoned carts, or drive upsells through personalized outreach, a well-built WhatsApp agent can make it happen, and Plivo makes it achievable.
Ready to get started? Request a free trial today!
The Definitive Guide to Automating WhatsApp for Business
Learn how WhatsApp automation can simplify customer communication and scale operations. Know about its key benefits and use cases. Get started today.
Remember when WhatsApp was just a simple messaging app? Launched in 2009, it was a tool for friends and family to stay in touch.
Fast-forward to today, and WhatsApp has become a global powerhouse with over 3 billion monthly active users. Businesses worldwide leverage WhatsApp to connect with customers, share updates, and provide support.
Many businesses struggle to keep up with the growing volume of customer messages on WhatsApp. Manually handling inquiries, sending updates, or following up on leads can quickly become overwhelming and inefficient.
This is where WhatsApp automation steps in.
By automating repetitive messaging tasks, businesses can reduce manual workload, respond faster, and deliver more personalized, timely communication.
In this article, we'll explore what WhatsApp automation is, why it's essential for modern businesses, and how you can implement it to improve customer engagement and operational workflows.
What is WhatsApp automation?
WhatsApp automation is the use of technology to automatically send and manage messages on the platform, especially for business and customer engagement purposes.
It doesn’t require human intervention for every interaction. As a result, businesses can handle customer inquiries, deliver updates, and engage with prospects efficiently.
With WhatsApp business automation, you can:
- Auto-respond to FAQs and reduce ticket volume.
- Reduce customer support load with proactive messaging.
- Route complex support queries to live agents only when needed.
- Send order confirmations and delivery updates automatically.
- Share return instructions based on customer actions.
- Run re-engagement campaigns with smart timing.
- Integrate with Shopify, Magento, and more for real-time updates.
- Trigger workflows from CRMs or e-commerce platforms.
- Keep messaging compliant with auto opt-outs and logs.
Here’s a breakdown of the three main types of automated messaging on WhatsApp:
Key benefits of WhatsApp automation
By automating routine tasks, WhatsApp can help your business stay responsive and consistent across customer touchpoints. Here’s how it can benefit your business:
Reduce manual workloads and response times
When you automate WhatsApp interactions, every department, from marketing to customer service, runs more smoothly.
By automating routine tasks like order updates, FAQs, and customer inquiries, businesses can significantly reduce the manual effort required.
This means your team spends less time on repetitive tasks and more time focusing on high-priority interactions.
Increases the scalability of customer interactions
As your business grows, the number of customer interactions increases. Automation allows you to scale communication efforts without hiring additional staff or losing the personal touch.
Whether you're dealing with 50 or 5,000 customers, automated responses ensure that each inquiry is handled swiftly and consistently.
Enhances customer experience through personalization
Automated WhatsApp messages can be personalized based on customer data, creating a more relevant and tailored experience.
From addressing customers by name to offering product recommendations based on past purchases, personalization makes customers feel valued. This leads to higher engagement rates and improved loyalty.
Cost-effectiveness compared to manual processes
WhatsApp automation eliminates the need for large customer support teams and reduces the time spent on repetitive tasks.
This saves on operational costs and also leads to a more efficient allocation of resources.
5 popular use cases of WhatsApp automation across industries
Businesses everywhere are finding new ways to use WhatsApp automation. Here are five popular examples:
1. Customer support
Automating common FAQs and routine inquiries on WhatsApp helps customers get instant answers anytime. This reduces the number of tickets support teams have to handle, letting them focus on more complex problems.
2. E-commerce operations
Order confirmations, shipping updates, and delivery notifications keep customers informed every step of the way. Automating returns and collecting feedback via WhatsApp speeds up these processes and improves customer satisfaction.
3.Marketing and lead nurturing
Automated lead follow-ups ensure timely, consistent engagement with prospects, boosting conversion chances. Also, you can use personalized re-engagement campaigns to help bring back inactive customers with offers or updates tailored to their interests.
4.Event management and invitations
Automated WhatsApp invites, updates, and follow-ups keep your audience informed and engaged, boosting the attendance rate. This helps you stay connected and make every event a success.
5.Appointment scheduling and reminders
Timely reminders help customers remember appointments, reducing cancellations and improving the overall experience. Automation makes scheduling easier and more efficient for both businesses and customers.
