To minimize spam texting in India, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) mandates that all entities that want to send SMS messages must register certain information — their entity/organization, CTAs, and message templates — along with required consent information on distributed ledger technology (DLT) platforms. Many people find the process confusing; this post walks you through it.

The online DLT registration process necessary for sending bulk SMS messages involves four steps: registering your business entity, registering your calls to action (CTAs), registering your sender IDs (called headers in DLT parlance), registering consent templates, and registering content templates and associating them with headers and consent templates.

What does DLT stand for?

DLT is an acronym for Distributed Ledger Technology. The most well-known application of DLT is the blockchain, but it is also relevant to telecommunications.

DLT replicates, shares, and synchronizes data across multiple locations. Imagine a digital ledger shared among multiple computers instead of stored in a single location. In telecoms, DLT registration is mandatory for all businesses sending SMS messages in India. The goal of registration is to protect customer privacy and deter spammers from sending unsolicited SMS messages.

What is DLT registration?

DLT registration is the process of adding your business details, including sender IDs, message templates, and other required information, on a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform. As part of DLT registration, companies need to submit their business name, address, contact information, and the purpose of their SMS campaigns. DLT registration provides each business with a unique identifier to use when sending SMS messages.

Why is DLT registration required?

The TRAI discovered that, in India, 85-90% of the total SMS senders are spammers. The high number of fraudulent messages sent throughout the country damages customer relationships, compromises data security, and weighs down the profit margins of businesses that use SMS campaigns.

DLT registration aims to enhance customer privacy by deterring spammers. DLT registration involves using pre-approved message content, allowing for easy tracking and identification of spammy or misleading messages. Consumers can report unwanted messages, helping authorities crack down on fraud and spam.

Likewise, non-compliance with DLT regulations can lead to severe penalties, including suspension or termination of SMS services.

How does DLT work?

DLT registration deters spam and other bad actors in a few different ways: 

• Identification: Each message is linked to a registered entity and template.
• Tracking: Message content and sender information can be traced.
• Penalties: Non-compliance can lead to severe penalties, including blacklisting.
• Consumer Control: Consumers can report unwanted messages.

By implementing these measures, DLT registration helps create more reliable, trustworthy brand communication and protects consumers from fraud.

How to apply for DLT registration to send SMS in India

The major India telecom providers all host DLT registration platforms and share their information with each other. You can use any of them to register:

• Videocon
• Vodafone Idea Limited (VILPOWER)
• Airtel
• Jio

1. Get a unique Entity ID

The first step is to visit one of the DLT registration platforms and fill in the information required to register your business as an entity, including the organization type, KYC documentation, and the business’s postal and email addresses. There are two organization types: principal entity (a.k.a. enterprise) and telemarketer. You’ll get a temporary ID or reference number; please share your ID or reference number with the Plivo support team. After the DLT platform verifies your documents, the operator will email you a unique Entity ID for the company registering, which you should share with us too.

2. Register headers

Once you get your unique Entity ID, register your headers on the DLT platform’s portal. Only entities with registered headers can send SMS messages.

Add your headers under the Headers tab in the dashboard.

You can choose between two types of Headers — Promotional and Others. To send campaigns of the former type, such as offers, discounts, and promotions, choose a six-digit numeric sender ID. The DLT platform will automatically add a prefix that represents your industry; for instance, for the communication industry, the prefix is “6.” If you plan to send transactional campaigns, such as alerts and notifications, you can choose a six-character alphanumeric header name. Headers are case-sensitive, so PLIVO and Plivo, for example, are two different headers and can be registered separately.

Enter each header name in the text box and state the reason for choosing it in the description box below. Use one header per use case: one for OTP, one for promotional, and one for notification messages, for instance. We recommend using as few headers as you can and linking multiple templates to a single header.

Your header name should correlate with your entity name. If the header name is different, explain the discrepancy in the description box. Include your mobile number in the description so the DLT platform’s support team can contact you if they have questions.

