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Featured

Top 7 SMS OTP service providers to secure your customers | How to choose the right one?

May 22, 2024
7 mins

Choosing the right OTP provider requires defining your requirements and goals, vetting various providers, and understanding how well each solution works with your existing tech stack. 

At the most practical level, your SMS OTP service provider should give you all the features you need to deliver OTPs to your customers. 

Every SMS one-time passcode (OTP) service provider is different. 

Some providers offer a more extensive network of carrier partnerships, enabling you to send OTPs worldwide with better deliverability. Others focus on building a strong infrastructure to manage domestic OTP deliveries. 

OTP providers also vary in the availability and flexibility of APIs and SDKs for integration into existing systems, impacting the ability to customize and implement the OTP experience in your existing tech stack. 

Choosing the right OTP provider requires defining your requirements and goals, vetting various providers, and understanding how well each solution works with your existing tech stack. 

In this guide, we’ll explain the features you need to look for in an SMS OTP service provider, the top seven most popular SMS OTP service providers in the market, and how to choose the right one for your needs. 

What features should I look for in an SMS OTP service provider?

Consider eight features when choosing an SMS OTP service provider. 

  • Time-to-deploy 
  • SMS OTP conversion rates
  • Fraud detection
  • Security and compliance
  • Analytics and tracking
  • Integrations
  • Customer support
  • Price

1. Time-to-deploy 

Developers already have enough on their plates— and adding a complicated tool t that requires intensive onboarding and implementation is counterproductive to achieving your other development needs. 

When selecting an OTP provider, look for services that require minimal setup. This will allow your team to start sending OTPs with little to no downtime. 

Your SMS OTP service provider should also provide clear documentation and SDKs that make it straightforward for developers to integrate OTP with your platforms, significantly reducing the time and resources needed for deployment.

2. SMS OTP conversion rates 

One of the most frustrating experiences a customer can have is receiving a delayed OTP, or worse, not receiving an OTP at all. Delayed or undelivered OTPs can cause anxiety, potentially leading the customer to abandon the transaction or lose trust in your brand. 

Verify that an SMS OTP provider has high delivery rates to ensure that your customers can receive and act upon OTP messages.

3. Fraud detection

In international markets, OTPs in SMS and voice channels are particularly susceptible to SMS Pumping fraud. 

Advanced fraud detection should include dynamic risk assessment algorithms that adapt to emerging threats and unusual patterns. 

4. Security and compliance

When assessing the security and compliance of an OTP service provider, there are two key aspects you need to consider: data encryption and regulatory compliance. 

End-to-end encryption ensures that an OTP is encrypted at the origin and only decrypts at the receiver’s device. This protects the OTP message from being intercepted or read by hackers. To verify the robustness of the encryption, look for an OTP service provider that uses recognized standards like AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a suitable key length (e.g., 256-bit).  

Additionally, look for OTP service providers that adhere to data protection regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) as they are mandatory for different countries. 

5. Analytics and tracking

Choose an SMS OTP service provider that offers detailed analytics and tracking. Real-time insights into OTP delivery rates and failures help identify issues as they arise. 

Custom reports with a trend analysis of KPIs, such as success rates of OTP deliveries across different regions, can highlight areas for improvement, whether in technology or carrier partnerships. You can also leverage these reports to make strategic decisions and draw behavioral insights. 

6. Integrations

Even the most robust OTP provider must play well with your existing tech stack. Think about which platforms you need your OTP tool to communicate with. Does this OTP solution fit your long-term technological needs? 

Plivo, for example, integrates with most popular tools including Zapier, Microsoft Power Automate, Integromat, Pipedream, Integrately, GitHub Actions, EngageBay, and more. 

7. Customer support

Look for an SMS OTP service provider that is available 24/7. This level or service translates to immediate assistance, minimized downtime, and enhanced reliability. Having multiple support channels, such as email, phone, web-based chatbots, and SMS, will also provide more convenience, accessibility, and personalization for your company. 

8. Price

There’s no getting around pricing. Look for an OTP service provider with clear, straightforward pricing. Most OTP providers offer multiple pricing plans; look for one designed to scale with your business as you grow. Check out Plivo’s pricing.

The 7 best SMS OTP service providers for security and reliability

Here are our top seven picks for the best OTP service providers. Read a detailed analysis of why we chose these platforms below. 

1. Plivo 

Key features

  • Turnkey single-API solution: All you need to do is integrate using a single API with Plivo and it’ll take care of the heavy lifting. For instance, Plivo keeps numbers ready for usage, so customers do not need to purchase any numbers separately. Bottom line: Plivo customers can conveniently use a secure solution without worrying about compliance issues. 
  • Multichannel support: Plivo supports both SMS and voice OTP to ensure businesses have the flexibility they need to authenticate users. 
  • High deliverability: Verify API enjoys specialized routes from carriers that are not available with the SMS API. It also uses intelligent routing to identify optimal routes and number types for enhanced conversions. Plivo also ensures sender ID and template compliance to ensure carriers do not fail them due to compliance issues.   
  • Built-in fraud control: Plivo’s Fraud Shield includes an autopilot mode to help you monitor your messaging patterns, build thresholds for each country, and automatically send alerts with irregular patterns. 

You can fine-tune and override messaging throughput thresholds for each country and access an in-built reporting to evaluate your cost savings from preventing fraud attacks using Fraud Shield. 

  • Support: Premium 24-hour support, comprehensive documentation, seven global points of presence, and 99.99% uptime SLAs are available. 
  • No additional costs: Plivo has straightforward pricing plans where you only pay for what you use. There are no charges for authentication, regulatory compliance, fraud shield, and SMS verification, making it an ideal solution for those on a modest budget. 

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Pros 

  • Supports SMS OTP delivery in 220+ countries 
  • High deliverability rates, minimizing SMS failures
  • Customizable OTP templates for a personalized user experience
  • Detailed analytics for tracking OTP success rates
  • Robust security features protect data integrity
  • Comprehensive API and documentation support ease of integration
  • Scalable solutions cater to businesses of all sizes
  • 99.99% uptime SLAs available with 24-hour support 

Cons

  • The vast array of features can be overwhelming for new users.

Most suitable for Companies that need a scalable, customizable SMS OTP solution with extensive integration capabilities, security, and reliability. G2 rating: 4.5 stars, 724 reviews 

2. Twilio

G2 rating: 4.2 stars, 467 reviews

Key features

  • Multichannel authentication support: Twilio provides APIs that enable you to send OTPs through SMS, passkeys, WhatsApp, email, voice, and TOTP (authenticator apps like Authy and Google Authenticator), going beyond traditional email and website communication.
  • Fraud monitoring: Twilio uses one API endpoint to validate users and detect fraud. It also lets you customize geo-permissions, rate limits, and other fraud controls. 

Pros 

  • Wide range of additional communication channels available
  • Extensive API for custom integrations and workflow automation
  • Fraud detection and security features to protect customer data
  • Real-time analytics dashboard to monitor and optimize OTP deliveries
  • Global reach with localized number support

Cons

  • Steeper learning curve due to platform complexity
  • Pricing can become expensive as usage scales.

Most suitable forTech-savvy businesses and developers seeking a robust, customizable OTP solution.

3. Authkey.io 

G2 rating: 4.8 stars, 6 reviews  

Key features

  • Multichannel support: Authkey.io supports SMS, email, and voice OTP. 
  • Live analytics: It gives detailed analytics about OTP delivery, failure, and latency reports. 

Pros 

  • Cost-effective solution for businesses on a tight budget
  • User-friendly platform ideal for those new to OTP services
  • API support for straightforward integration
  • Quick and easy setup with minimal configuration required
  • Responsive customer support team

Cons

  • Limited advanced features for complex implementations
  • Somewhat restricted global coverage compared to larger providers

Most suitable forStartups and small to medium businesses looking for an affordable, reliable OTP service with basic features.

4. Exotel

G2 rating: 4.3 stars, 80 reviews

Key features

  • Real-time analytics: Exotel provides real-time analytics and delivery reports, allowing businesses to track the status of each OTP code sent. 
  • Customizable OTP timers and lengths: Exotel allows users to customize the length of the OTPs and set timers for how long an OTP is valid. 

Pros 

  • Simple and intuitive user interface
  • A reporting dashboard with conversational AI 
  • An extensive reach in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Southeast Asia (SEA) 
  • High delivery speed for OTPs

Cons

  • Limited global presence 

Most suitable forBusinesses primarily operating in APAC & SEA, as they have an extensive network in this region.

5. SMSCountry

G2 rating: 4.8 stars, 2 reviews  

Key features

  • Quick integration: SMSCountry allows you to send OTPs directly from anywhere with an easily integrable SMS API that supports several applications through SDK, XML, Web, and HTTP-API plug-ins.
  • Compliance and security: The OTP provider is powered by 100+ direct-to-carrier connections in 180+ countries, enabling users to send OTPs internationally. 