Step-by-step guide to implement WhatsApp automation for your business
To successfully implement WhatsApp automation, follow these key steps that cover planning, setup, and optimization.
Step 1: Define your use cases and goals
Start by identifying which business functions, such as order updates, customer support, or lead follow-ups, will benefit most from automation.
Set clear, measurable goals like:
- Reducing response times
- Lowering manual workload
- Boosting customer engagement
This will guide your automation strategy and help you track success.
Also, ensure compliance from the start. WhatsApp requires businesses to obtain explicit customer opt-in before sending messages. To stay compliant:
- Use clear, transparent language when requesting consent.
- Collect opt-ins through channels like website forms, checkout flows, or click-to-chat ads.
- Log and manage consent within your systems for audit readiness.
Data privacy and compliance are essential for building trust and maintaining long-term customer relationships.
Step 2: Choose the right WhatsApp business API provider
Select a platform that fits your specific needs. Look for features like:
- Robust CRM integrations
- Audience segmentation
- Flexible automation workflows
These capabilities simplify your communication and scale your efforts efficiently.
Make segmentation a priority, use tagging and grouping strategies to target the right customers with the right messages.
With smart tagging and grouping, you can:
- Deliver personalized messages
- Engage the right people at the right time
- Improve conversion and retention
Step 3: Set up your WhatsApp business account
You must set up a verified WhatsApp Business account to use WhatsApp for automated messaging. This includes:
- Registering your business name and details.
- Verifying a dedicated phone number.
- Getting approval from Meta to use the WhatsApp Business API.
This ensures that your business is recognized as a legitimate sender.
Your WhatsApp API provider will typically assist with onboarding, including submitting documentation and setting up the technical aspects.
Some platforms also offer pre-built tools to help you manage mobile number registration, display name approval, and message template submissions.
Step 4: Create and submit message templates
Start by designing message templates for everyday customer interactions, such as:
- Promotional messages (e.g., limited-time offers)
- Transactional updates (e.g., order confirmations, delivery alerts)
- Support messages (e.g., ticket updates or issue resolution)
Each template must follow WhatsApp’s formatting and content policies.
Once your templates are ready, submit them through your WhatsApp API provider for Meta’s approval. Only approved templates can be used for proactive messaging.
Step 5: Build automation workflows
Now that your account and templates are ready, it’s time to connect WhatsApp with the rest of your tech stack. Integrate with:
- CRM systems (to access customer data)
- Support tools (for query management)
- E-commerce platforms (to track orders and actions)
Use event-based triggers, like a new order, a cart abandonment, or a support ticket, to automatically send relevant messages.
Additionally, plan for human fallback. Automation can’t handle everything. Build intelligent workflows that escalate to a human agent when:
- A customer requests help
- The query is too complex
- Sentiment detection flags a negative experience
This keeps your support experience smooth, responsive, and frustration-free.
Step 6: Test, launch, and optimize
Start with a pilot campaign to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Track key metrics:
- Response time
- Open rate
- Conversion rate
Use these insights to refine your workflows, improve message content, and adjust targeting.
Best practices for WhatsApp automation
Following some proven best practices is essential to get the most out of WhatsApp automation. Here’s what you need to know:
Tips for optimizing messaging frequency and timing
To keep your audience interested, it's vital to message thoughtfully and strategically. Here are some quick tips:
- Avoid over-messaging to prevent unsubscribes.
- Use analytics to identify when your audience is most active and receptive.
- Space out messages to keep it natural.
- Monitor response rates and adjust based on customer behavior and feedback.
Leverage data analytics for campaign performance
By tracking metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and response times, you gain valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t. Use this data to refine your messaging, target relevant audience segments, and optimize timing.
Regularly reviewing analytics helps you make informed decisions that boost engagement and drive better results over time.
Compliance and customer privacy protection
To protect your customers and stay compliant, focus on these key areas:
Enhance customer communication with Plivo’s AI WhatsApp automation
The growing demand for instant, tailored communication on WhatsApp puts pressure on businesses to respond quickly. Customers expect fast, personalized replies around the clock, and doing this manually often leads to delays, inconsistent service, and missed opportunities.
Finding a way to scale these conversations efficiently is critical for businesses looking to stay competitive.
