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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.
Embed Voice Calls into Mobile Apps with the Plivo Android SDK
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
Last month we announced the general availability of our iOS SDK. Today we follow up with general availability of our Android SDK. Both enable you to quickly integrate voice calls with your mobile applications.
With Plivo’s Android SDK, you can bring the richness of voice conversation directly into a user interface, seamlessly connecting mobile callers via carrier networks. The Android SDK lets your mobile app access voice features such as conferencing, recording, and IVR.
Using the Plivo Android SDK for in-app calls offers several benefits:
Lightweight: Our SDK is more compact and consumes less battery and processing power than other solutions on the market.
Firebase integrated: With Firebase Push Notifications, users can be alerted of incoming calls even if the app isn’t open or is running in the background.
Ease of integration: Sample apps and detailed documentation let you integrate voice functionality within minutes.
Incremental version support: We’re compatible with Android Marshmallow and above, covering the majority of devices running on Android.
Your customers never want to miss a voice call. With our integration, you can programmatically control all the features of a regular call, including muting and unmuting, providing the ability to send digits to navigate IVR menus, placing a call on hold, and rejecting a call.
A mobile app that allows users to receive incoming calls has to make sure it can reliably deliver call notifications. Plivo’s Android SDK lets you reach users every time, no matter whether the application is in the foreground, background, or not running at all. It also handles any changes in the device’s network connectivity, so you can switch between Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity and navigate changed push notification permissions.
Mobile users value security and privacy. If your users need to interact over phone calls, it makes sense to keep their mobile numbers private. With in-app calling, calls are made over the VoIP network without using a cellular calling service. Caller and receiver can communicate via phone calls without revealing their real phone numbers. In-app calling lets you connect riders to drivers, clients to portfolio managers, or job prospects to hiring managers.
Another advantage of using a mobile voice application is access to more information about a phone call. A call from an app with a display name is more appealing than a call from an unknown or private number. Even better, service history information or app usage data could allow support representatives to serve customers better over app-based support calls.
Finally, mobile VoIP calls offer more options than regular voice calls. For example, you can create global conferences on the fly and invite members to join. You can also record calls for free and make international phone calls without worrying about hefty carrier charges.
Have a use case in mind? Talk to our sales and solutions engineering team, or just sign up for free and start coding.
Embed Voice Calls into Mobile Apps with Plivo iOS SDK
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
We’re excited to announce the general availability of our iOS SDK, which lets you quickly integrate voice calls with your iOS applications and seamlessly connect mobile callers via carrier networks. The iOS SDK lets your mobile app access voice features such as conferencing, recording, and IVR.
Using the Plivo iOS SDK for in-app calls offers several benefits:
Lightweight: Our SDK is more compact and consumes less battery and processing power than other solutions in the market.
CallKit integrated: Plivo voice calls are treated by iOS just like any other phone call. iOS displays the same interface as the Phone app, giving your app a native look and feel, and apps respond appropriately to system-level behaviors such as Do Not Disturb.
Ease of integration: Sample apps, detailed documentation, and compatibility with the CocoaPods dependency manager let you integrate inbound and outbound voice functionality with your iOS app in minutes.
Incremental version support: We’re compatible with iOS 8 and above — 99% of all mobile devices running on iOS.
Your customers never want to miss a voice call. With our integration, you can programmatically control all the features of a regular call, including muting and unmuting, providing the ability to send digits to navigate IVR menus, placing a call on hold, and rejecting a call.
A mobile app that allows users to receive incoming calls has to make sure it can reliably deliver call notifications. Plivo’s iOS SDK lets you reach users every time, no matter whether the application is in the foreground, background, or not running at all. It also handles any changes in the device’s network connectivity, so you can switch between Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity and navigate changed push notification permissions.
Mobile users value security and privacy. If your users need to interact over phone calls, it makes sense to keep their mobile numbers private. With in-app calling, calls are made over the VoIP network without using a cellular calling service. Caller and receiver can communicate via phone calls without revealing their real phone numbers. In-app calling lets you connect riders to drivers, clients to portfolio managers, or job prospects to hiring managers.
Another advantage of using a mobile voice application is access to more information about a phone call. A call from an app with a display name is more appealing than a call from an unknown or private number. Even better, service history information or app usage data could allow support representatives to serve customers better over app-based support calls.
Finally, mobile VoIP calls offer more options than regular voice calls. For example, you can create global conferences on the fly and invite members to join. You can also record calls for free and make international phone calls without worrying about hefty carrier charges.
Have a use case in mind? Talk to our sales and solutions engineering team, or just sign up for free and start coding.