Pros 

  • Easy to use and integrate, reducing time to market
  • Supports 180+ countries
  • Cost-effective for businesses mindful of budget constraints
  • Real-time delivery reports for tracking OTP status
  • Dedicated account management and 24/7 customer support

Cons

  • Limited functionality for advanced customization needs
  • Fewer global direct carrier connections may affect delivery in certain regions.
  • No option to add team members from the dashboard

Most suitable for SMBs seeking a reliable, no-frills basic OTP service that's both affordable and easy to implement.

6. MSG91

G2 rating: 3.9 stars, 47 reviews  

Key features

  • Built-in IP security: The OTP service provider comes with in-built IP data security that ensures the flow is halted when an unusual login is attempted to prevent potential fraud activities. 
  • Multichannel support: MSG91 supports multiple channels including SMS, email, Voice, and Whatsapp. 

Pros 

  • Robust APIs for flexible OTP service integration
  • Comprehensive analytics for insights into OTP performance
  • Global coverage ensuring worldwide OTP delivery
  • Advanced data security protocols for customer data protection
  • Scalable pricing model that accommodates growing businesses
  • Exceptional uptime and reliability track record

Cons

  • Pricing transparency could be improved for clearer budget planning.
  • The platform's extensive features present a learning curve.
  • Limited reports—only offers a pre-selected timeframe for accessing reports. 

Most suitable forBusinesses that need multichannel support with other basic functionalities of an OTP provider.

7. TeleSign

G2 rating: 4.5 stars, 4 reviews 

Key features

  • Global coverage: Telesign’s verification API can authenticate customers across 230 countries and over 80 languages. 
  • Dynamic routing: The OTP provider’s API intelligently routes messages using the most effective routing available to provide high-speed delivery. 

Pros 

  • Extensive global network for reliable OTP delivery across different regions
  • Support for a wide range of languages and localizations
  • Developer-friendly APIs and SDKs for easy integration

Cons

  • Inflexible pricing plans with plenty of friction in free trials 
  • Significant delay in receiving OTPs 
  • Lacks accurate number validation 
  • Doesn’t support its entire list of countries and numbers 

Most suitable for Startups and small businesses needing a simple, budget-friendly OTP solution.

How to choose an SMS OTP service provider?

There is a wide range of SMS OTP service providers on the market right now—but how do you decide which one meets your needs best? 

If choosing an OTP provider feels daunting, here are six steps to help: 

Step 1: Determine your OTP requirements and goals

Before diving into the selection process, get clear on your specific needs for an OTP service. Consider things like the data security level of your application, the volume of OTPs you'll need to dispatch, and whether you anticipate significant growth as this will require a scalable solution. 

Step 2: Look at key features

Jot down a list of the must-have and nice-to-have features you need from your OTP provider, like high deliverability rates, speed of OTP delivery, the ability to customize your OTP messages, and authentication flows. 

Step 3: Research the best OTP service providers

Begin your search by compiling a list of potential OTP providers. Read online reviews, testimonials, and case studies to explore each provider's reputation. 

Step 4: Set your OTP provider budget

Seek out pricing plans that offer transparency and don't hide fees in the fine print. Consider how the pricing structure fits your expected volume of OTP messages and whether the provider offers the scalability you need without increasing costs.

Step 5: Check for integration support

Look for providers that offer robust support for integration, including SDKs, APIs, and comprehensive documentation. These tools and resources will significantly smooth the integration process and reduce the time to deployment.

Step 6: Test, analyze, and report on ROI

Once you’ve set up your new OTP system, take measures to determine its return on investment. The goal is to have an efficient tool with a positive ROI. 

The bottom line is that regardless of which OTP service provider you choose, it must deliver on your goals. It should give you complete control and flexibility over how, when, and where you want to send OTPs.  

Get started with Plivo today

Choosing the right SMS OTP service provider involves considering key factors. Start by understanding your business’s needs and goals, listing out specific of your must-have and nice-to-have features like customization, global presence, and customer support. 

Think Plivo might be the perfect OTP SMS service provider for your needs? Find out today with a trial

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Apr 14, 2025
5 mins

Support Agents: Who Are They, and What Do They Do?

Support agents serve as a middle ground between your company and its customers. Let’s see some steps to hire the best and build a functional team.

Needless to say, ​customer support is a vital organ for business success, directly affecting customer satisfaction, loyalty, and revenue. In fact, a study notes that in 2024, poor customer experiences cost organizations worldwide an estimated $3.7 trillion, marking a 19% increase from the previous year.

Customers often switch companies if they don't receive good customer service, regardless of product satisfaction. Conversely, they are often willing to go out of their way to do business with a company that offers better service. 

Support agents for eCommerce companies

Support agents are at the forefront of delivering these sensitive experiences, making their role crucial in fostering customer relationships and driving business growth.​

In this article, we’ll explain who they are, what they do, the essential skills needed to become one, and some steps to build your support team with the best support agents.

Who are support agents (and who are they not)?

A support agent is a trained representative of your company primarily tasked with resolving customers' complaints, answering inquiries, and providing usage guidance on your company’s products and services.

Beyond handling tickets, they also provide emotional support by ensuring customers feel heard, valued, and reassured throughout the interaction. This, in turn, strengthens customer trust and loyalty.

Support agents play a vital role in enhancing customer satisfaction—which indirectly drives ROI through repeat purchases—but they are not sales representatives or marketers. Marketers and sales reps acquire customers and sell. 

On the other hand, support agents retain these customers and boost repeat purchases through efficient assistance.

4 primary responsibilities of a support agent

A support agent's primary responsibilities include serving as the first point of contact, handling queries, providing proactive support, and gathering essential feedback.

1. Serving as a brand's first-line contact

When things go wrong, customers become frustrated and demand to speak with anyone—even the CEO. Your support agents step in to act as the first line of defense, de-escalate situations, and provide solutions professionally. 

They also represent your brand through every empathic response, ensuring customers leave with a positive experience and a lasting impression of excellent service.

2. Handling customer inquiries

Customer support agents handle all customer inquiries. Depending on the technicality of the query, they might sometimes involve a specialist or higher executive. 

For instance, if a customer has a dispute over billing that involves policy exceptions, your agent might need to coordinate with or escalate to a higher executive for approval.

3. Providing proactive support

Support agents detect customer needs ahead of time and promptly contact them even before they log a complaint. This helps reduce inbound tickets and boosts customer satisfaction. 

As an omnichannel customer support platform, Plivo CX’s proactive service enables your support team to provide a more refined and automated proactive support.

Image showing Plivo CX's proactive service tool
Reduce inbound tickets by proactively addressing customers’ needs

4. Gathering feedback to optimize product offerings and marketing

Your support agents are the most valuable source of feedback since they interact with customers daily. They can help you gather recurring concerns, pain points, and suggestions that drive meaningful product improvements. 

Plivo CX’s metrics tool automates this feedback collection process and ensures your agents focus on core tasks instead.

Image showing Plivo CX's Metrics and Reporting tool
Automate CSAT feedback collection to optimize product offerings

Essential soft skills of a good support agent

Being a support agent involves not only resolving queries but also understanding and communicating with customers on a personal level. This is why certain soft skills, beyond technical competency, are essential when recruiting one.

Active listening and empathy

Active listening involves paying close attention to every word and emotion communicated rather than focusing solely on the problem. 

Unsurprisingly, active listeners excel at expressing empathy since they’re more likely to understand how customers feel better. This deeper connection allows them to communicate effectively, provide reassurance, and de-escalate tense situations.

Good communication skills

A good support agent must convey their points concisely while considering the appropriate tone. 

They know when to avoid passive-aggressive words such as “actually, ought to,” colloquialisms, and slang to maintain clarity.

Comparison between negative and positive communication tone
Good support agents adopt a positive communication tone to address customer complaints

Adaptability

Different customers present with different complaints, personalities, and communication styles. Some are patient and easy to communicate with, whereas some are aggressive and impatient. 

So, a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work, and that’s why an ideal support agent must be able to adapt to each high and low while maintaining efficient support delivery.

Problem-solving skills

Customer support playbooks are valuable, but not every customer complaint will fit neatly into predefined solutions. Situations like this require your support agent to think outside the box while staying within your company’s guardrails. 

A good support agent must be able to devise quick solutions to new problems and escalate as soon as possible when necessary.

6 steps to hire the right support agent and build a functional support team

Your support team can either make or mar your business. Hiring the right agent and building a functional team is, therefore, essential. Let’s see how to do that.

1. Define your staffing needs and ideal agent

You can figure out how many support agents to hire based on your historical ticket volume, scale of business expansion, and anticipated growth in the next quarters. This ensures you don’t over-hire and bloat your expenses or under-hire and cripple your support delivery. 

Plivo CX’s reporting and metrics tool provides a comprehensive ticket summary, which helps you determine your historical ticket volume.

Image showing Plivo CX's Metrics and Reporting tool
Use your historical ticket volume to determine staffing needs

Simultaneously, you need to define who your ideal agent is—that is, the skills they should preferably possess, availability, technical proficiency, lingual capacities, and experience. You can diversify your recruitment process if you’re catering to multilingual audiences.