That’s where Plivo comes in, an industry-leading omnichannel platform that automates and personalizes WhatsApp conversations, delivering timely responses at scale.
By leveraging Plivo’s WhatsApp AI agents, businesses can manage a wide range of customer communication tasks, from pre-sales inquiries to post-purchase support, without increasing their team size.
Here’s how Plivo can enhance your customer communication:
- Brand-aligned AI agents: You can customize the AI agents to reflect your brand’s voice, tone, and style. This makes all customer interactions align with your brand’s identity and deliver a personalized experience.
- AI customer service agent: Plivo’s AI agents work around the clock, ensuring your customers receive timely responses, regardless of the time zone. These agents process orders, resolve support issues, and answer questions.
- Natural, human-like conversations: With AI agents, you can engage in context-aware conversations, mimicking human interactions. They remember customer preferences and history to provide relevant responses like a human agent would.
- Simple, volume-based pricing: Plivo charges a flat fee per conversation rather than per message, making costs predictable and scalable. Volume discounts are available to lower your total spend as your messaging needs grow.
- Built-in compliance: Plivo ensures compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, and SOC 2 standards.
- Guaranteed message delivery with fallback options: The platform delivers billions of messages annually and uses SMS and voice fallback channels to ensure your customers always receive important communications.
- 24/7 availability: Plivo's AI agents provide instant, 24/7 assistance, answering questions, processing orders, and resolving customer issues.
- Multilingual support: With support for 70+ languages, Plivo’s AI agents can engage with customers globally and offer a multilingual customer service experience.
- E-commerce platform integrations: Integrate seamlessly with popular e-commerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Magento to deliver a unified customer experience across all touchpoints.
With Plivo’s vast carrier network spanning over 220 countries, businesses can significantly cut SMS costs by up to 70% while achieving threefold returns on investment.
Many companies using Plivo CX have experienced remarkable results, earning an outstanding $71 for every dollar invested in their SMS marketing efforts.
Book a free demo today and see how Plivo’s AI WhatsApp agents can change your customer communication strategy.
How to Send and Receive SMS Messages Using Python and Plivo’s Messaging API
Discover how to get started with Plivo’s SMS API and Python to easily send and receive SMS text messages.
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’s SMS API has a Python SDK to help you out. You can use it write Python 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 Python development environment.
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Send an SMS message using Python
Now you’re ready to start. Create a file called send_sms.py and paste into it this code.
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.
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 using Python
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 Flask web app.
First, optionally, set up a virtual environment to keep these packages isolated from others on your system. Then create a file called receive_sms.py (or whatever name you like) and paste into it this code.
Save the file and run it.
You should then be able to see your basic server app in action on http://localhost:5000/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 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 SMS with Python. Don’t use Python? Don’t worry — we have SDKs for Java, PHP, Node.js, Ruby, .NET Core, .NET Framework, and Go.
Haven’t tried Plivo yet? Getting started is easy and takes only five minutes. Sign up today.
Connectivity and Communications for Better Customer Experience in 2021
A CPaaS can help businesses create better experiences and drive loyalty in the upcoming year.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how we work, learn, and interact. Social distancing guidelines have led to a more virtual existence, both personally and professionally.
We’ve all reduced the number of in-person interactions we have, so network connectivity and communications have taken center stage. Many businesses have increased their reliance on digital channels and have accelerated the pace of their digital transformation, implementing solutions for connecting their employees, customers, and partners in a remote environment, and relying on communications platforms like Plivo to do so.
Even prior to COVID-19, communications platform as a service (CPaaS) was becoming mainstream for businesses to stay ahead of customer expectations without having to overhaul their existing IT infrastructure. It’s a low-risk, pay-as-you-go cloud solution that enables businesses to conveniently and instantly connect with their customers.
Now we’re seeing an even more demand for real-time communication, with the expectation of a 24/7 multichannel experience, especially as it relates to sharing critical information, scheduling appointments, and receiving essential services.
Here are a few ways businesses can meet new and changing customer expectations to create better experiences and drive loyalty in the upcoming year.
Proactively reach out to customers
Proactive outreach is key for maintaining customer relationships and promoting customer loyalty. From health systems needing advanced communication with at-risk patients to retailers needing to handle delays for supply chains, SMS API solutions can automatically contact individuals or groups via text interaction, auto form fills, and response tracking. CPaaS can enable all the critical messaging capabilities a business needs, and this kind of automation enables them to scale up quickly and reliably.
