At Plivo, we’re steadfast in our dedication to stringent security measures, to ensure we offer our clients a trustworthy and robust Cloud Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS). We’re pleased to share that we’ve renewed our SOC 2 Type 2 certification, which includes HIPAA controls.

Maintaining a strong security culture

The focus on security is at the heart of our operations, woven into the fabric of our services. Our security team continually improves our security controls, threat-mitigation processes, and monitoring systems. Everyone at Plivo knows that keeping your data safe is our highest priority; we’ve built our culture around that value.

Our SOC 2 Type 2 commitment

In 2022 we obtained our initial SOC 2 Type 2 report, which provided reassurance to our customers about us as a service organization handling, storing, and processing user data. The report not only confirmed the adequacy of our security systems and procedures, it also examined our operational effectiveness in adhering to these controls over time. The SOC 2 Type 2 certification underscored our commitment to data security.

Our SOC 2 Type 2 certification this year reaffirms our dedication to managing the critical data our clients entrust us with, and reaffirms our stringent controls across critical areas:

• Regular communication of changes to customers
• Robust internal access control to production environments
• Thorough system monitoring and ongoing risk assessments
• Reliable disaster recovery, data backup measures, and system availability
• Responsive system and security monitoring and incident response processes
• Effective employee onboarding and termination processes

These controls continue to evolve as we maintain the privacy and security of customer data and perfect our security systems.

Our security commitment: beyond a checkbox

We see our certification renewal as a testament to our ongoing commitment to you, our valued customers. It signifies our dedication to ensuring your data’s security and our unwavering efforts to keep improving. It isn’t just about ticking a box for us, but rather about living up to the trust you place in us.

We’re proud of our team’s hard work over the past year, and we’ll continue striving toward more robust security measures and accreditations in the future.

You can read more about our renewed SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, our security measures, and how we’re continually protecting your data on our security page.

Your security is always our top priority. We appreciate your trust in us.

If you can get customers and prospects to subscribe to informational updates from your business, you can build a brand loyalty bond that’ll be hard to break. The trick is to give people information they can use.

Text subscription is a service that businesses provide to send information via SMS to people who opt in to receive it — pretty simple. It’s the same concept as a newspaper or magazine subscription. Those businesses monetize subscribers by selling ads to people who want to reach them. Businesses that offer text subscriptions monetize their efforts by gathering contact information from people who might be current or potential customers, which they can use in campaigns or sales outreach.

Text subscriptions work so well because SMS is an ideal channel for marketing communication. Nearly everyone has a cell phone — 97% of Americans and almost 7 billion people worldwide — and everyone with a cell phone has SMS. Of course smartphone users also have access to apps, but you have to convince people to download them, and apps often include unwelcome trackers.

People look at 99% of text messages, usually within 15 minutes of receiving them. Email lacks the same immediacy, and open rates for email marketing messages are much lower than for SMS. SMS messages also have high engagement rates.

From a budget perspective, text messaging is incredibly affordable. Messages sent through Plivo cost half a cent in the US, and similarly low amounts elsewhere in the world, and you pay only for what you send — there’s no additional subscription cost to use the service.

What is a text message subscription?

Text subscription is a service that businesses provide to send information via SMS to people who opt-in to receive it — pretty simple. It’s the same concept as a newspaper or magazine subscription. Businesses use text message subscriptions for a variety of purposes, such as:

• Sending out coupons and discounts
• Announcing new products or services
• Sending appointment reminders
• Sharing breaking news or updates

Text message subscriptions are a great way for businesses to stay connected with their customers and keep them informed. They're also a convenient way for customers to receive information from their favorite businesses.

How to use text message subscriptions

Starting up a text subscription service is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. You need to create valuable content to gain subscribers, but there’s no point in creating content unless you have subscribers.

You will likely need to put time and effort into developing your text message subscription service for several months before you see a payoff. Don’t offer a subscription service unless you can offer something that recipients will value.