Once you’ve identified your staffing needs and ideal candidate profile, you can post your job listing on your company’s career page and on popular job boards like LinkedIn to attract qualified applicants.

2. Prioritize agents with empathy and problem-solving skills

You need a team of agents who can dialogue with different kinds of customers, resonate with them emotionally, and make them feel heard while providing adequate support. That’s why you should prioritize agents with empathy.

Also, look for agents with strong problem-solving skills—someone who can think quickly on their feet and provide solutions to out-of-the-script problems.

Tools like TestGorilla and Testify help you assess your applicant’s skills and ability to address different scenarios. For a more tailored assessment, present candidates with real scenarios or past customer complaints from your database and ask them to resolve the issue.

3. Test for relevant technical competency

Technical competency is your support agent’s ability to resolve customers’ technical queries. This could include troubleshooting software issues and providing answers to product-specific technical queries.

Usually, your agents don’t need to be tech geeks or specialists for L1 tickets. An entry-level customer support agent with the necessary soft skills can do a great job here.

However, it’s a different ball game for agents managing L2 and L3 tickets. They should have the necessary expertise to manage complex and product-related technical issues like specialists. 

This primarily hinges on their hard skills portfolio, which you need to consider when hiring. Provide real-world scenarios to assess these skills and ensure they genuinely have what it takes to be your ideal agents.

4. Provide comprehensive agent training

From the onboarding stage, you need to identify the gaps in your hires’ competencies and design individualized or group training to boost their efficiency. Training can include soft skills, lingual capacity, and upskilling hard skills for more proficiency.

Agent training is not a one-time process. Plivo CX’s coaching tools help your agents leverage past interactions with customers to continuously refine their delivery—how to respond or handle similar situations when they arise again.

Image showing Plivo CX's coaching tools
Provide continuous training with Plivo CX’s coaching tools

5. Equip your support agents with AI-powered tools

Gartner notes that more than 80% are either using or planning to integrate AI-powered chatbots in 2025. Advanced chatbots are essential because they can handle the majority of L1 tickets, thus freeing up your agents to do other complex tasks.

An example is Plivo CX’s openAI-powered AI chatbot, which can leverage your database in real time to make decisions, autonomously handle refund requests, modify orders, and make personalized recommendations.

Image showing Plivo CX's AI chatbot in action
Enhance customer support with AI-driven multilingual chatbots

Your team also needs an omnichannel platform that centralizes all communication channels into a single dashboard. This allows agents to access everything they need without constantly switching tabs, ultimately improving response time and efficiency.

An example is Plivo CX’s unified agent desktop designed to eliminate data silos, unify all incoming customer requests, and integrate with homegrown systems, CRM, ERP, helpdesk, and more.

Image showing Plivo CX's UAD in action
Centralize customer support with unified agent desktop

6. Establish KPIs and reasonable expectations

Establish KPIs, such as first response time, average resolution time, and first contact resolution, to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of your support agents. 

Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSATs) will help determine whether customers are getting the help they need and how they need it.

Plivo CX’s agent metrics and reporting tool enables you to monitor and measure your support agent’s performance while exposing gaps that need filling.

Image showing Plivo CX's Metrics and Reporting tool in action
Monitor and measure agent’s performance to identify areas for improvement

You also need to set individualized, SMART expectations and goals for your support agents. Ensure each agent does not handle more tickets—whether in quantity or complexity—than they can. This will reduce the incidence of customer service burnout and enhance the quality of your support delivery.

Scale your customer support operations with Plivo CX

Hiring the right support agent is just one part of building a functional customer support team. You also need to provide them with the right tools to enhance their efficiency and effectiveness.

That’s where Plivo CX comes in. 

As an omnichannel platform designed to streamline support delivery, Plivo CX offers a unified agent desktop to centralize your support channels, multilingual AI-powered voice support, and OpenAI-powered chatbots to slash your ticket queue.

We also offer: 

  • Seamless integrations: Connect Plivo CX with your existing tools, including CRM, ERP, helpdesk, and more.
  • Data-driven optimization: Track real-time analytics and generate custom reports to gain insights into customer interactions and agent performance.
  • AI-enhanced efficiency: Prioritize urgent tickets, ensure brand consistency, and adapt quickly to changes with AI-powered support.
  • Rich communication: Enhance interactions with multimedia support, including images, videos, and documents.
  • Increased productivity: Streamline workflows with message templates, internal notes, and skills-based routing.
  • Comprehensive features: Leverage call recording, IVR, multi-language support, and robust security features for a complete solution.

Book a demo today and start building a world-class support team with Plivo CX.

Apr 3, 2025
5 mins

The Power of Multilingual Customer Support: 7 Must-Know Strategies

Multilingual customer support enhances user experience and expands global reach. Let’s explore its benefits and best practices for implementation.

It’s ten minutes past 2 pm. A new high-value customer submits a technical complaint—but, in Spanish. The problem? None of your service reps speak Spanish. 

Now, you have only two options.

First, you say, “Thank you for reaching out. We currently accept queries only in English. Please resend your message in English so we can assist you. Thank you for your understanding!

Or, you scramble from Google’s translator to other free versions of online interpreters, which might give you an inaccurate response. 

Whichever you choose, your customer will likely not find it encouraging. Your inability to efficiently serve customers in their native language passes a message; that they’re not a valued part of your brand. 

According to Hyken’s report, 65% of consumers want to be treated valuably. Failure to deliver this expectation results in a poor support experience, increased churn rates, and a negative brand reputation.

To avoid such outcomes, you need to implement multilingual customer support, and this article will show you how to do that.

What is multilingual customer support?

Multilingual customer support is the ability to provide consistent, high-quality assistance in multiple languages to your customers while accounting for geographical, cultural, and contextual differences that influence communication.

As your business scales, there is also an increasing need to serve a diverse market audience. This mandates your support team to be capable of sustaining interactions with individuals of different languages outside your native business borders.

Even within your business borders, you’re bound to interact with customers of different linguistic needs. According to the United States Census record, the number of residents who utilize other languages besides English has nearly tripled in the last decade. 

So, you must be ready to cater to this diversity once necessary.

Benefits of multilingual customer support

Multilingual support increases customer satisfaction, boosts retention, and ensures you can tap into diverse markets for more opportunities. Here’s how it does that:

Improved customer satisfaction

According to Unbabel’s 2021 multilingual CX report, one in three global consumers cite a lack of multilingual support as their top concern in localized customer experience. 

Uni- or bilingual provisions lead to frustration since your customers can’t express themselves the way they want, and this culminates in a bad customer experience. 

On the other hand, providing multilingual support can enhance customer satisfaction and boost your customers’ LTV. This explains why 64% say they will pay more for a service or product if the brand offers a multilingual support service.

Higher customer retention

57% of global consumers see it as a bias when a brand fails to offer multilingual support. Two in three will also switch to another brand if their current brand does not offer broader language support.

But what happens if you fill up this communication gap? 73% of respondents in Unbabel’s survey say they will remain loyal. 

This means multilingual provisions can help you retain your existing customers and also gain an edge over your competitors in attracting new ones. 

Interestingly, 40% of consumers will likely overlook poor customer service many times if it is offered in their native language. This gives you enough time to address issues plaguing your support delivery before customers bounce.

Broader reach and competitive advantage

Scaling your business often requires crossing borders and serving new audiences. Multilingual support ensures you can easily resolve the issues coming up in these regions, eliminate communication barriers, and rapidly build a robust brand reputation.

Also, multilingual support can serve as the spearhead of your competitive advantage in new markets. That’s because your potential customers will likely choose you over competitors who do not offer multilingual support, all things being equal. So, you can make it a focus of your marketing strategy.

7 must-know strategies to implement multilingual support

One in four consumers say they will not spend more than $500 on brands offering limited language support. You can avoid this by implementing a sturdy multilingual support system. 

Let’s go through how you can do that. 

1. Be upfront about your available language options

First, inform your customers and audience about your current capacity. Include the languages you support on your website, applications, social media profiles, and customer support pages. 

Image showing OpenPlanet’s response to a customer query
Be upfront with the languages you support

This helps to manage customer expectations and reduce frustrations pending the time you make provisions for multiple languages.

2. Embrace diversity in recruitment

The most direct approach to creating a multilingual support system is to recruit multilingual customer service reps. These reps are especially crucial for managing L2 and L3 tiers of requests that AI might not be able to handle.

Ensure you have at least one native or non-native representative for each region you serve. You can also organize language training for your existing service reps instead of overhauling the entire team. 

This reduces your employee acquisition cost and helps you work with people already in tandem with your support operations.

3. Use AI chatbots to provide multilingual support

Advanced AI chatbots use ML and NLP to analyze user inputs such as complaints and provide appropriate responses while leveraging customer data. This is like having an inbuilt translation system, making them a good fit for handling multilingual L1 requests regardless of the language.

As an omnichannel platform designed to scale your support team, Plivo CX offers an OpenAI-powered chatbot capable of handling multilingual tickets and addressing your customers in the language they choose.