Consider an omnichannel approach
The best way to satisfy customer demands is via omnichannel, 24/7 solutions with features such as intelligent routing, interactive voice response (IVR), and workflow automation. For instance, if a customer reaches out to your business with a text message late at night, you can configure prebuilt auto responses to confirm receipt and provide a response based on the words they used. You can also add the message to a queue for your customer service team to follow up on during normal business hours, to help deliver a more personalized experience for your customers.
Offer more self-service options
Self-service tools enable customers to solve their own problems quickly. They also free up agents to handle more complex queries. If you integrate an IVR system with your CRM platform, you can let customers open service tickets, pay bills, schedule payments, book appointments, and track order shipments. If you handle large volumes of IT requests, you can offer guided instructions for resetting passwords or rebooting customer applications. Whenever a customer has an inquiry that can’t be resolved with an automated option, you can redirect them to a live agent for more personal attention.
To take even more advantage of self-service, you can implement a skill-based routing system to ensure that the most qualified person, rather than the first available agent, is the one who answers a call. With the right programming, your IVR menu can qualify, filter, and route calls to the team member best suited to address your customer’s needs.
A CPaaS solution enables more effective communication between an organization and its customers, employees, or patients. Sophisticated tools like Plivo enable a fully integrated and automated experience to help scale communications and to engage and advance the user experience. Building these three strategies into your company’s CPaaS strategy in 2021 can turn your automated technology into a customer-first tool that exceeds expectations.
Sign up for a free trial and see for yourself.
Improve Conversions with Multichannel 2FA
Multichannel two-factor authentication offers superior reliability and seamless customer experience, and guarantees high delivery rates across the globe.
Security is critical for all businesses. Strong authentication tools are the first line of defense against hackers and other bad actors.
Generally, passwords serve as the first authentication factor today. Every computer user is familiar with how passwords work. Security best practices call for long passwords, and if a string of letters and numbers is too long or complex to remember, users can employ a password management application to remember passwords for them. But passwords can be hacked, copied, or stolen, so passwords alone don’t provide adequate security — thus the need for a second factor.
Two-factor authentication choices — pros and cons
Many businesses use two-factor authentication (2FA) to secure access to enterprise resources and data. Organizations have many options for the second factor — biometrics, a hardware or software token, or a message sent over a separate communication channel from the one people log in on. Each has pros and cons.
Biometric authentication offers high security. Credentials are impossible to transfer to unauthorized individuals and difficult to spoof. But biometrics relies on special hardware, such as a fingerprint reader, which adds to the cost, and may deliver a false positive result, thus providing authorization wrongly.
Hardware tokens are difficult to spoof or tamper with and don’t require users to be connected to any network. However, they’re an extra item that organizations have to pay for and that users have to carry around and sometimes lose. Battery-operated tokens that work by generating a PIN code have limited lifetimes.
Software tokens that generate PIN codes can be a good alternative to hardware tokens. Users can generate them through applications on mobile devices, even if they’re not connected to a network. But users must download one of the token-generating apps that provide the numeric codes they exchange, and have to be trained on how to use them. And, like any software, apps can be hacked. Worse, if the mobile device is lost, the authentication credentials may be difficult or impossible to recover.
SMS messages may be the simplest and best choice for 2FA. For 2FA to work effectively, any authentication factor has to be easily accessible to users who need to authenticate. Just about everyone has a mobile device nowadays, and SMS comes native on all mobile devices — no additional app install required. And everyone knows how to read and reply to text messages, so no training is required. On the downside, it costs organizations money to send SMS messages, and in some cases it costs users to receive them. The technology relies on users being connected to a network. And SIM swapping attacks can attempt to compromise authentication.
The importance of a fallback authentication channel
Regardless of which approach an organization takes, it’s critical that the authentication method be reliable. You can’t improve security if your security enhancement keeps people from accessing the resources they need. That means your second factor needs a Plan B that’s just as secure as the original.
That’s a tall order for biometric and token-based authentication. If face recognition fails to authorize you or you lose your token, what’s your alternative authentication method? You may have to fall back on an emergency passcode — and that nullifies the advantage of a second authentication method, because passcodes are no more secure than passwords.