What kind of content provides value for subscribers? A subscription with a regular cadence can be anything you know a lot about and that they need to know about, too. You might be able to alert subscribers to something new about your product or industry.

Ideally, each text message should offer some actionable advice they can use to overcome some challenge or problem. You can also offer early access to new products or services, or first access to new content.

But your text subscriptions don’t have to be on a daily or weekly cadence. You can send text messages to opted-in subscribers with notifications about things like

• Flash sales
• Subscriber discounts or other special deals
• Surveys (make them short — ideally, a single question per outreach!)
• Shipping notifications
• Suspicious account activity
• Feature updates

Opt-in is critical.

Before you send a single message, you must get recipients’ permission to send them messages, even if you already have their phone number. That’s not just good advice — it’s probably the law. Different countries have different rules. In the US, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) covers opt-ins, while in Europe it’s the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

You can obtain permission in several ways:

• Though a number provide via an online form
• Via text message that includes the opt-in keyword
• In-store, point-of-sale signup
• Opt-in button on a mobile web page
• Interactive voice response (IVR) opt-in via phone call

Give people a way to sign up at points they’re most receptive to interactions with your business, such as overall service signup and as part of the purchase process.

When people opt in, send a confirmation message that lets them know what to expect from the subscription. They should already know what kind of content to expect — that’s probably why they signed up. Let them know how often they can expect your messages and tell them how they can opt out, should they choose to. You should store recipient opt-in records electronically so you can show compliance if you’re ever audited.

And so is opt-out.

Make it just as easy for customers to opt out of a subscription as it is to opt in. Give recipients a keyword (such as STOP) they can send in reply to your messages to tell you to stop sending them texts. If they opt out, then the opt-out confirmation message you send in reply should be the last message they receive (until and unless they opt back in).

While getting permission is critical, opt-ins aren’t the only restrictions you should be aware of —  additional regulations where you are might include things such as prohibited sending times.

Once your concept and your content are set you can let people know about what you offer. Post about it in your other channels: newsletters, social media, your website. Include samples of the kinds of messages you’ll offer so people can see the value of the service.

Best ways to use text subscriptions

The best way to use a text message subscription will vary depending on your business type and customer behavior. However, there are a few common ways that marketers have implemented text message subscriptions with success.

1. Promotions and discounts:

To increase sales and boost customer loyalty, send subscribers exclusive discounts or special offers. Use customer data to send personalized messages and offers, making the communication more relevant and effective.

2. Event reminders:

Notify your audience about upcoming events, sales, or new product launches to boost attendance and participation. You can also send appointment reminders to reduce no-shows or late arrivals.

3. Customer engagement:

Share valuable content like tips, tutorials, or product usage ideas, or collect feedback through surveys to improve products and services.

4. Loyalty program:

Keep subscribers informed about their loyalty points, rewards, and how they can redeem them.

5. Order updates:

Finally, build excitement for product delivery with real-time order status, shipping information, and delivery notifications to enhance the customer experience.

These are a few marketing-focused ideas, but there are dozens of other ways to use text subscriptions. Local governments use text subscriptions to send road closure notices, emergency alerts, and weather updates. Consider your business needs when you craft a strategy for your text subscription program.

How to send text messages using Plivo’s SMS API

Once you’re ready to talk to your subscribers, all that’s left is to integrate the sending process into your existing applications. Integrating SMS into your applications makes more sense than pasting together a messaging pipeline that relies on pumping your subscribers through a service like Zapier to an expensive texting service. We’ve created quickstart guides that show you how to send text messages using Python, Java, or any of five other web development languages. If you’re interested in the technical details, they’re a great place to start. You should also read up on best practices for text messaging.

With Plivo, you can automate reaching all your subscribers in bulk, or you can pick a subset of subscribers to reach out to, such as people in a single country or region or those who spend the most.