Image showing Plivo CX's AI chatbot in action
Enhance customer support with AI-driven multilingual chatbots

4. Integrate multilingual voice support 

According to a 2024 report from Statista, 54% of customers prefer to resolve issues via phone calls over other digital channels and email. To cater to this group, you need to integrate multilingual voice support technology.

An example is Plivo CX’s voice software, which prompts your customers to choose their preferred language from over 27 supported languages right on the call.

With an integrated programmable IVR, your callers can self-select options for quicker routing, shorter wait times, and faster resolution.

Image showing Plivo CX's voice software
Eliminate communication barrier with multilingual voice support

5. Offer language preferences in self-service options

Self-service options include FAQs, knowledge bases, chatbots, AI-powered virtual assistants, and community forums. Your customers must be able to choose their preferred language of interaction on all of these platforms in order to cater to their needs.

Additionally, ensure that automated responses, IVR systems, and in-app customer support are available in multiple languages.

 Image showing Plivo CX's IVR software in action
Offer language preferences on voice IVRs

6. Train support agents in cultural sensitivity

Multilingual support should cater to lingua-cultural nuances that affect communication. Otherwise, you risk irking your customers. 

For instance, there are certain words or expressions that might be normal in American English but seen as aggressive in British English.

One example is the word “sure.” To an American, it’s simply a means of acknowledgment. But it could come off as passive-aggressive to a non-American. 

Train your support reps to understand these nuances and avoid them when speaking with individuals of different cultural backgrounds.

7. Localize knowledge base and FAQs  

Language location refers to adapting your website content to a visitor’s regional language based on factors like their browser settings, IP address, or geographical location. 

o do this, you first need to translate your knowledge base and FAQs into the different languages you support. You can do this manually or with AI. Then let your web development team handle the transitioning.

This method spares customers the hassle of manually selecting their preferred language. However, you should still offer a visible option on your support pages for them to adjust language preferences if needed.

Deliver modern multilingual support with Plivo CX

Language differences stifle quality support delivery and effective communication. 

To help you, Plivo CX offers a multilingual omnichannel support system through its Unified Agent Desktop, OpenAI-powered agentic chatbot, and inclusive voice support to help you overcome these challenges.

We also offer: 

  • Seamless integrations: Connect Plivo CX with your existing tools, including CRM, ERP, helpdesk, and more.
  • Data-driven optimization: Track real-time analytics and generate custom reports to gain insights into customer interactions and agent performance.
  • AI-enhanced efficiency: Prioritize urgent tickets, ensure brand consistency, and adapt quickly to changes with AI-powered support.
  • Rich communication: Enhance interactions with multimedia support, including images, videos, and documents.
  • Increased productivity: Streamline workflows with message templates, internal notes, and skills-based routing.
  • Comprehensive features: Leverage call recording, IVR, multi-language support, and robust security features for a complete solution.

Book a demo now!

Apr 3, 2025
5 mins

SMS Lead Generation: Everything You Need to Get Started

Struggling with SMS lead generation? Learn how Plivo CX's AI-powered SMS marketing helps e-commerce brands drive conversions, automate campaigns & boost ROI.

Let’s be real—getting leads isn’t the problem. Getting them to engage? That’s the real challenge. You can have the best offer, but if your message is not seen, it won’t get results.

The good news is that SMS is breaking through the noise. In fact, 76.2% of consumers say SMS is more effective at generating actions that lead to a purchase than email.

Why? Because texts land directly in your customer’s hands—no spam filters, no distractions, just instant, personal communication.

SMS lead generation is quickly becoming a cornerstone of modern marketing. In this article, we’ll dive into why SMS lead generation is rapidly becoming a must-have for businesses looking to engage, convert, and grow their customer base.

Why SMS is an effective lead generation tool

SMS marketing is a powerful tool for lead generation. It helps businesses build and nurture a qualified audience directly through SMS. Here are some key advantages that make SMS so effective for lead generation: 

High open rates & immediate attention

Text messages are almost always read – often within minutes. Studies confirm SMS open rates around 98%, higher than email​. The immediate visibility means your lead-gen offers (coupons, event invites, etc.) get seen right away, capturing customer attention in real time.

💡 Pro tip: Time your SMS campaigns strategically—sending messages when customers are most active can increase engagement and conversions.

Direct & personal communication

SMS creates a direct and personal connection between brands and potential customers. With the ability to personalize messages based on customer preferences, past interactions, or purchase history, SMS helps brands build stronger relationships and trust. 

Example: "Hi [Name], your favorite moisturizer is back in stock! Shop now before it’s gone: [link]."

💡Pro tip: Use first names, purchase history, or location-based offers to make SMS messages feel even more relevant and personal. 

Real-time engagement 

SMS enables businesses to engage with customers instantly. This makes SMS a preferred medium for promotions, updates, and limited-time offers. It allows for two-way conversations, where businesses can answer questions and send timely reminders when a lead is most interested. 

💡 Pro tip: Use SMS for flash sales or time-sensitive deals—customers are more likely to act quickly when they receive an offer with a clear deadline.

Cost-effective marketing

SMS campaigns are a cost-effective way to engage potential customers and increase sales. With message costs ranging from $0.015 to $0.050 per SMS, businesses can reach large audiences without significant money spent. 

Despite the low cost, SMS generates high response rates and a strong return on investment, making it an excellent text message lead generation tool for lead nurturing, promotions, and customer retention. For budget-conscious marketers, SMS offers maximum impact with minimal expense.

Example 1: A boutique clothing store replaces printed discount flyers with SMS promo codes, saving on printing costs while directly reaching active shoppers.

Example 2: Instead of investing in costly retargeting ads, a home décor brand uses SMS flash sale alerts to attract customers for exclusive discounts and limited-time offers

Automation & scalability 

With SMS automation, businesses can send messages to thousands of customers efficiently. Automated workflows allow brands to set up welcome messages, abandoned cart reminders, or follow-ups without manual effort. 

Whether you’re targeting a small segment or a nationwide audience, SMS can scale to meet your needs​

💡 Pro tip: Set up an automated drip campaign to send SMS messages over time. This helps to guide potential customers toward a purchase.

Together, these advantages explain why more businesses are leveraging SMS for lead generation. 

Proven SMS techniques for lead generation

You know SMS works—but how do you use it to drive more leads? Here are some tested strategies that top brands rely on to turn texts into conversions.

Offer exclusive content or discounts

People love getting something extra, especially when it feels exclusive. By offering discounts, special deals, or early access to new products via SMS, you create an immediate incentive for customers to respond.

Make sure your offer is time-sensitive to create urgency, which further motivates recipients to act quickly. Phrases like “For you only,” or “Exclusive offer just for our subscribers” can make recipients feel valued and increase the chances of conversion.

Image showing an SMS message offering an exclusive discount with a limited-time offer.
Source

Create compelling CTAs for immediate action 

Create your SMS messages with a clear, strong call-to-action (CTA) that urges instant response. Since texts are typically read quickly and have a character limit, use that brief moment to spark action.

Pro tip: Use action-oriented language like “Claim your offer now,” “Get started today,” or “Shop while stocks last” to prompt immediate responses.

SMS message with a strong call-to-action prompting immediate action.
Source

Lead generation through SMS thrives when your CTA is clear, direct, and compels the recipient to act fast.

Use opt-in keywords and shortcodes 

Simplify the process of joining your SMS list through keywords and shortcodes. For instance, you might advert JOIN to 12345 for updates. This text-to-subscribe approach makes opt-ins instant. A customer sends a one-word text and is automatically added to your campaign. 

Example:

A fitness apparel brand wants to grow its SMS list. They advertise:
“Text FIT to 56789 for 15% off your first order and exclusive updates!”

By texting “FIT” to 56789, customers are instantly added to the SMS list. This quick, frictionless opt-in process allows leads to sign up easily with just one text.

Pro tip: Make sure to choose an easy-to-remember keyword related to your campaign (e.g., text SALE, VIP, DEMO, etc.).

Segment your audience for targeted campaigns

One-size-fits-all messaging yields mediocre results. Instead, segment your SMS leads based on factors like demographics, purchasing behavior, and engagement history.

Example:

An online clothing store wants to send targeted offers. They segment their audience into two groups: frequent shoppers and seasonal browsers.

  • Frequent shoppers: Receive exclusive offers like “Thanks for being a loyal customer! Enjoy 25% off your next order.”
  • Seasonal browsers: Receive a message like “Welcome back! Get 15% off your next purchase, just for you.”

Businesses that segment their SMS campaigns see higher conversion because the messaging is more personalized and on-point​. 

Utilize SMS automation for timely follow-ups 

Don’t rely on manual texting, set up automated SMS workflows that send follow-up messages, reminders, or abandoned cart notifications. These automated texts can remind customers about products they’ve left behind, share additional offers, or provide updates on the status of their orders. 

SMS automation ensures no customer is left unattended and helps move prospects down the funnel with well-timed nudges.

Example:

An online home goods store uses SMS automation to follow up with leads.