In this respect, SMS has an advantage over biometrics and tokens.
Though SMS is very reliable, it can be subject to delayed or dropped delivery, thanks to snags such as high network loads, unreliable carriers in some countries, and a host of other issues.
But when SMS authentication fails, organizations can easily implement a fallback channel for authentication — voice messages. Voice has the same advantages of ubiquity and intuitive use that SMS offers. Because voice calls sync immediately versus being stored or forwarded like SMS, voice calls are prioritized on the carrier network, and as a result, they’re more reliable than SMS. And the combination of SMS with voice fallback is the most reliable of all.
Voice as a fallback channel from SMS for 2FA
We’ve written a post on best practices for SMS and voice-based 2FA. It talks about how to ensure that 2FA messages arrive within the 10- to 15-second window that avoids disruption in the customer experience: The communications platform has to be able to identify invalid phone numbers, discover the fastest routes for optimal message delivery, and support high throughput for delivering high volumes of messages and in a timely manner.
Any company that intends to verify or authenticate users via SMS or voice calls needs superior reliability globally to ensure a seamless customer experience. Your SMS and voice API provider needs to offer a high-quality carrier network to guarantee high delivery rates across the globe.
Plivo customer Bigo, a Singapore-based provider of video-based products and services, uses SMS and voice to verify signups. It used PHLO, Plivo’s visual development tool, to quickly build a workflow that issues a one-time password (OTP) via SMS and then defaults to voice verification to improve conversions. Using PHLO makes building workflows simple; you can start with an existing template and easily adapt your verification and authentication requirements via drag-and-drop modules.
Reliability and security second to none
Plivo is all about reliability. Our platform supports more than a billion transactions every month while maintaining 99.99% API uptime. Our infrastructure is globally distributed and uses a network of eight data centers around the world to power global communications.
And when it comes to security, we eat our own dog food. Plivo’s CPaaS platform itself uses multifactor authentication, among other security features, to keep customer access and data secure.
How to Send and Receive SMS Messages in Java Using Plivo’s SMS API
Get started with Plivo’s SMS API and Java to send and receive SMS text messages.
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 Java SDK to help you out. You can use it write Java applications that send and receive SMS messages.
In this guide, we’ll explain how to send and receive SMS messages in Java. We'll walk you through the process of setting up your account, writing code snippets for sending messages and receiving responses through our SMS API. By the end, you'll be ready to leverage SMS communication for notifications, alerts, or even two-way interactions in Java.
Prerequisites
Before we walk you through the steps to send SMS in Java, you’ll need a few prerequisites in place:
- A Plivo account— sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already.
- Install (or update) Java 1.8 or higher
- Install IntelliJ IDEA
- Install Spring and the Plivo Java SDK
To make sure you’re ready to go, refer to our guide Set up your Java Dev Environment for Messaging. This guide will go into more detail to help you set up a development environment to trigger API requests in Java. The entire process takes around five minutes.
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Send an SMS in Java
Now you’re ready to start. Create a Java class in the project called SendSMS and paste into it this code.
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.
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 in Java
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 using a Spark web app. Install Spark by editing pom.xml and adding dependencies for Spark and the Simple Logging Facade for Java (SLF4J), which you’ll also want.
Then create a Java class in the project called ReceiveSMS and paste into it this code.
When you run the project you should 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 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). You can also create a Java class to reply to incoming SMS messages.
Why you should use Java to send and receive SMS
Java’s platform independence, ease of use, and security make it a great programming language for sending and receiving SMS messages. Compared to other programming languages, Java is simple to use and easy to understand.
Java is also an object-oriented programming language, meaning developers can easily reuse objects in other programs. Because it’s platform independent (e.g., Write Once Run Anywhere, or WORA), Java SMS applications can run on various platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux, etc.) without modification.
Finally, Java provides robust security mechanisms to protect sensitive SMS data. SSL/TLS support for SMS transactions makes secure communication channels easy to establish.
Get started with Plivo to send SMS in Java
That’s all there is to sending and receiving SMS messages 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 is easy and takes only five minutes. Sign up today.
What is Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)?
