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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 I Built a Business-Ready Virtual Receptionist using PHLO
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
When clients and prospects ring your phone number, you need to have someone answering their calls. That “someone” could be an auto-attendant phone system — a prerecorded or computer-generated voice that serves as your business’s virtual receptionist. Virtual receptionists are cost-effective, provide a professional impression to customers, and are easy to integrate.
I looked at the most popular business phone systems that include an auto-attendant feature. I found no consistency in terms of the features they offer or the price, other than the more you pay, the more features you get — and if you choose a solution, you’re contractually bound to them and get only the features they offer.
My research inspired me to attempt and build a virtual receptionist using PHLO, Plivo’s visual workflow design studio. I created a call flow based on interactive voice response (IVR) and extension-based call forwarding to meet my needs, and if I need to customize it further, I can do that.
Basic IVR
In my setup, basic IVR greets callers with a welcome message and offers choices for the caller. We’ve written a getting started guide to using PHLO for IVR, which I used as a springing-off point — look to that for the step-by-step setup process.
I entered the text that explains to callers key to press to reach our sales team and which for support. Alternately, you can upload an MP3 file that does the same thing. I connected the IVR menu choices to the next logical action — I dragged Call Forward components to the canvas and connected to them.
Extension-based call forwarding
To implement extension-based call forwarding, I used a third number from the IVR Menu component with a voice prompt to tell callers, “If you know your party’s extension, please press 3.” If the caller does that, we then need to prompt them to enter the extension, then capture the digits they enter. I dragged the Get Input component to the canvas and set up a voice prompt on it.
Get Input captures entered digits and passes on to the next node — in this case a Branch component that compares the input and sets up the next action…
… which here is a Play Audio component prompt to inform the caller where the call is getting forwarded to, followed by a Call Forward component.
I named the PHLO, validated it, and saved it. Finally, following the steps in the guide, I attached the PHLO to a phone number from my Plivo account, and my virtual receptionist was ready to go.
Our auto-attendant worked great — and that was just the start! I built many other features on top of this basic setup, including SMS acknowledgement for callers, voicemail for callback, and time-based routing.
To try PHLO yourself, sign up for a free trial account.
Introducing Authentication for Call Recordings
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
Each call recording on Plivo is stored encrypted with a unique hard-to-guess URL. Users who have the proper access rights to the URL can download and listen to the call recordings. This setup works for most customers that need to share recordings with third-party service providers or applications for post processing, including voice analytics. Some customers, however, need to comply with industry guidelines or regional regulations for data protection, and therefore require a stronger security mechanism for accessing and sharing call recordings. Plivo’s new authentication for call recordings offers an additional layer of security.
When you log in to your Plivo console and navigate to Voice > Recordings, you can see that basic auth for recording URLs is disabled by default. We do this to ensure that we don’t break any of our customers’ console settings by enabling authentication as a default option.
Here are a few code samples to fetch call recordings when auth is disabled:
Enabling authentication for recordings
When you enable basic auth for recordings, Plivo authenticates all API requests for the recording resources hosted on our platform, and you must use your Auth ID and Auth Token to access call recordings. As a best practice, we recommend you enable auth if you don’t have to share your media files publicly. Enabling this feature has other advantages, such as adhering to regulations and compliance for specific regions, providing secure access to authorized personnel, and protecting your media files from public access.
Account admins can enable or disable auth settings at any time.
Here are a few code samples to fetch call recordings once you enable basic auth:
Authentication is applicable only to call recordings made after May 24. Earlier recordings cannot be authenticated.
For more information about call recordings, see our documentation.
Announcing PHLO, a Visual Workflow Design Tool for Communications Applications
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
Developers innovate at a fast pace. To help developers build voice and text messaging communication into applications, we’re unveiling the public beta of PHLO (Plivo High-Level Objects), a new visual way of integrating communications that empowers developers to design collaboratively, build visually, and deploy instantly.