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Announcing Geo Permissions for Outbound Voice Calls
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
Plivo’s new Geo Permissions for outbound voice calls protects you and your customers from telecom fraud — a global menace that costs companies billions of dollars in losses every year. Geo Permissions lets you restrict the list of countries your users can call.
Geo Permissions addresses several problems that could result in unnecessary and unwanted charges for your voice calls:
- Toll fraud: International revenue sharing fraud (IRSF), also known as toll fraud, is a scheme where fraudsters generate a high volume of international calls on premium rate phone numbers.
- Incorrect destination: A misdirected call may be the result of an incorrect destination number format, including dialing the wrong prefix or dropping the international country code. Dialing “1-415**” reaches a destination in California, while “41-5**” reaches a destination in Switzerland.
- Abuse on trial accounts: Anonymous users can sign up for trial accounts and route phone calls to premium destination numbers.
We’ve added two features on our console to combat this menace.
Outbound voice call geo permissions
Let’s say your businesses requires calls in North America only. By disabling calls to all other continents you can minimize the risk of fraud. Similarly, if you’re running an inbound call center or your use case doesn’t involve outbound calls, you can block routes as a precautionary measure.
Manage your geo preferences by visiting the Voice > Geo Permissions page on the console. We’ve written complete instructions on how to manage geo permissions, and answered common questions in our support portal.
Your preferences kick in immediately, and apply to all calls initiated via Plivo APIs and Dial XML.
Calling premium numbers
We recommend blocking calls to premium numbers if your use case doesn’t involve calling them. You can do this from the High Risk Permissions tab of the Geo Permissions page.
Overriding preferences for specific subaccounts
Default preferences apply to all calls initiated from the main account and all subaccounts, but you can you can override geo and premium number preferences at the subaccount level. To specify preferences for a subaccount, select the subaccount from the Accounts drop-down, key in the preferences, and save.
Visibility on calls being blocked by geo permissions
API calls to blocked countries are rejected with HTTP response code 403 and the error message “Calls to this destination country are barred.”
Calls initiated with Dial XML are dropped automatically. The hangup cause in the call detail record for such calls is set to “Destination Country Barred (Code 2030).”
Differences between existing and new Plivo account
For existing customers, we remember and retain your preferences. All countries have been kept open by default. Destinations blocked in the past remain blocked.
New customers have these countries enabled:
- North America: US, Canada, Mexico
- South America: Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile
- Asia: India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Israel, UAE, Philippines, Singapore
- Europe: EU nations
- Africa: None
- Oceania: Australia, New Zealand
All other countries are blocked by default, but you can change these preferences.
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Announcing Zentrunk Outbound — Enterprise-Grade SIP Trunking
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
We’re excited to announce the general availability of Zentrunk, Plivo’s enterprise-grade SIP trunking platform.
SIP trunking has been around for many years, but many enterprises that need to connect to the PSTN network from their telecom infrastructure still use old legacy connections or providers. In part, that’s likely because SIP trunking used to involve long manual provisioning times, restricted capacity, limited feature sets, and extended contract negotiations.
Zentrunk is a modern approach to SIP trunking that enables instant provisioning of SIP trunks, virtually infinite cloud scale, and global reach, all powered by an intelligent routing engine on the back end.
If you have your own telecom infrastructure, whether it’s a cloud-based communications platform or on-premises equipment, Zentrunk is for you. Zentrunk enables you to connect your existing telecom infrastructure to the PSTN without any restriction on the number of concurrent calls. Simply put, Zentrunk provides you with PSTN connectivity across 200 countries with zero contracts, pay-per-call pricing, and unlimited capacity.
Unique benefits of Zentrunk
Whether you’re looking to add a high-capacity carrier that can support your growth or just add a reliable cloud-based trunk to backstop your existing setup, Zentrunk gets you started instantly.
Global coverage: You can connect with customers over phone calls without having to deal with individual telecom carriers in 200+ locations.
Scalability: Zentrunk lets you make unlimited concurrent calls, so you can scale your business phone system without worrying about capacity planning or channel limits, and extend your on-premises capabilities to the cloud and keep all your business logic.
High quality: Zentrunk’s intelligent call routing engine ensures that all of your calls are routed using a local carrier based on real-time quality metrics including average call duration (ACD) and answer seizure ratio (ASR). Zentrunk has points of presence (PoP) across seven regions (California, Virginia, Frankfurt, Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, São Paulo) across five continents to ensure that you experience low latency and high voice quality.