Plivo’s two-factor authentication offering is a reliable, scalable phone number authentication solution in a single API.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) protects organizations from unauthorized access to data by requiring an additional level of authentication beyond usernames and passwords. Common 2FA types include one-time passwords (OTP) sent through a separate communication channel; biometric factors such as a fingerprint, retina scan, or facial or voice recognition; and an authenticator app or hardware token that provides a time-sensitive code.
Plivo’s two-factor authentication offering, which uses SMS- or voice-based OTP authentication, can secure accounts, prevent takeovers, and protect high-value transactions.
Why should I implement 2FA?
Security best practices call for organizations to use 2FA before granting users access to their digital assets. With account takeovers on the rise, passwords alone don’t provide the level of security organizations need. Having a separate, unconnected authentication channel makes it difficult for malicious actors to compromise secure systems.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted many customers and employees to remote, mobile, virtual, or distributed locations, which makes 2FA even more important.
Read the complete guide on How to implement 2FA ?
How does Plivo 2FA work?
- When a user signs up or logs in to a customer’s application, the application calls the Plivo API.
- The Plivo API sends a numeric code to the user’s mobile device via SMS message or voice call. Our APIs sync these codes with the customer’s application to authenticate the login, even when a device is offline.
- The person with the mobile device enters the verification code they received into the application.
- The application verifies that the code is the same as the one that was sent, and if it is, gives them full access.
Why should I choose Plivo as my 2FA provider?
Plivo enables users to access their accounts and files from multiple devices thanks to our ability to provide consistent high deliverability of time-sensitive 2FA SMS and voice calls.
To ensure timely delivery, Plivo leverages deliverability reports from a global network of test nodes and our Feedback API, enabling us to proactively route messages to the most effective carrier. We offer senders a direct route to end users, with a one-hop maximum, and without route dilution or blending. Users can make calls and send SMS messages to every country in the world, avoid delays, and avoid paying for repeated, undelivered messages.
By the way, we use 2FA ourselves to protect access to the Plivo console. Our documentation has more information on how to implement 2FA within your own applications.
Announcing Secure Trunking on Outbound Trunks
Secure SIP trunking enables outbound trunks to use TLS to encrypt signaling and SRTP to encrypt media during the time a call is traveling through the public internet.
Plivo now supports secure trunking for Zentrunk’s outbound trunks. SIP security has become a major priority for businesses — networks often hold classified information, and if a hacker gains access to it while it’s in use, the damage can be severe.
With this new functionality, Plivo customers can use Transport Layer Security (TLS) to encrypt signaling and Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) to encrypt media during the time a call is traveling through the public internet.
How it works
Secure trunking operates almost entirely the same as any SIP trunk. The only difference is a short exchange at the beginning of a call to negotiate a security cipher suite and key to encrypt the call. Once the call is on the internal side of the Plivo network, encryption is no longer used.
Two types of data packets are involved in a successful SIP call over the internet — signaling and media. Encryption of signaling happens over the TLS protocol, and ensures authentication between two transport endpoints over an unsecured path for the SIP messages. Think of this as validating that the packets are from the correct source (either the customer or Plivo), and that they haven’t been altered during transmission. We support TLS versions 1.2 and 1.3. SRTP is used when securing RTP packets, which ensures that the media packets and actual contents of the call remain private and secure during the transmission. This kind of end-to-end encryption allows businesses with strict information security practices to reap the benefits of both SIP trunks and cloud communications.
To learn more about our implementation and how to configure your VoIP infrastructure with secure trunking, check out our documentation.
With a redundant infrastructure across multiple geographies and at least three local carrier connections across countries, Plivo offers a secure SIP trunking solution with robust authentication and encryption. You can rest assured that the communication lines in your company are safe from data attacks.
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Holiday Messaging: Don’t Let Covid Upend Your Success
How to ace Holiday Messaging in the midst of a Pandemic?
As COVID-19 cases continue to rise, governments are implementing new travel restrictions, gathering sizes are limited, and many holiday traditions are sure to look different this year. The pandemic has impacted many areas of business planning, including holiday messaging campaigns. With in-person communications scaled back, it’s likely that your company is rethinking how to reach its customers. SMS and MMS messaging offer a way to cut through the clutter and directly reach customers with critical information.