  • Welcome message: As soon as a customer subscribes, they receive an immediate “Welcome! Get 10% off your first order. Shop now!”
  • Follow-up offer: If the customer hasn’t made a purchase within two days, they receive a reminder: “Still thinking it over? Here’s 15% off your first order!”

By implementing these techniques, you can steadily grow your list of SMS leads and keep them actively engaged. 

Best practices for SMS lead generation

While SMS is powerful, success largely depends on how you use it. Here are some best practices to ensure your SMS lead generation campaigns are effective and well-received:

Personalize and be relevant 

Treat SMS leads like individuals, not numbers on a list. Use personalization wherever possible—greet recipients by name and tailor messages to their interests or past interactions. 

For example, if you know a customer’s preferred product category, mention it. Personalization shows that your texts are for them, which improves response rates. 

In this SMS (image below), they address the customer by name (Elizabeth) and highlight their status as a “Platinum Comfort Crew member.” Personal touches like this make the recipient feel special and valued.

Screenshot showing a personalized SMS, offering first access to a sale.
Source

Optimal timing and frequency 

A staggering 90% of consumers respond to a text within 30 minutes, which underscores the importance of reaching your audience at the right moment. 

To maximize engagement, aim to send texts between 10 AM and 8 PM, avoiding early mornings before 8 AM, late evenings after 9 PM, Mondays, and rush hours. Mid-afternoon often works best. 

When it comes to frequency, it’s all about balance. Nearly 60% of smartphone users opt out of a brand’s messages when they feel overwhelmed by too many updates. 

Pro tip: Space out your messages and keep them meaningful—aim for one or two valuable texts per week to avoid overwhelming your audience and maintain engagement.

Keep messages concise and clear 

SMS has a character limit, which means you must communicate your message clearly and concisely. Your text should get to the point quickly, without any unnecessary fluff. 

Focus on one core message in each SMS, whether it's an offer, update, or reminder. Use short, direct language, and avoid long sentences or paragraphs.

Screenshot showing a clear SMS with a direct call to action
Source

For example, instead of saying, “We have a new collection of products that we think you might like, and it’s available on our website,” say, “New collection just dropped! Shop now and get 10% off!”

If more detail is needed, include a link to a mobile-friendly landing page for the lead to learn more. 

Track and analyze performance 

Treat SMS campaigns like any other marketing effort – track the results and adjust the strategy accordingly. Monitor key metrics such as open rate, click-through rate, response rate, and conversion rate. 

Also, pay attention to unsubscribe rates after each SMS campaign. Analyzing these data points will tell you what’s working and what isn’t. You can experiment with A/B testing for different CTAs, message lengths, or timing to see what drives the best results

For instance, you may find that messages sent on Friday evenings receive higher engagement or that one offer generates more conversions than another. Use this insight to refine your approach, perhaps adjusting send times, wording, or segment targeting. 

The role of SMS marketing automation in lead generation

Automation simplifies lead generation by handling manual tasks, ensuring no lead slips through the cracks. With SMS marketing automation, businesses can send the right message to the right lead at the right time—without manual effort for each interaction. This makes capturing and nurturing leads easier, faster, and more efficient.

Here’s why SMS automation is so important and how it works:

Key benefits of SMS marketing automation

Instant follow-ups: Automatically send a welcome message as soon as a lead opts in, keeping them engaged from the start.

Personalized offers: Use customer data to send relevant offers, product recommendations, and reminders tailored to their interests.

Higher conversion rates: Schedule automated follow-ups to nurture leads, recover abandoned carts, or re-engage inactive customers.

Timely touchpoints: Ensure leads receive timely updates, promotions, and reminders without manual effort.

Scalable communication: With the right SMS lead generation tool, you can manage high volumes of leads with automated workflows. This frees up your team while maintaining consistent outreach.

As a robust omnichannel customer engagement tool, Plivo CX checks all the boxes for a reliable and efficient SMS lead generation platform. 

With its user-friendly interface and powerful analytics tools, Plivo CX optimizes your SMS marketing for maximum impact and streamlines your lead generation and conversion process with automation.

As a testament to its efficiency, Deckers Brands found Plivo's queuing system to be a game-changer. Jacob Martine, project manager at Deckers Brands, states, 

"With fewer worries about rate limits and batch sizes, our developers face less burden. If we need to send 50,000 messages, we simply send them all—Plivo handles the rest, delivering without us worrying about the process."

Drive more leads with SMS marketing powered by Plivo CX

E-commerce managers face a tough challenge—reaching customers at the right time is harder than ever. Manual campaign management takes too long, and generic messages don’t drive conversions. Without automation and personalization, it’s easy to miss opportunities to connect with potential buyers

Plivo CX is an all-in-one customer engagement platform designed to maximize SMS lead generation results. It brings together real-time delivery, intelligent automation, and data-driven insights so businesses can capture and convert more leads via SMS. 

Here’s how Plivo CX can get more leads by elevating your SMS marketing:

  • Powerful audience targeting: Build highly focused campaigns by syncing your e-commerce platform data or importing contacts. With the Audiences feature, segment audiences based on purchase behavior, engagement data, and demographics to send highly personalized SMS campaigns.
Image showing Plivo CX’s customer segmentation dashboard
Target customers with precision using Plivo CX’s advanced segmentation tools.
  • Multi-channel engagement:  Connect with your customers on their preferred channels—whether it's SMS, MMS, or Email. This increases the chances of meaningful interactions and conversions.
  • AI-powered SMS personalization: Use the Copywriter AI to generate compelling, data-driven SMS messages instantly. Fine-tune your messages to resonate with your audience instantly.
 Image showing AI-generated SMS message template.
Create high-impact personalized SMS with AI-powered suggestions.
  • Send messages at the ideal time: Automate and schedule messages to align with optimal timings across different time zones, ensuring they reach customers when they are most likely to engage, maximizing impact.
Image displaying an SMS at different times.
Automate and schedule SMS to deliver across different time zones.
  • E-commerce integrations: Effortlessly connect with e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento to personalize and send SMS directly from your e-commerce platforms.
  • Track conversions & optimize ROI: Gain valuable insights into what resonates with your audience and continuously optimize your campaigns for maximum ROI. 
Image showing campaign performance dashboard with tracking metrics.
Track campaign performance and optimize for better ROI.

With Plivo CX’s robust global messaging network covering 220+ countries, businesses can scale their SMS marketing effortlessly, reducing costs by up to 70% while tripling ROI.

Plivo CX users generate an average of $71 for every $1 spent, making it a must-have for data-driven, high-impact SMS campaigns.

Don’t let missed opportunities hold your business back—start driving more leads and conversions today with Plivo CX. 

Schedule a free demo now!

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Apr 25, 2023
5 mins

Do You Need a Toll-Free Number?

Read to know if your business needs a toll-free number, its advantages and tips on how to procure a new number. Learn more about the benefits of toll-free numbers for business communication at Plivo.

Phone Numbers

In today’s world, does it still make sense for companies to provide a toll-free number for voice callers?

According to Pew Research, as of 2021 97% of Americans owned a cellphone; 85% own a smartphone. Most mobile phone plans come with unlimited minutes for calling any number in the same country. So where’s the value in toll-free numbers nowadays?

Of course toll-free numbers are still useful for people who make calls from landlines, but that demographic is becoming an endangered species. According to the CDC, only about 1.6% of adults lived in households that had only a landline in the first half of 2022.
What is a toll-free number?
With a toll-free number, incoming calls are billed to the called party and are free of charge for the calling party. In North America, area codes 800, 888, 877, 866, 855, 844, and 833 indicate toll-free numbers. In India, the prefix is 1800. Most countries reserve their own set of dialing prefixes to denote toll-free services. Callers call for free as long as they’re dialing in from within the same country; toll-free numbers don’t accept calls from other countries. Most companies that use toll-free numbers do so for voice calls, but in many cases toll-free numbers can also be used for two-way messaging.

If consumers can text or email you, do you even need a phone number? You do. An Invoca survey found voice calls to be the most preferred communication channel (68%) when consumers are having a problem and need help. Have you ever tried to contact a business and failed to find a phone number on their website? It’s frustrating and a poor customer experience.

Voice calls are also useful for other reasons. Consumers still call retailers to find out if an item is in stock, call pharmacies to find out if prescriptions are ready, and call take-out restaurants to place orders, even though they might use digital channels too.

So you need a phone number, but do you need a toll-free one? Well, we know for sure that some businesses don’t. Toll calling is only a factor for geographically dispersed businesses, so it’s fair to say that local businesses never need toll-free numbers. In fact toll-free numbers can be detrimental if you want your customers to feel that you’re part of the same community, as they’re more likely to do if your company’s phone number shares your customers’ area code and maybe a local exchange.

But before we consign toll-free numbers to the same dustbin as printed phone number directories, let’s consider some of the arguments in favor of toll-free numbers.

Why you might want a toll-free number

We see three reasons why you might want a toll-free number, and the first two are hard to quantify.

One argument in favor of toll-free numbers is brand image. A toll-free number lets consumers recognize a brand nationwide, and fosters feelings of familiarity and trustworthiness. Having a toll-free number makes a business seem more established and authoritative. A vanity toll-free number in particular — such as 1-800-TMOBILE — enhances your brand identity. And if someone remembers your number, they’re more likely to call you than to look for an alternative.