Plivo offers global reach, with the ability to text people in virtually every country on Earth. Plivo messages enjoy high delivery rates thanks to the Premium Communications Network we’ve put together over more than a decade. And we offer white glove support to make sure our customers are satisfied.

Conclusion

Ready to launch your own text message subscription? Get started with Plivo’s user-friendly SMS API. In five minutes or less you can start sending messages to your first subscribers. Learn more by requesting a trial of Plivo’s platform.

SMS marketing typically involves promotional SMS — text messages that businesses send for marketing or advertising purposes to promote the company’s products or services. Promotional SMS can raise brand awareness, foster engagement, and promote ecommerce.

But in business, SMS is good for more than marketing. The flip side of promotional SMS is transactional SMS, and it’s the right communication channel for many use cases.

What is transactional SMS?

Transactional SMS involves sending automated messages to customers in response to an event or when triggered by a customer request or action. Transactional messaging examples include sending order confirmations, account balance notifications, real-time alerts, and one-time passwords (OTP) for two-factor authentication (2FA).

Customers prefer to receive such notifications via text message. SMS has the highest reach among communications channels: 91% of the global population has a mobile device. SMS boasts a 98% open rate, and 95% of people read their text messages within three minutes of receiving them. The low cost to send messages makes SMS a cost-effective communications channel.

Benefits of transactional SMS

But transactional SMS service isn’t good just for customers. It offers a host of benefits for businesses too.

• Improved customer engagement: Send important and timely information to customers keeps people informed and engaged with the brand. It fosters increased customer satisfaction and loyalty and can improve customer retention.
• Increased security: When used for OTPs and to send security alerts, transactional SMS helps protect accounts from unauthorized access and avoid fraudulent transactions.
• Real-time communication: Transactional SMS enables real-time communication, allowing businesses to send urgent or time-sensitive messages, such as booking confirmations, delivery updates, or appointment reminders.

A transactional SMS use case

One example of transactional messaging comes from Plivo customer LAZ Parking, which manages parking properties on behalf of lot and garage owners in the US. At the height of the COVID-19 epidemic, LAZ rolled out a touchless pay-to-park solution. But rather than forcing drivers to download an app, LAZ relied on SMS.

Each LAZ Parking lot posts a sign with a unique alphanumeric code. The sign tells drivers to text the code to a short code phone number. When the company receives a new text, it replies by sending a link that drivers can use to pay for parking using their mobile devices.

<img src=”/assets/dist/new-design/customers/laz/laz-text-to-speech.png” style=”display: flex; width: 50%; margin: 0 auto;” />

LAZ Vice President of Innovation Patrick Ryan found Plivo’s transactional SMS API to be an excellent fit for his company. He says, “This is a simple way to give customers access to mission-critical systems and get them to interact with them via their phone. Giving customers a link via text is far less technically complex than having to build your own app — an Android version, an Apple version — and distribute them in the app store. We can build our system how we want it, put a sign in a location, and get it up and running. It’s much more direct and simple.”

LAZ’s use case is an innovative example of how to take advantage of transactional SMS. Other common use cases include

• Booking confirmations — travel and hospitality business can send text to confirm a hotel room or a restaurant table.
• Order receipts — retails can offer SMS as a way for customers to get their purchase confirmations.
• Delivery status messages — stores and food service businesses can text customers to tell them to come and get it.
• Billing reminders — sometimes it pays to tell people that it’s time for them to pay.
• Appointment reminders — healthcare providers and service businesses can let people know they have plans to visit, to help avoid missed sessions.
• Service alerts, such as utility outages and flight delays — in unusual circumstances, an informative text can be reassuring.

Making it personal

When you use an SMS API like the one provided by Plivo’s cloud communications platform, you can tailor transactional messages to individual customers or segmented groups based on the data you have about them, enabling businesses to deliver more relevant and personalized content.

Whenever you need to provide valuable, timely information, consider text messaging. When you’re ready to get started, read our SMS Best Practices Guide for detailed texting considerations.