Security: Your calls can connect securely with IP authentication and credential-based validation. Zentrunk offers Transport Layer Security (TLS) for signaling encryption and Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) for media encryption.
Transparent pricing: Create trunks with unlimited channels and no minimum commitments. Pay for voice minutes only. Pay by standard billing intervals of six seconds in US and Canada and one second in most countries. Make your billing and reporting simpler, so you have better visibility into what you’re spending on telecom and have fewer vendors to manage.
Getting started with Zentrunk
The biggest benefit of Zentrunk is ease of setup. Zentrunk lets you provision SIP trunks instantly through an intuitive user interface. Our getting started guide shows you how easy it is to connect your IP PBX or SBC to Zentrunk and start making calls.
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Introducing Enhanced Destination Number Validation for SMS
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
We’ve added enhanced destination number validation to the Plivo SMS API platform. Plivo can now identify invalid and non-SMS-enabled destination numbers, and also fix incorrect formats of destination numbers.
This update brings multiple benefits to our customers. Since we won’t accept messages for delivery to invalid destination numbers, we won’t charge for them either, which means cost savings straight away.
Synchronous handling for invalid numbers
SMS API requests to invalid and non-SMS-enabled numbers will be rejected with a 400 Bad Request API response, and developers can propagate the invalidation error upstream easily. To see how this works, consider a one-time password use case:
- User requests OTP on an invalid destination number.
- Application initiates a Send SMS API request.
- Plivo returns 400 Bad Request response synchronously.
- Application displays “invalid number” error to user.
Format correction for phone numbers
Plivo can also reformat incorrectly formatted phone numbers in an intelligent way. For example:
Scenario 1: A user enters the Lithuanian number 370860112345. Plivo reformats it to the E.164 international format +37060112345 before it’s forwarded to downstream carriers. Notice the missing 8 in the formatted number: 8 is only required when dialing a Lithuanian number from inside Lithuania.
Scenario 2: A user enters the Mexican number 520455512345678. Plivo reformats it to the E.164 international format +5215512345678. Notice that 045 has been replaced by 1. The prefix 045 is only to be used when dialing a domestic cell phone from a landline; 521 is the prefix for mobile phone numbers in E.164 format.
Enabling enhanced destination number validation
All new Plivo customers have enhanced destination number validation for SMS enabled by default. Existing customers can enable enhanced destination number validation from the SMS settings page of the Plivo console. We recommend all our customers enable it.
Note: Landlines in the US, Canada, and the UK can be enabled for SMS, so Plivo will not reject SMS messages to landline numbers in these countries.
With Amazon Polly, Plivo Supports 27 Languages and 40+ Text-to-Speech Voices
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
Plivo now supports Amazon Polly, with more than 40 voices, 27 languages, and new APIs to give developers control over synthesized speech output in applications that use text-to-speech. With Amazon Polly, developers can control the volume, pitch, rate, and pronunciation of the voices that interact with their users.
Text-to-speech is an important tool in a developer’s armory. It allows developers to create interactive voice applications by generating speech dynamically, rather than playing prerecorded media files. But with simple text-to-speech, developers can only choose from a basic male or female voice in a subset of languages, without pauses, tonal modulations, or other qualities that a natural speech possesses. The result is often mechanical-sounding speech, in a limited set of languages, without any choice of voice or tones. That doesn’t provide a lifelike experience to customers.
Enter Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML), designed by the W3C to provide an XML-based markup language to assist in generating natural-sounding synthesized speech. Amazon Polly is the world leader in SSML speech synthesis.
For text-to-speech, listening is believing. Listen to the difference between basic text-to-speech vs. Amazon Polly:
With Amazon Polly’s dozens of lifelike voices across a variety of languages, you can now select the ideal voice, adjust speech rate, pitch, loudness, and even emphasis to provide a localized voice experience to your customers.
Integrating advanced text-to-speech in your application with Plivo
To synthesize SSML speech on Plivo, simply specify one of the many Amazon Polly voices in the voice attribute of Plivo’s <Speak> XML. Note that Polly voices must be namespaced with Polly.
For example:
We’ve created a Getting Started with SSML page that documents the SSML tags supported for use in Plivo’s XML and lists the Amazon Polly voices supported for use with Plivo XML. Check it out to see what’s possible SSML and Amazon Polly.
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Dynamically Caching Audio Files for Superior Voice Experience
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
Fetching a resource over the network can be slow and expensive — which makes the ability to cache and reuse previously fetched audio resources a critical tool for optimizing for performance. Plivo has always allowed caching of audio files, but we see very different usage patterns. Some customers use a single audio file for months; others change an audio file every five minutes. A single audio caching philosophy can’t cover such diverse use cases. To address this, we’re introducing user-controlled audio file caching. You can choose to store your audio files on our servers for a duration of your choice.