Another argument has to do with perception as well. Most businesses, if they use toll-free numbers, do so for general business. By establishing a separate toll-free number for a specific use case, you can elevate that use in consumers’ minds. For instance, if you set up a toll-free number for customer service, your customers can judge that you’re serious about providing good support.

The final argument in favor of toll-free numbers is cost. Though you do pay more per call for inbound calls on toll-free numbers, at least on a cloud communications platform like Plivo, you actually pay less for outbound calls in countries where outbound calling on toll-free numbers is available. If you run the numbers for your expected use case, a toll-free number might be more cost-effective than one or more local numbers.

How to rent a toll-free number

Fortunately, it’s as easy to procure a toll-free number as it is a local one. A cloud communications platform like Plivo keeps a large number of unassigned ones in inventory.

Monthly number rental fees for toll-free numbers are much lower than you might think. In the US, Canada, and the UK, you can rent one for $1 a month. We have similar low rates in other countries — check our Voice API pricing page.

You also incur charges for outbound and inbound calls, but per-call charges are low and you pay for only as much time as you use — Plivo doesn’t require a monthly usage contract. (However, if you’re spending more than $1,000 a month on voice calling, you should talk to our sales team about the possibility of a volume discount for a committed level of usage.)

Using a cloud communications platform for voice calling offers more advantages than just price. Voice quality is a key metric for any calling platform, and Plivo’s Premium Communications Network provides the best possible voice quality. Reliability is also huge — you want to be reachable at all times. Plivo promises 99.95% uptime, and a 99.99% service level agreement is available.

You can get started exploring Plivo’s Voice API services by signing up for free. If you already have a toll-free number from another provider that you want to keep, you can easily port it in to Plivo at no charge. If not, visit our Phone Numbers > Buy Number on the Plivo console. Under Type, tick Toll-Free, and under Capability, tick voice, then click Search.

If you want a particular number — say one with an 800 prefix, or some numbers that match certain letters on a phone keypad as part of a vanity number — you can enter them in the number field, then pick one from among the returned numbers.

The bottom line

So to answer the question we started off with: If you already have a toll-free number, keep it, because surely you have customers who use it. If you’re deciding whether to procure a new one, first compare the monthly cost for your expected call volume, taking into account both outgoing and incoming calls. A large difference might make your decision for you. If the numbers are close, then factor in the intangible factors like brand image.

Apr 17, 2023
5 mins

Plivo’s Approach to 10DLC

Plivo’s approach to 10DLC and what our customers are saying about us. Plivo’s self-service approach makes 10DLC registration fast, easy and hassle free. Read to know more about Plivo’s approach to 10DLC and what customers are saying about us.

10DLC

Over the last few years everyone in the SMS messaging space has been coming to grips with 10DLC, the new standard in the US for application-to-person messaging using long codes. Mobile network operators (MNO), communications platforms as a service (CPaaS), and businesses that use SMS have all had a lot to learn. Plivo’s evolving approach has won praise from our users.

Plivo customer Fluent is one of many who’ve come on the journey. Fluent Senior Manager for CRM Sharita Passariello says, “I’ve gone through the 10DLC registration process with several vendors, and I see lots of advantages to Plivo’s approach. I love the self-service console and ease of use. With some other providers, I can’t sign on to their portal and register a brand or a campaign and have it approved within a couple of hours. It’s really nice that with Plivo I can go in and do it myself, and the turnaround time for approvals seems very quick. Most of the time I can get a campaign up and running within a day or two.”

Passariello also joined us for a webinar on the keys to SMS marketing success in 2023.

10DLC background

Where did 10DLC come from? To protect their customers, mobile carriers needed to make sure that businesses were registering their long codes for A2P use cases. When they register, companies have to provide details about their businesses and use cases (brands and campaigns) so the carriers can check them for legitimacy and appropriateness. Each carrier has come up with penalties for not registering 10DLC numbers, which include surcharges, fines, increased filtering, decreased throughput and deliverability, and the potential to be blocked from sending SMS messages.

If you’re using long codes for A2P texting, 10DLC registration is now mandatory.

Plivo lets you register brands and campaigns and link numbers to them through the Plivo console. The self-service approach makes 10DLC registration faster and easier than relying on a vendor’s support team.

10DLC is a win-win for both consumers and businesses. If you haven’t yet jumped on the bandwagon, register now to reap the benefits and avoid disruptions to your SMS business strategy.

Apr 10, 2023
5 mins

Why You Should Transcribe Your Calls

Phone call transcription is the process of converting recorded phone conversations into written words. Learn how to transcribe calls with Plivo.

Transcription
Voice API

Plivo’s Voice API includes a feature you may not be taking full advantage of: call transcription.

Call transcription is the process of converting recorded phone conversations into written words. It can help you in a number of ways. With a transcript, anyone can search or visually scan call conversations instead of listening to an entire recording — a process that’s more efficient than voice call monitoring. With phone call transcription you can:

  1. Improve agent performance — Managers and agents can search and organize transcribed calls based on outcomes, and learn from them to create best practices documents or knowledge base articles. Transcripts can help you improve grading, quality monitoring, and agent and team performance. They can also help managers develop personalized training objectives for agents to improve their performance over time. Meanwhile, sales agents can learn from transcripts to improve their customer service, as well as identify cross- and upsell opportunities and identify effective ways to move leads further along the pipeline.
  2. Reduce training time — You can share transcriptions among reps and during the new-hire onboarding process. They can serve as example scripts that illustrate what a rep should or shouldn’t say to a customer.
  3. Do post-facto keyword analytics — Transcripts make it easy to analyze which keywords appear in call conversations and how frequently, so you can learn what your customers are saying and use that information to make better decisions. For instance, if you can understand what aspects and features of a product customers are happy or unhappy about, you can better prioritize efforts to improve the product.
  4. Increase accessibility — For the hearing-impaired, transcripts make absorbing information easier. Inclusive practices such providing transcripts are not only good business, they may also be the law. For instance, in the US, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 says, “No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States . . . shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance . . . .” The Office for Civil Rights enforces Section 504 in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance from the Education Department, including public school districts and institutions of higher education. If your business has a presence in education, transcriptions may be required.
  5. Enhance customer experience — For contact centers especially, customer satisfaction is crucial, and the best way to deliver on customer satisfaction is to have customer insights. Call transcripts unlock those insights, giving you an easy-to-review format and high-level perspective, which is especially useful when you have a lot of calls covering a number of subjects. Call transcription makes it simple to review information and discern trends, and identify instances where you should go back and listen to specific calls for more context.

The price is right

You might be willing to pay a lot to gain all of the benefits of speech-to-text, but with Plivo you don’t have to. Our speech transcription service is surprisingly inexpensive. Plivo charges less than a penny per minute of recorded speech — a fraction of what most cloud communication services charge — which makes it a trivial decision to say yes and gain all of the benefits.

However, before you transcribe any calls, make sure that doing so is legal in your locale. Some jurisdictions ban not only transcribing calls but even recording calls, or require informed consent by some or all parties in a conversation. Consult your friendly neighborhood lawyer.

How to transcribe calls

Now that you know why to use speech-to-text transcription, let’s talk about how: Simply provide an additional parameter to the Record Call API when you initiate a call. The transcription_url parameter defines the webhook URL to which the transcription should be posted. After the call completes, Plivo will post the transcribed text to the URL you specify, along with other parameters about the recording, as you can see on our API documentation page.

It’s really that simple and that inexpensive. If you’re already using Plivo’s Voice API but haven’t yet tried transcription, think about places where it might come in handy. If you’d like to get started, sign up for a free trial account and see all that Plivo can do.

Mar 28, 2023
5 mins

13 Best Practices For Using Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

IVR Menu Best Practices: Tips on how to create IVR menus that satisfy callers’ needs. Learn about IVR and create IVR phone trees with Plivo. Sign up today!

Voice API
IVR

Few businesses nowadays have receptionists answering phone calls. Automation is king, and interactive voice response (IVR) is the rule.

Poorly written IVR menus can alienate callers, and once someone hangs up, chances are they won’t try again. IVR best practices help you ensure that your callers’ experience is as smooth as possible.

Best Practices for Designing IVR Systems

IVR systems can streamline customer service, but a poorly designed one can be frustrating for customers and call agents alike. Start by designing a structure and navigation that is simple and clear and prioritizes the most popular options in the menu. Keep the main menu to four to six options using concise language that's easy to understand. Put the most frequently used functions at the beginning of the menu to help callers get what they need quickly.

As for the prompts, the shorter, the better — keep greetings to eight seconds or less and four seconds for menu options. Allow callers to interrupt lengthy prompts with their selection to avoid frustration. 

Finally, consider the customer experience. We’ve all been in positions where an IVR feels annoying rather than helpful. Always provide a clear path to connect with a live agent if callers can't resolve their issue through the IVR. Minimize repetition: don't make callers repeat information they've already entered, step after step. And, monitor calls for improvement to eliminate any obstacles preventing your IVR from performing well. 