PHLO offers:
- Prebuilt use case templates with option to add custom code
- 100% functional parity with Plivo APIs and XML
- Serverless architecture, hosted on Plivo infrastructure
And to top it off, PHLO is free for all Plivo customers.
Why it matters
Although communication APIs have simplified the process, building communication capabilities into business applications is still a complex task for developers. We saw a need to simplify it.
PHLO takes a visual drag-and-drop approach to building communication applications. It lets you build applications by connecting together graphical components in much the same way you’d piece together Legos.
Building with PHLO is visual and intuitive. PHLO eliminates the need to keep referring back to documentation, since text-based help is available within the main workspace.
With PHLO, tasks are components: phone menus, prompts, SMS menus, conference bridges, call forwarding, SMS notifications. These components, prepackaged as templates, drastically reduce the code required to create custom business logic. PHLO works seamlessly with all programming languages and is prepackaged within Plivo Server SDKs. You can still add your own custom code and create a unique communication application that’s relevant for your business — just now you can do it with 80% less coding.
Unlike visual application builders that only automate simple workflows for a limited set of use cases, PHLO provides 100% functional parity with Plivo API and XML set, enabling use cases from simple ones like order notifications to complex ones like a fully featured call center. PHLO also simplifies the integration and deployment pipeline so that you can ship more applications faster.
PHLO runs on Plivo’s cloud infrastructure. Because it’s hosted, you can focus on your business use case rather than worrying about all the stuff under the hood, such as setting up a server and writing code for routing and API calls.
Getting started with PHLO
The best way to get started with PHLO is to sign up for Plivo (if you’re not already using it) and try it. PHLO has everything you need to create an application in minutes. We’ve also put together a collection of use case video tutorials to get you started quickly.
- Voice Notification
- Voice Alert
- SMS Alert
- SMS Survey
- Conference with PIN
- PINless Conference
- Call Forwarding
- Phone System IVR
We also have plenty of documentation, in the form of a PHLO getting started guide and detailed use case guides.
One last thing — the pricing :)
At Plivo, our aim has always been to simplify integrating communications for developers. Sometimes, all we need to do is to unblock things for developers so that they can change the world. That’s why, in addition to offering 100% Plivo API support out of the box, we’re also making PHLO free. This is not just a commercial decision. This is our stake in the ground — we believe this is how the communication capabilities of the future will be built.
Sign up and start building with for PHLO today.
Have questions? Get in touch with an expert and request a live demo.
Check out our launch announcement at Product Hunt and leave your feedback.
An Easy Way to Send Voice and SMS Campaigns
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
Newfies-Dialer, a SaaS auto-dialing platform, has integrated its software with Plivo’s SMS API, to go along with its existing integration with Plivo’s voice API. This new integration means that you have an easy and inexpensive way to send out phone surveys and bulk notifications — such as marketing messages and emergency alerts — by phone or SMS.
With a few clicks, you can send thousands of SMS text messages to cell phone users in more than 200 countries at competitive rates. Plivo turns telephony into an infrastructure service so you don’t have to worry about carrier management, call quality, or message deliverability.
Learn more about the integration and give it a try.
What happened in Vegas — Customer Contact Week 2018 Roundup
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
Delivering “wow” moments for improving customer experience has always been the mantra for businesses focusing on customer support and customer engagement. Many businesses that provide the technology to power customer support attend Customer Contact Week (CCW) in Las Vegas — and Plivo was among them.
CCW visitors learn from their peers, participate in workshops, and attend seminars. Here’s a quick look at three trending topics we heard covered at the event.
B2B customer service in a multichannel environment
Having a customer-first mentality is the single biggest reason why businesses and technology providers come together. Several discussions were focused on how businesses can find more than one way to engage with customers — through voice, messaging, in-app notifications, social listening, or other ways. Some businesses take time to educate agents on best practices — how they can free an agent’s routine tasks so they focus on building better conversations and educating customers. For a company like Plivo, this was a huge takeaway, since our voice and messaging products ensure businesses are proactive, create a customer-centric culture, and pave the way for seamless interaction irrespective of channel.