Modifying the caching behavior of your audio files doesn’t require any changes in the Plivo application. Our implementation is based on standard client-side caching directives for RESTful communication over HTTP. All you need to do is ensure that each server response provides the correct HTTP header directives in the Cache-Control response header to instruct our servers when and for how long to cache the audio resource. You have three options: no-cache, no-store, and max-age.
no-cache indicates that the returned response can’t be used to satisfy a subsequent request to the same URL without first checking with the server to see whether the response has changed. Responding with Cache-Control: no-cache ensures Plivo always checks whether the file has changed.
no-store is simpler — it tells the server and all intermediate caches not to store any version of the returned response. Responding with Cache-Control: no-store ensures Plivo doesn’t maintain a local copy of the file in its cache, and always requests the resource from your web server.
Responding with Cache-Control: max-age=<new max-age value in seconds> tells Plivo to cache the returned audio file for a specified period of time. Plivo will consider its cached copy stale after the specified number of seconds (max-age value) have elapsed.
Validating cached responses with ETags
Suppose that max-age seconds have passed since the initial fetch and Plivo has initiated a new request for the same resource. First, Plivo checks the local cache and finds the previous response, but we can’t use it because the response has now expired. At this point Plivo could dispatch a new request and fetch the new full response, but that would be inefficient because if the resource hasn’t changed, there’s no reason to download the same information that’s already in the cache.
Validation tokens, specified in an ETag header, are designed to address this situation. The ETag value of a resource is typically an MD5 hash or some other fingerprint of the contents of the file.
Plivo sets the If-None-Match request header to the ETag value of the resource in its cache, allowing your web server to respond with a new version or a 304 Not Modified response to instruct Plivo to use its cached version. This enables more efficient resource update checks, as no data is transferred if the resource has not changed.
For optimal voice quality on calls, Plivo uses multiple media servers and accesses the one closest to the physical location of the user to cut latency. Every Plivo media server maintains its own local cache, which means that the first call landing on any new Plivo media server will always result in a cache miss.
Introducing Default Call Queuing, Plus Increased Visibility into Outbound Calls
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
As part of our latest Voice product release, we’re introducing default queuing for outbound calls, as well as two new APIs to provide more visibility into your calls.
Before now, you needed to throttle calls per second (CPS) and queue outbound calls at your end, or you could request that our support team activate throttling and queuing for your account. Now we’re enabling them by default. Your calls will be queued in the calling sequence and initiated per the CPS set for your account.
If you’re a new user or you signed up on or after September 24, 2018, outbound API call queuing is enabled by default, and the default CPS is two calls per second. If you require a higher CPS rate, please contact Plivo support. We can provide higher CPS at a monthly price and based on your use case.
If you’re an existing Plivo customer and don’t have throttling enabled already, contact our customer support team to get started. We haven’t enabled this feature for existing customer accounts to avoid a sudden change in account behavior.
New APIs for queued outbound calls
We’re also introducing two new APIs to provide customers visibility into their queued calls:
Retrieve all queued calls: Overall queue management at any given time
Retrieve a queued call: To fetch details of a particular queued call
Don’t have a Plivo account? Sign up for free.
Plivo Browser SDK Adds Support for Multiple Incoming Calls
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
Today’s latest release of the Plivo Browser SDK includes support for handling multiple incoming calls. This feature gives developers control of calls that arrive on agent endpoints while agents are talking to other customers. The ability to handle multiple incoming calls helps agents manage and answer calls based on priority, caller ID, and context, thereby improving overall customer experience.
As part of this new version, we’re introducing a new call management mode that, when enabled, ensures incoming calls are never silently rejected. Instead, agents are presented with the option to accept, reject, or ignore the incoming call, thus ensuring better call management.
Activating multiple incoming call mode
Before today, incoming calls would be silently rejected if the destination endpoint was engaged in another call. Now, you can set a new configuration parameter, allowMultipleIncomingCalls, to true to enable multiple incoming calls when you initialize the SDK. (The default value is false, to be consistent with past behavior.)
const options = { allowMultipleIncomingCalls: true };
Call center agents may face two scenarios when the multiple incoming call feature is set to true, and a couple of things can happen:
Scenario 1: Agent is already on a call
Scenario 2: Agent is available, but multiple calls are ringing simultaneously
To accept one incoming call and handle others coming in, your application can use this code:
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