Here are some tips on how to create IVR menus that satisfy callers’ needs.

  1. Map out the call flow

    To get started, map out the call flow you want. Your menu will likely have multiple levels, starting with having callers choose the language they want to be prompted in. Some choices may send callers to a department, such as sales or support, while others send them to a recording or an automated system. You may want to offer different choices depending on time of day or day of week; for instance, you probably don’t want to offer the option to speak to someone in sales if someone is calling outside of working hours; instead, you can let them leave a message.

  2. Record the spoken IVR menu

    Get someone with a pleasant voice to record the spoken IVR menu. You want your message to sound like the person who reads the news on TV or radio — confident, to make them feel as if they’re in good hands. If you can’t find someone on staff to handle the recording, hire a voice actor — someone who’s an expert in speaking what they read without making it sound like they’re reading, and who can put a little pep into their voice but not so much as to sound phony. Another option is to use speech synthesis, a technique that has come a long way in the last few years. You can still tell a synthesized voice from a human, but technology like Amazon Polly is a useful option if you have more prompts that you can comfortably record, or constantly changing options, or you don’t want the hassle of hiring a voice actor and maintaining recordings. Ongoing advances in AI technology will soon make text-to-speech voices harder to distinguish from biologically generated speech.

  3. Keep introductions short

    Everyone knows what IVR is by now, so you don’t have to explain it. Don’t tell them “our menu has changed” — no one cares, they just need to hear the menu. You’ll do just fine with “Thanks for calling &Company” before launching into the menu choices.

  4. Pay attention to word order

    When relating menu choices, say the task or function first and the key to press second (“to speak to sales press or say 1”). That lets customers identify what’s the right choice to meet their needs before telling them how to get there. Provide choices to let callers return to the previous menu or to the top of the menu tree.

  5. Allow both voice and dialpad response

    Let callers respond either by speaking a menu choice or pressing a number on their keypad.

  6. Allow barge-in

    Let callers barge in to make a selection while the system is playing the menu. Respect callers’ time and let them choose an option at any point.

  7. Offer an operator

    Always provide the option to speak to a human. An IVR menu can cover a lot of possibilities but it can’t cover everything. Designate someone to field the small percentage of callers that your well-designed IVR tree can’t satisfy — and make sure that that person knows where to transfer what kinds of queries.

  8. Send confused callers to the operator

    If the caller can’t figure out what to press and doesn’t press anything or enters an invalid selection, don’t hang up on them; instead, transfer them to a human who can help them. If this happens often, revise your IVR menu.

  9. Provide confirmation

    If the caller’s interaction results in a transaction, such as paying a bill, follow up with confirmation via another channel, such as SMS or email, to reassure the caller that the transaction completed successfully.

  10. Pass along customer-entered information

    If your IVR system asks for customer information, such as an account number, capture the information entered and pass it along if the call needs to be handled by an agent. Nothing is more frustrating for callers than having to repeat information.

  11. Minimize hold time

    Try to minimize the time callers are on hold when being transferred from the IVR menu to their destination. Ideally, provide an option for someone in your company to automatically return calls instead of forcing people to wait on hold. When hold time is unavoidable, provide an estimate of how long callers are likely to have to wait.

  12. Measure caller satisfaction

    Track data such as call abandonment rate and first call resolution rate.

  13. Review, refine, iterate

    Regularly review your menu to keep it relevant. Use the metrics you track to help you refine your menu.

How to implement an IVR menu

By following these IVR menu best practices you should have more satisfied customers and prospects. When you’re ready to start implementing an IVR phone tree in code, Plivo makes things easy for you. We have documentation in the form of IVR use case guides in seven common web development languages.

If you’re not already a Plivo customer, sign up for free today and see how easy it is to create IVR phone trees.

Mar 23, 2023
5 mins

How Automated Text Messaging Can Help Real Estate Businesses

Automated SMS for real estate: Learn how your real estate business can leverage the power of sms marketing. Know all about the benefits, use cases and best practices of real estate text marketing at Plivo. Sign up today!

Real Estate

If you’re in real estate — whether you’re an agent for sellers or buyers, a property manager, a home sharing host, or a home inspector — chances are you live on your mobile phone. Your potential customers — homeowners, buyers, and renters — are just as connected. That’s why you’re probably putting listings on Instagram or Twitter. So why not deliver messages directly to people who already have phone in hand by using SMS, a.k.a. text messaging.

What’s the benefit? SMS messages have an open rate of 98% — higher than email. Most people read their text messages within five minutes. But most importantly, people prefer texting to other forms of communication;68% of home buyers and sellers say they want to receive property information and communicate with their agent via SMS.

Chances are you’ve already seen that preference for texting in your person-to-person communications with your clients. But you can automate application-to-person text messages with an SMS API and get even more benefit.

Benefits of real estate texting

You can use SMS to send messages with news, promotions, updates, and other relevant communications to clients, prospects, and leads. Using text messaging gives real estate businesses several benefits.

  1. Timely communications

    One of the biggest advantages of SMS is that you can reach clients and colleagues in real time, which is critical when you have an offer to present or a new listing to share. And messages sent via SMS are less likely to be ignored (or shunted into a junk folder) than email messages.

  2. Excellent open rates

    When you have a 98% open rate, you’re almost assured of delivering your message. Whether people respond depends on how relevant to them your message is. We have some tips on that below.

  3. Automatic record of conversations

    When you exchange information with a client via SMS, you’ll both know where to find that information when you need it.

  4. Saved time

    Because you can automate your messaging, you can make formerly manual processes happen without your attention. That frees you up for more important uses of your time, such as prospecting.

  5. Lower costs

    The time you save by automating real estate communication processes means lower labor costs. On top of that, each SMS message costs less than a cent, which is more cost-effective than alternatives such as direct mail.

Use cases for real estate texting

Here are just a few ways to leverage text messaging to enhance customer relationships and improve revenue.

  1. Set appointments and reminders

    Ever have a client miss an open house that you know they meant to see, or even miss a one-on-one showing? Sending automated reminders makes that less likely — and if a customer does have to miss a meeting, your reminder is likely to solicit a timely reply so you can adjust your plans.

  2. Provide new listing information

    Do you already have a way to email people when new listings in their price range and preferred area come on the market? You can get the message to your contacts more quickly via automated SMS messages that trip either as soon as a new listing appears on MLS or once a day.

  3. Promote open houses

    SMS supports sending multimedia context, such as images and videos, along with text. Technically, these messages are MMS — multimedia messaging service. You can text photos of a property or an image of a nicely designed flyer that includes not only pictures but also the address, asking price, and date and time of an open house. With bulk SMS you can easily send one message to hundreds of clients or dozens of fellow brokers and Realtors.

  4. Send invitations to events

    Did you just get a new listing and you want to show your fellow agents the property? You can set up an address book of agents’ numbers to text with information about an upcoming broker open house, which can include a link so they need only tap on their phones to RSVP and create a calendar entry for themselves.

Best practices for real estate texting

Text messaging is part of a larger conversation about marketing, in which the goal is to stay in touch so customers think of you when they have a transaction to make. You might employ email, voice calls, and direct mail as marketing tools; each communications channel has strengths and weaknesses.

For the SMS part of the process, don’t cross the line into sending too-frequent messages that recipients consider spam. Do, however, follow these best practices to increase your response rates.

  • Make sure you have a clear reason for each message you send. Each message should be about something your recipient cares about, and bound to a specific time and place.
  • Keep your messages short. If you have a lot of information to convey, include in your message a link to a website that conveys the whole story. In your text, stick with the key points.
  • Use an informal but competent tone to convey your professionalism and trustworthiness. Avoid real estate jargon. Try to sound like the best version of your in-person self; that’ll help you enhance your relationship with your customer.
  • You’re sending a text message because you want the recipient to do something. Make sure you include a clear call to action, which might be getting recipients to click on a link to bring up a web page, tap a number to phone you, or some other action.
  • Create a template for different kinds of messages in your communications application, then have your outreach program populate your templates with specific details for each new message.
  • Measure the conversion rate each time you send a message — find out how many recipients take the action you want them to. From time to time, make changes to your templates to see if you can improve conversion rates.

Another best practice involves the number type you use to send messages. There are three possibilities: long codes, toll-free numbers, and short codes. We wrote a whole blog post on how to choose the right phone number for your business.

Use SMS for real estate

Sold? Given all of the potential use cases and the benefits you can derive from using SMS in real estate businesses, the only question you should still have is: how do I get started? Check out Plivo’s SMS and Voice APIs for real estate communication. You can sign up for a free trial and get enough usage credits to use our communications APIs in a pilot project.

Mar 21, 2023
5 mins

Getting the Most Out of Speech Transcription

Speech to text API: Accurately convert voice to text with Plivo’s voice API. Get the highest accuracy at the Lowest cost in the industry. Sign up today!