Automation to revamp your phone system
Automation is critical when businesses have multiple touch points for customers to interact. We heard discussions around how to build call flows that focus on self-service while ensuring that a caller gets everything they need without having to interact with an agent. Having APIs in place ensures tighter integrations with other applications and vendors, and can provide ways to intelligently route your customers to their destination with greater personalization. Providing contextual awareness is key — it improves response times and increases customer satisfaction rates.
Bots in a messaging-driven world
A lot of attendees spoke about finding a balance between bots and agents and what the ideal hand-off is. We think there’s no right or wrong answer here. Several alternatives can provide a similar experience — messaging automation, IVR extensions, and workflow automation tools. Soon, ML- and AI-powered bots could change the way support teams function.
Conversations at the Plivo booth
There was never a dull moment at Plivo’s booth on the expo floor. We talked with hundreds of visitors. Here are the top three topics we heard from them:
Uncomplicating IVR is a complex business
The beauty of the cloud is that it can help you uncomplicate everything from a simple app like email to running complex businesses. Visitors told us about using legacy systems that put a strain on the entire stack — and the people who build the stack. An IVR system is a critical piece of running a call center or having customers call in for support. The flexibility you get my moving to the cloud helps you route callers to the right agents and provide better personalization for businesses of any size.
Having a well-rounded communication experience is essential
“We aren’t using SMS yet but we know we should” was a common refrain among the visitors to our booth. Adding SMS flows to existing contact center technology used to be a daunting task, so visitors were “wowed” by Plivo’s innovative solution to this challenge.
Building call centers is an expensive affair
As a communication platform service provider for voice and SMS, our goal is to simplify the lives of our customers and users and make communication easy and affordable. Several visitors still spend hours figuring out what technology to use to build a call center, what skill sets should they look for in application developers, or how should they prioritize the development effort. Development time is precious, so it’s important to spend that time where it adds the most business value. We demonstrated in real time a cool new way to build a call center, create custom IVR flows, and set up a messaging platform without any coding or requiring any technical expertise, all in a matter of minutes. We like to call it “having your very own engineer in your pocket!”
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for the Plivo Console
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
You can now protect your Plivo user credentials using two-factor authentication. 2FA provides an additional level of security by asking for a unique verification code that Plivo sends to your mobile device when you log in into your account. Using 2FA to secure your account is optional, but we recommend doing so to better protecting your customer and transaction information.
We support text messaging (SMS) as the primary method for 2FA, and plan to add support for voice calls and mobile app-based one-time passwords (OTP) going forward.
How 2FA works on the Plivo console
2FA applies every time a user logs in to their account. After the user enters a username and password, they are requested to enter a verification code if 2FA is enabled for the user. A six-digit verification code is sent to the user’s verified phone number via an SMS message, and this verification code should be entered in the appropriate console screen.
Enabling 2FA for your account
You can enable two-factor authentication from the Security page of the console, under Settings. The account must have a verified phone number on the user’s profile to use 2FA.
A verification process is triggered if a verified phone number is not available. To verify the phone number, we send an OTP to your phone number to be entered in the appropriate screen.
Enable 2FA to keep your accounts secure.
Multiuser Accounts and Role-Based Access Control
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
We’re happy to announce a couple of new features: Multiuser accounts let a Plivo account be managed by multiple users, while role-based access control (RBAC) lets you assign users to roles with specific sets of permissions to manage accounts. Together, they provide a more straightforward approach to managing Plivo.
Any Plivo account owner can add users to manage the account by sending invitation emails from the Account > Settings > Team page of the console.
Each user is associated with a role that determines the access the user gets to different sections of the console. Plivo provides five predefined roles:
- Owner: This role, which is assigned automatically to the user who creates the account, has complete access to the account. You cannot change the owner of an account.
- Admin: This role provides access to the entire console.
- Developer: This role is for users who primarily use the Plivo APIs.
- Finance analyst: This role has access to payment and billing information.