Who might be pivoting more of their communications to SMS and MMS in the next few weeks? Here are some examples of businesses whose communications can’t fail at the peak of the holiday season:
- Retailers sending updated promotions, store capacity limits, or reduced opening hours
- Ecommerce vendors sending delivery notifications and updates for gifts
- Grocery stores or restaurants arranging for curbside pickup or home delivery
- Airlines notifying passengers of flight changes or updated health and safety guidelines
- Ride-hailing platforms notifying of passenger pickup and mask requirements
Make sure your messages reach their intended audience this season. Here are a few tips to remember if you’re making a sudden switch of communication channels.
Don’t forget the visuals
Multimedia messages can help you stand out. If your store is closed or its hours have changed, but you still need to promote a Black Friday or Cyber Monday sale, use MMS messaging to send a variety of formats: pictures, audio, and video. With Plivo’s MMS API, you can send and receive MMS messages using any number type (long code, toll-free, short code) across the US and Canada.
Use the right number
Phone number validation minimizes delivery errors by determining whether a customer’s phone number is valid before including that number in your contact list. This validation process reduces errors and helps increase conversion rates by segregating landlines from mobile numbers. Make sure you’re messaging numbers that can actually receive them. Plivo’s Lookup API determines number format, type, country, and carrier for any phone number worldwide and in real time.
Short isn’t always sweet
Short codes offer a clean, fast, and legally compliant option for sending high-volume, one-way application-to-person (A2P) communications. But, compared to other SMS number types such as long codes and toll-free numbers, short codes are the most heavily regulated number type. Short codes take the longest to get approval for and have the most expensive rates. If you’re trying to make a sudden switch, a short code may not be the best option. Read about best practices for using short codes with an SMS API and get your timelines correct.
Be recognizable
If you’re sending messages outside the US and Canada, a sender ID can help identify your brand via a custom alphanumeric phrase like the company’s name or service, thereby increasing engagement with recipients. Some countries require you to register sender IDs. If you’re on a tight deadline, make sure to check our blog post on sender IDs for more information.
Turn up the volume
If you’re changing tactics and suddenly incorporating more messages than you originally planned, you’ll need a solution that automates the sending of potentially hundreds of thousands of messages. Plivo Powerpack automatically determines how many phone numbers you need to deliver those messages, and can also find the best phone numbers for reliable delivery. Powerpack can ensure that the “from” number is always a local phone number, increasing open and read rates. Powerpack is designed to meet large-scale SMS and MMS message throughput and volume requirements.
It’s easy to get started with Plivo messaging. It only takes minutes to set up an account and send your first message. If you’re suddenly facing a holiday crunch and need some guidance, let us help! Talk to an expert today.
Introducing Plivo Browser SDK for Mobile Browsers
We now support the Plivo Browser SDK in mobile browsers: Safari on iOS, Chrome and Firefox on Android.
The Plivo Browser SDK lets users make and receive calls using Plivo applications directly from a web browser. Using our SDK, you can create applications like click-to-call, conferencing bridges, and even web phones.
Developers have been using Browser SDK for several years to write applications for desktop browsers. We now support the Plivo Browser SDK in mobile browsers — namely Chrome and Firefox on Android and Safari on iOS. This means that customers can use the Browser SDK to build audio calling applications designed for the mobile web.
Use cases include:
- Call center — Build a more efficient call center workflow by allowing your agents to make and receive calls via their browsers and control call flows in your app using our API.
- Click to call — Whether you’re building a feature-rich call center or adding click-to-call to your CRM app, Plivo runs seamlessly in the background to allow your users to interact via audio communication.
- Web-based help desk — Create great service experiences and workflows. Your sales and support agents can access customer info while making calls directly from their web browsers.
- Web conferencing — Build rich conference experiences with Plivo’s out-of-the-box features, including unique call flows, recording calls, and branded conference greetings.
Mobile support enables developers to deliver engaging experiences for users who prefer using their mobile devices without downloading a native app. To leverage this functionality, you need to use the latest version of the SDK and update your application UI for the mobile form factor.
While our Browser SDK supports most of the standard functionality in the corresponding mobile browsers (Chrome, Firefox, and Safari), due to various browser engine limitations, support for features differs by browser and platform. We tested the Browser SDK on mobile browsers and documented the functional limitations below, along with some performance benchmarks.
Functional feature support
Best Practices for SMS and Voice-Based Two-Factor Authentication
Best practices for SMS and voice-based two-factor authentication to ensure that every 2FA OTP message gets delivered quickly.