Transcription

Whether you’re already a Plivo customer or just researching what Plivo can do for you, don’t overlook our speech transcription service. Using it is as simple as setting a flag in the code and providing a URL where Plivo can send the transcription text.

How speech transcription works

How does speech transcription work? Speech-to-text software takes voice audio as input. It uses signal-processing algorithms to select phonemes from the sound data, then applies linguistic algorithms to save them in text as words and sentences.

Professions like journalists, lawyers, and doctors frequently depend on hiring transcribers to turn their recorded notes into text, but that’s expensive. Machine transcription costs less than human work, and it’s much faster, so you can process more data per unit of time. On average, adults read 240-260 words per minute, while conversational speech runs around 150 words per minute.

The drawback is that transcribed speech is less accurate than human transcription, depending in part on the quality of the audio from which it’s taken, but many businesses are willing to make that tradeoff to save time and money. After all, if the software reports someone said, “The ratio of going to bed cholesterol is in the normal range,” it’s obvious it was really “good to bad.”

How can speech transcription help you meet your business goals? Every business is different, but here are some common use cases that many businesses can profit from.

Speech transcription use cases

Accessibility — Speech-to-text capabilities mean that audio data can be converted in real time for subtitling, which can allow individuals with hearing impairment to more fully participate in events.

Conference call transcriptions — Text is easier to search than audio files. You can provide every member of a conference call with a transcript of the conversation as a record of the discussion and decisions made on the call. This use case also works well for public conference calls, such as earnings calls.

Audio bookmarks — If you transcribe audio and make the text available along with the audio file, you can navigate to the clips you’re looking for by clicking on keywords.

Agent coaching — In a call center scenario, managers need ways to bring agents along. By transcribing their conversations, managers can quickly review conversations, get an overview of a call, and offer coaching. An application can also extract keywords from text; in support scenarios, that lets agents look up material about the key terms, while in sales scenarios, managers can analyze conversations to see what keywords are most useful in closing deals.

Legal evidence — Call recordings constitute a contemporaneous and accurate description of a conversation that can serve as evidence in legal proceedings. Transcribing the calls makes it easier to search for relevant terms in batches of recordings.

Team communications — Many managers prefer explaining things verbally, but that approach doesn’t always scale when it comes to disseminating information. You can transcribe an informational call and distribute the audio along with the transcription to make it faster and easier for multiple people to get the message.

Translation — Machine translation from one language’s audio to another’s is difficult and expensive. Taking the intermediate step of transcribing the spoken words lets you use text-powered translation tools, which are more mature and less expensive.

AI applications — Organizations can leverage AI and machine learning to optimize processes, predict outcomes, and prescribe actions. Machine learning software may have a better time using text than audio files as input.

How to enable voice transcription in Plivo

Plivo’s transcription service can save you time and money. Rather than sending your Plivo voice recordings to a third party for transcription, streamline your workflow by using Plivo’s transcription service.

You can use Plivo’s Voice API to perform automatic speech recognition (ASR) on calls with our Record API or Record XML element. Along with industry-leading accuracy, you get industry-leading pricing as well; our transcription service — which works on English language audio — has one of the lowest costs in the industry. Think about which of your applications could be enhanced by voice to text, and give Plivo’s technology a try.

Mar 13, 2023
5 mins

Introducing the Plivo Changelog

Introducing the Plivo Changelog - Stay updated with the latest news from Plivo. Subscribe for announcements on new products, features and preview of upcoming launches.

Product

One of the nice things about SaaS software is that it’s always up to date — unlike software that’s installed on-premises, which has to wait for vendors to make new releases and administrators to install them. When you use a SaaS platform like Plivo, you get to take advantage of the very latest features every day, and bugs get fixed immediately — no waiting around for Patch Tuesday.

If you’re curious about what’s changing with Plivo, consult the Plivo changelog. It shows, in reverse chronological order, exactly what features became available on what dates. We’ve backfilled it with entries for most of this year — we figure you won’t be curious about changes from further back.

How does this help you? Well, suppose you notice something different about a console screen. Is it a new feature, or have you just not visited that page in a while? Now you can go to the changelog and find out.

Or suppose you’re trying to do something for the first time, and it’s not working properly. Are you making a mistake, or did we just update some functionality and cause a problem? By looking at the changelog, you can gather information that might help you zero in on a solution.

What’s on the changelog

When you visit the changelog you’ll see two tabs. The primary tab, Announcements, has blurbs about new features, bug fixes, and product updates. The second tab, Roadmap, tells you about beta software programs we have in progress, so you know what’s coming and can get an early look at it. You can even subscribe to a beta announcement, and we’ll send you a message whenever we have news about it, including when the beta software goes into production. You can also subscribe to the changelog as a whole, should you want to be alerted to any and all Plivo product news.

Changelog announcements are tagged with the aspect of the Plivo the announcement covers — SMS API, Voice API, Zentrunk, and so on. You can also use a search box to get right to whatever feature you’re interested in.

Another changelog page feature lets you leave feedback for us. Your suggestions and complaints go directly to our product marketing manager, who coordinates and prioritizes the work of our product managers.

Take a video tour

More of a video person? Here’s a quick tour for you.

Either way, check out the new changelog, and while you’re there, why not subscribe to it so you can stay abreast of Plivo product news. And if you have any suggestions about the new page, or about anything in Plivo, use the feedback feature to tell us about it.

Mar 8, 2023
5 mins

Plivo Protects PHI for HIPAA/HITECH Compliance

Plivo can sign a HIPAA business associate agreement (BAA) for customers who sign up for an enterprise package.

Compliance
Healthcare

Healthcare businesses frequently ask us, “Is Plivo HIPAA compliant?” To answer that question, we have to throw a little jargon around — but we think you’ll like the answer.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and its follow-on, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), are US laws designed to protect the privacy and security of consumers’ medical data, which in HIPAA terms is referred to as protected health information (PHI).

Under HIPAA, covered entities (such as physicians and health plans) have to follow documented Privacy Rules and Security Rules guidelines for handling PHI. They don’t have to do everything on their own systems, however; they can contract with other companies that provide business functions such as billing or medical record storage or (ahem) providing a communications platform that lets the covered entities communicate with consumers via messaging or voice calls. To keep a covered entity complaint, a service provider that can access PHI must sign a business associate agreement (BAA) that provides assurances to the covered entity that the service provider will do its part to protect their data.

Plivo can sign a BAA for customers who sign up for an enterprise package.

HIPAA compliance requires everyone’s attention

HIPAA compliance is a shared responsibility, however. Plivo can guarantee things like encryption of data in transit and at rest and redaction of details in logs, and back those guarantees up with audit reports from independent third parties. But our customers, the covered entities, are responsible for other aspects, such as securing their authentication credentials and using the Plivo console in a secure environment. In short, you have to use Plivo in a compliant manner and make sure your applications’ instructions to us comply with the statutes.

Become an enterprise customer

Plivo’s Enterprise Package has numerous benefits for large organizations. Tell us about your needs and we’ll have an expert get in touch with you.

Mar 6, 2023
5 mins

PCI DSS Certification Means Your Payments to Plivo Are Secure

PCI certification: Plivo announces PCI DSS compliance certification which means your payments to Plivo are secured and protected. Sign up with Plivo, the most trusted CPaaS platform.

Compliance
Security

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is the gold standard for information security for organizations that handle credit and debit card payments. Plivo is certified for PCI DSS compliance.

What is PCI DSS?

PCI DSS covers security requirements regarding storage and transmission of data, access control, and other factors, including:

  • Use of firewalls and antivirus software
  • Data encryption
  • Passwords
  • Multifactor authentication
  • Specified roles and responsibilities for each requirement

PCI DSS comprises a set of requirements instituted and regulated by the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC), a consortium of card brands including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. All organizations that process, store, or transmit payment card data must comply with PCI DSS requirements or risk losing their ability to process these payments.

Plivo is PCI DSS certified

Plivo is certified for PCI DSS Level 1, which applies to organizations that process more than six million credit or debit card transactions annually. We undergo an internal audit once a year, conducted by an authorized PCI auditor, and submit to a PCI scan by an approved scanning vendor once a quarter.

Plivo doesn’t accept payments directly — a cloud-based payment platform handles all of our transactions. However, while using a third-party provider cuts down on our risk exposure and reduces the scope of detail necessary to validate compliance, we still need to be PCI DSS compliant.

PCI DSS compliance requires everyone’s attention

PCI DSS compliance is a shared responsibility, however. Plivo can guarantee things like encryption of data in transit and at rest and redaction of details in logs, and back those guarantees up with audit reports from independent third parties. But our customers are responsible for other aspects, such as securing their authentication credentials and using the Plivo console in a secure environment. In short, you have to use Plivo in a compliant manner and make sure your applications’ instructions to us comply with the statutes.

Become an enterprise customer

PCI DSS compliance is just one Plivo feature that will appeal to large organizations. We’ve rolled several other features into an enterprise package that has numerous benefits for large organizations. Tell us about your needs and we’ll have an expert get in touch with you.

It’s easy to get started.
Sign up for free.

Create your account and receive trial credits or get in touch with us.

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