- Support: This role is for users who need access to Plivo data and to be able to modify settings in the account.
Users’ roles are set when you send the invitation and can be changed at any time.
This table shows the permissions granted to each role:
RBAC is available to customers who are on a committed monthly spend plan. Committed monthly spend starts at $750 per month and requires an annual contract.
Introducing Incoming Message Content and Source Number Redaction
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
Data privacy is a key concern for every organization that manages or processes third-party personal data such as phone numbers. With GDPR around the corner, data privacy holds more importance today than ever before. In a February blog post about how Plivo is preparing to protect your data we talked about message redaction as one of the key milestones in this journey. Today we’re happy to introduce message redaction for all use cases that involve receiving SMS messages on Plivo phone numbers.
Incoming message content and source number redaction
We’ve introduced an application-level flag to control whether message content and source numbers of incoming messages to Plivo phone numbers should be redacted from Plivo debug logs and databases.
Enabling message redaction for an application causes several changes in Plivo’s behavior:
- The content of incoming messages to Plivo phone numbers associated with the application are redacted from all internal Plivo server logs and the debug logs available on the Plivo console.
- The last three digits of the source number from which the SMS originated are redacted from all internal Plivo server logs and the debug logs available on the Plivo console.
- The last three digits of the source number from which the SMS originated are redacted from the message detail record (MDR) generated for the message. Fetching MDRs for such messages will return redacted source numbers.
Message redaction is disabled for all existing Plivo applications by default, but you can enable it from the Messaging >Applications page of the Plivo console or by using application APIs.
Configuring message redaction for Plivo applications
On the console, select an application and toggle the Redact Incoming Messages box to turn redaction on and off.
In the API, you can use the log_incoming_messages attribute of the Application resource to enable or disable message redaction. When creating a new Application, set the log_incoming_messages attribute to false in the Create Application API request to enable message redaction. The default value for this attribute is true, which means that message redaction is disabled unless you explicitly enable it.
You can enable or disable message redaction for an Application by using the Update Application API.
Impact of message redaction on payload to message URL
Message redaction offers our customers control over message details that may be logged in Plivo systems for debugging purposes.
If an Application has a message_url configured, Plivo will attempt to post the non-redacted message content and the non-redacted source number to it.
For enhanced security, we recommend our customers configure secure HTTPS endpoints for their message URLs.
Plivo GDPR Update: CDR and MDR Compliance
Plivo's SMS API and Voice API enables businesses to communicate with their customers at global scale. Sign up for free now.
GDPR comes into effect on May 25, and we at Plivo are working to ensure that our systems are compliant with the data protection principles highlighted in the regulations.
One of the most critical aspects of GDPR is data minimization. We’ve completed changes to our data retention policies for call detail records (CDR) and message detail records (MDR) to meet GDPR compliance requirements. Starting May 5, CDRs and MDRs will be retained in our transactional databases for a period of 90 days only from the date they were created.
Present behavior
At present, all CDRs and MDRs are stored in our transactional databases. This means customers can fetch CDRs and MDRs via our APIs or the Plivo console for any date range of their choice, going as far back in time as they wish.
Customers use CDRs and MDRs to analyze usage and quality parameters and as input to their accounting and billing systems. As part of our analysis, we looked at how customers query for CDRs and MDRs and their typical look-back period. More than 98% of customers never query the data beyond first 90 days.
Upcoming changes
Starting May 5, CDRs and MDRs that are older than 90 days will be purged from our transactional databases, and will not be accessible via our API or the Plivo console. Redacted MDRs and CDRs, however, will be persisted in Plivo data warehouses for up to seven years. The redacted records have the last three digits of the From and To numbers masked.
For example, a CDR in our data warehouse looks like this:
Voice Call Detail Record (CDR)
SMS Message Detail Record (MDR)
Our commitment to GDPR
As your communications partner, we understand that our compliance with GDPR is critical for your business. We’re making the effort to ensure your customer data stays safe, while also being mindful about keeping things simple for developers.
It’s easy to get started. Sign up for free.
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