New businesses today have abandoned the public switched telephone network (PSTN) in favor of voice over IP (VoIP). With VoIP, software converts analog speech into digital packets that are sent as data over the internet.

VoIP telephony has several advantages over the older generation of voice over copper wires.

• Cost-efficiency: VoIP services are less expensive than traditional phone lines. They’re just network connections, which means long-distance and international calls are no more expensive than calls across the street. While you can use desktop phones for VoIP calls, you don’t have to — that’s another savings. And VoIP services include features like caller ID, call waiting, and voicemail that traditional providers may charge for separately. Some VoIP providers offer features that old-school providers can’t, such as speech transcription.
• Scalability: It’s easy to add or remove VoIP lines — all it takes is a few clicks on a configuration console. That’s a big benefit for seasonal businesses, whose usage varies over the course of a year, while growing businesses can start small and expand as they grow.
• Resilience: In the event of a power outage or natural disaster at your primary place of business, you can easily redirect numbers to other locations or mobile devices.
• Flexibility: People with VoIP lines aren’t tied to a single location or a particular phone. They can take calls wherever they are, and on just about any networked device — laptop, smartphone, or dedicated IP phone. That’s a benefit for everyone in the organization who makes or receives calls. It’s especially useful for businesses with remote workers or multiple locations.
• Integration: In many cases, businesses can integrate VoIP lines with other business applications to improve workflow and enhance customer experience.
• Voice quality: Twenty years ago, VoIP calls often had lower voice quality than phone connections. Today’s VoIP services provide voice quality that’s as good as or better than traditional phone lines, provided there’s a good internet connection.

That last bullet raises an important point. While VoIP has many advantages, it relies on a company’s internet connection. Businesses looking to implement VoIP need to make sure they have a robust, stable, and speedy connection to get the best performance from their VoIP system.

For robust VoIP, choose SIP trunking

One of the most popular ways to get VoIP services is via SIP trunking. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) an international standard for voice communication over data networks. Trunks used to be physical links — copper wire installed by phone companies from their central offices to customer premises. Nowadays the term also refers to virtual lines of communication.

With SIP trunking, organizations can make calls over the internet to anyone with a phone number. Thanks to all of the advantages of VoIP communication enumerated above, SIP trunks are replacing physical phone lines virtually everywhere.

Zentrunk tops other SIP trunking services

Zentrunk, Plivo’s SIP trunking service, provides global coverage for outbound and inbound voice calls, working with your current cloud or on-premises communications infrastructure. Whether you’re looking to increase the capacity of your current telecom stack, increase coverage and phone number inventory, or extend your on-premises infrastructure to the cloud, Zentrunk can get you started.

Plivo’s SIP trunking service provides:

• Interoperability: Zentrunk is designed to work seamlessly with any IP-based communications system, including PBX systems, cloud communication platforms, and session border controllers (SBC).
• Elastic SIP trunking: Zentrunk can scale automatically based on demand. This elastic scaling means you don’t have to worry about exceeding any maximum number of concurrent calls, as the system adjusts in real time to your needs.
• Reliability: Plivo has seven internet points of presence (PoP) around the world to ensure minimal network latency in call handling and maximum voice quality.
• Easy setup and management: You set up and manage Zentrunk through the user-friendly Plivo console or via Zentrunk APIs.
• Comprehensive documentation: Our documentation includes a quickstart guide and interconnection guides to assist with the setup and configuration of your trunks.
• Transparent pricing: Plivo offers straightforward, pay-as-you-go pricing with no long-term commitments or hidden charges.
• Security: All communication is encrypted using Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) to ensure the safety and privacy of your calls.
• Global reach: Zentrunk provides call connectivity to users in 190+ countries.
• 24/7 support: Plivo offers available around-the-clock technical support to ensure any issues are addressed promptly and your communication system remains up and running.
• Customer service: Plivo support team helps customers resolve carrier-related issues by working directly with the more than 1,600 carriers in our Premium Communications Network.