Security best practices call for organizations to use two-factor authentication (2FA) before permitting authorized users to access their digital assets — but for 2FA to work securely, businesses need a reliable second channel. For many organizations, 2FA involves the use of one-time passwords (OTP) as a secondary verification method, on top of usernames and passwords. Often, businesses generate and get confirmation of OTPs through messages sent through voice and SMS channels. The theory is that having a separate, unconnected authentication channel makes it difficult for malicious actors to compromise secure systems.
It’s critical that all 2FA voice and SMS OTP messages get delivered quickly. A lot goes on behind the scenes to ensure that those messages arrive within the 10- to 15-second window that avoids disruption is the customer experience. For that to happen, a communications platform has to be able to identify invalid phone numbers, discover the fastest routes for optimal message delivery, and support high throughput for delivering high volumes of messages and in a timely manner.
Let’s look at what that means for the components that make up the platform.
Phone number validation
Communications platforms need to look up and validate the phone numbers users provide for 2FA. They should offer an API that handles number validation and formatting, accesses carrier information, and retrieves the portability information associated with a phone number. The API should use multiple sources to return the most accurate response for a given lookup type: for number validation and formatting, for example, it can use international numbering plan data, and for carrier information it can use mobile number portability and numbering plan data from each country’s phone number regulator. The goal is to retrieve the most accurate and up-to-date data for each query.
Efficient, dynamic routing
Businesses can and should support multiple carriers for high availability. Having multiple carriers offers another benefit — it gives a communications platform routing options. The platform can offer dynamic routing to ensure that all messages are delivered over the best-performing carrier route to the destination mobile network. That’s especially critical with 2FA, because people expect to receive their authorization messages immediately, and any delay impedes their ability to accomplish their tasks. In an ideal world, the platform would be able to identify that, for example, carrier A has a conversion rate of 85% and carrier B 94%, and intelligently choose carrier B to ensure the lowest latency. How can a communications platform determine the most efficient carrier route?
One technique is to deploy global test nodes across all countries that have multiple carriers, using real phone numbers from carriers local to each region. The platform can then send messages to the test nodes and receive back results that confirm voice and SMS deliverability, report speed of deliverability, give confirmation of sender ID, and indicate correct message concatenation.
The platform should also use feedback from delivered messages. With this approach, developers can mark OTP messages as trackable. Then, when a user successfully authenticates their account using a verification code from the platform, data gets reported back. Especially in countries where carrier networks are generally unstable, this feedback can play an important role in choosing a carrier to ensure consistently high delivery rates for 2FA and OTP SMS messages.
Messaging at scale
As an organization grows, it can find itself sending large volumes of messages — hundreds of thousands or more at a time. Its communication platform must be able to automate the complex logic of making text and call distribution effective and reliable at scale. Often the organization grows not just vertically but horizontally, expanding into new markets, which may be served by different telecom carriers. Each region has different regulations, each carrier has different capabilities, and these different constraints often factor into the type of phone number (long code, toll-free, short code) that businesses use to send SMS or voice messages.
To support enterprise messaging demands, a communications platform can use a pool of phone numbers from multiple carriers, and automatically route messages to recipients using the phone number that’s most convenient for them, ensuring a high deliverability rate. The pool should be able to support various phone number types in different regions or area codes, and the platform should be able to prioritize phone numbers that match subscribers’ regions and area codes, while also taking into consideration carrier restrictions, for more efficient communications.
Ensuring efficient, reliable message delivery
Plivo addresses all of these factors with a robust API platform and global carrier network. Specifically:
- Number validation— Plivo’s Lookup API provides real-time phone number validation to reduce fraud and improve conversion
- Message routing — Plivo’s Conversion Feedback API sets up a customer feedback loop and brings message conversation data into the platform, while our global test nodes constantly test carrier networks and relay the results into our network automatically. Our dynamic routing algorithm uses this data to proactively route SMS and voice messages to the best carriers for optimal, timely delivery.
- High-volume messaging — Powerpack ensures reliable SMS and MMS distribution at scale.
A solid communications platform is key to implementing 2FA using voice and SMS channels. Plivo’s Voice API and SMS APIs work in tandem with carrier and network infrastructure to ensure reliable deliverability. See for yourself how well it works — sign up now for a free trial.
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