When you need to market to a large audience, what’s your best tool? It’s the one that can reach just about anyone through a device they already carry with them.

Advantages of SMS

Communicating with a host of potential or existing customers at once is called bulk marketing — and the most effective channel to use for it is SMS text messaging, for several reasons.

It’s personalized. With a cloud communications platform like Plivo, you can use SMS APIs to send targeted, personalized text messages from your own applications directly to customers’ mobile devices. Once you’ve coded your application, you can generate marketing campaigns with a few mouse clicks.

It’s cost-effective: Each outgoing message costs ₹0.14 in India; businesses that have registered on a DLT platform are eligible for a lower domestic rate. Messages cost a fraction of a cent in North America and similarly low amounts in other countries; for Plivo’s rates in every country, check our pricing page. Low cost and the high open rate of 98% give SMS the highest ROI of any communications channel.

It’s measurable: If you’re not sure whether bulk SMS is effective, you can take advantage of another of its features — tracking. You can run analytics to see key metrics such as click-through rate, delivery rate, and unsubscribe rate.

With Plivo, you can monitor SMS marketing campaigns in real time through the messaging logs on the Plivo console. The logs show you how many messages you’re sending and what the status is — delivered, failed — and, if a message failed, what reason was for the failure. And you can filter the logs in a number of ways — by location, by from or to number, status — and drill down on any entry in the list of results.

SMS use cases

Bulk SMS marketing campaigns tend to be oriented toward promotional messages and customer engagement. Promotional messages cover things like

• Product launches
• Sales and discounts
• Special offers and promotions
• Event invitations
• Loyalty programs and rewards

Customer engagement messages are designed to maintain a positive ongoing relationship between you and your customers, with things like

• Timely updates
• Tips and helpful information
• Surveys and feedback requests

And while we’re focusing on SMS marketing, once you’ve set up a communications platform to send marketing messages, you can make use of it in other ways as well. For instance, you can use it to send transactional messages such as

• Order confirmations
• Shipping notifications
• Payment reminders and balance notifications
• Appointment reminders
• Service updates

If you’re a manufacturer, a service provider, or a governmental agency, you can send timely notifications about

• Product recalls
• Service outages
• Appointment cancellations
• Security breaches
• Traffic and weather alerts

And any organization can set up message distribution lists for their own staff and contractors and send things like

• Company announcements
• Policy updates
• Training and development opportunities
• Shift reminders

Special considerations for bulk SMS marketing in India

Following a set of best practices will help you get your message out wherever you are in the world, but if you’re trying to reach recipients in India with your SMS messages, you have a few extra factors to consider.

• Regulatory compliance: The Indian government has strict regulations in place to protect consumers from unsolicited marketing messages, such as the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR) and the National Do Not Call (NDNC) registry. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) requires all message senders to register on a DLT (distributed ledger technology) portal. Different regulations apply to transactional and promotional messaging. Ensure that your bulk marketing campaign adheres to all relevant requirements.
• Language diversity: India has numerous languages and dialects. Using recipients’ preferred languages enhances engagement and response rates. Tailor your messages to the linguistic preferences of your target audience.
• Cultural sensitivity: Indian consumers have diverse cultural backgrounds, and you have to be sensitive to them when designing bulk marketing campaigns. Make sure your content is respectful and relevant to the specific needs and preferences of your target audience.

Keeping these considerations in mind as you craft your marketing messages should help you create campaigns to send promotional messages, advertise products or services, increase brand awareness, and drive sales in the Indian market.

What is DND number?

Few people enjoy receiving calls or text messages they didn’t request from businesses, especially if they’ve registered on their country’s Do Not Disturb (DND) list. In India, that list is officially called the National Do Not Call (NDNC) Registry. Individuals who do not wish to receive promotional texts or calls from businesses that they have no relationship with can sign up for free. Then, if a business tries sending someone promotional messages they don’t want, consumers can file complaints that have serious consequences for the businesses that are in violation.

How to Sign Up for the DND List in India?

The easiest way to get on the DND list is to send an SMS message to 1909, the national number reserved for the purpose. The body of the message should be simply START DND or START 0.

The subscriber’s carrier should instantly acknowledge the request and warn that it may take some time for the registration to become effective. The registry provides a page consumers can visit to check registration status.

If an individual doesn’t get a confirmation text, or simply prefers voice calls to texting, they can also call 1909 and follow the recorded instructions to register.

To remove a number from the registry, send STOP DND to 1909. However, numbers cannot be deactivated for 90 days after activation.

Customizing DND Preferences in India

By the way, while most people block all unsolicited commercial communications (UCC), consumers can pick and choose which industries to block. There are seven sectors (see below). Text START n, where n is the digit, associated with the sector, to block promotional messages from each industry.

1. Banking, insurance, financial products, and credit cards
2. Real estate
3. Education
4. Health
5. Consumer goods and automobiles
6. Communication, broadcasting, entertainment, and IT
7. Tourism and leisure

People can change DND preferences at any time, but after someone makes one change, they won’t be able to make another for 30 days.

What to Do When DND Doesn’t Help: Report Spam Calls in India

The NDNC Registry is a great resource, but it’s not perfect. If a telemarketer illegally ignores the DND list, consumers may receive messages they don’t want. This happens far too frequently — according to LocalCircles, two out of three people whose numbers are in the registry get three or more unwanted calls every day. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has taken many steps to combat these unwanted communications. Most recently, new rules went into effect on May 1 that require telecom companies to use AI spam filters in their call and SMS services.

Still, knowing spam happens, the TRAI set up a way to file spam complaints.

How to Report Spam Calls in India Using the 1909 Number

As with registration, the trick is to text or call 1909. Provide all the particulars of the unwanted message:

• Sender ID
• Message content
• Message date and time

Alternatively, recipients can search their carrier’s website for a form on which to make a DND complaint.

Consumers who submit a complaint should receive a unique complaint tracking number. The NDNC Registry should follow up by reporting to filers the action it takes within seven days. Actions may include having the calling number disconnected and forcing the originator to pay financial penalties.

How to Avoid DND Violations as a Business in India?

As a business, it behooves you not to be the source of DND complaints. Several best practices will keep you on the side of the angels.

• Register with the TRAI and obtain a unique sender ID to use in your messages.
• Gain consent from recipients before sending any marketing or promotional messages. Consent can be explicit (given directly by the customer) or inferred (derived from an existing business relationship or transaction); for promotional messages, get explicit consent.
• Check each recipient against the NDNC, and respect people’s preferences.
• Provide an opt-out mechanism, such as an unsubscribe link or instructions to send a “STOP” message, with each promotional message.
• Respect time restrictions — don’t send promotional messages after 9 p.m. or before 9 a.m. Also, don’t send more than six messages per hour with the same content, from the same sender, to the same number.
• Keep records of customer consent, preferences, and opt-out requests, as mandated by the TRAI.

Do all of that and you should be fine. If you run into trouble, the experts on Plivo’s support team stand ready to help.

Plivo’s CTO Michael Ricordeau writes …

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

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

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

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

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

Designing the AI chatbot

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

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

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

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

Here’s how everything fits together:

Technical details and pain points

Building the application was both fun and a learning experience.

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

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

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

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

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

Why don’t we consult the oracle?

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

Et voilà!

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

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

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

Leadership Talk: The Modern State of Customer Support

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

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

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

Renu: Significantly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Renu: Of course, my pleasure!

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

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

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

Build your subscriber base

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

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

Here are six ways to gather opt-in consent.

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

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

7 types of SMS marketing offers

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

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

Winning with SMS marketing

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