3. Register your CTAs

Recently TRAI updated its rules to require brands to whitelist any CTAs included in their messages. Whitelisting takes place on the DLT platform and is a crucial process for ensuring your messages are successfully delivered. The following types of CTAs must be registered.

1. URLS

• Any link/URL used in an SMS.
• WhatsApp links
• APK links

2. Numbers used for calls or messages

• Mobile
• Landline
• Toll-free

3. Email addresses

For example:

• If you include a link for users to sign up for an account, that URL must be whitelisted.
• If your messages contain a callback number or an email address, those must also be whitelisted.

Whitelisting Requirements at a Glance

4. Register consent templates

After you’ve registered your business entity and headers, the next step in the DLT registration process is to add consent templates. A consent template contains a standard message that the business must send to users to get opt-in consent to receive promotional communications from enterprises.

When users receive a consent message, they can respond directly or use a link in the message to allow the business to send them future messages. Promotional messages, which we’ll talk about in a moment, must be linked to consent templates. You can create multiple consent templates to cover as many brands and use cases as you have.

Give each template a descriptive name; you’ll use the name to associate content templates with the consent template later. For brand name, use a relevant product or trade name. The scope of consent should describe the content you plan to send to users, and should be related to the brand name provided. For example:

• We would like to send communication regarding marketing offers and events to you as one of our registered customers
• ABC Solutions needs your consent to send you messages about your account information and activity and our best offers
• We want to send updates, transactions, and recommendations of our services and products to registered customers like you

Be descriptive; don’t say something short like “consent” or “SMS to customers.” Also, don’t use variables in the scope of consent; variables are applicable only to content templates.

You can include opt-out instructions in the consent template; for example: “To opt out, send STOP to <your number>.”

After you fill in the details in the three fields, click Submit to submit the template for approval. The registrar may take three to seven business days to return an approval or rejection. If your template is rejected — if, for instance, the template isn’t a match for the header — you can update the template and submit the revised version.

5. Register content templates

After you’ve registered consent templates, the next step in the DLT registration process is to add content templates. A content template includes the actual text of an SMS message you want to send.

Choose the template type from among available choices: transactional, service implicit, service explicit, and promotional. We’ll explain what each means in the section below.

Give each content template a relevant and recognizable descriptive name; you’ll use the name to associate a consent template with your content templates later.

For the message type, choose “Text” for general messages and “Unicode” for regional messages.

For the template message, you can use letters, numbers, and special characters. Avoid using two or more spaces before, after, or between words.

Insert values such as dates, amounts, account numbers, names, and OTPs using variables. There’s no limit on the number of variables you can use per message; individual variable length may not exceed 30 characters. Transactional and service content should always have some variable content. Promotional content can have some variable or all fixed content. All messages should have some fixed content; no message should be only variables.

The variable format in text is {#var#}, which is case-sensitive.

Don’t use a single content template with multiple headers — tailor the content to a specific use case, and thus a single header. Also, make sure that you associate each content template with the relevant header; if you have a header for sending OTPs and another for promotional messages, pay attention to which header you map to each content template.

If your content template is for a promotional message, you must also associate the content template with an existing consent template, so users have a chance to opt in to receiving your promotional messages.

Click Save or Submit (depending on which portal you use) when you’ve filled out all the required fields. You should then see a screen that shows a list of your content templates.

One of the fields in the list shows the status for each template. New templates are marked Pending. The portal operator will review the template and return an approval or rejection in three to seven working days. Templates may be rejected if they’re irrelevant or not related to the business. The DLT platform will notify you if your template is rejected, and you can update it and reapply.

Types of content templates

Here’s more information about the four types of content templates.

Transactional

A message that contains a one-time password (OTP) required to complete a banking or credit or debit card transaction initiated by a bank customer is considered transactional. Here are some examples of this type of content, along with examples of the template formats that would create them.

Financial service enterprises should use the transactional category for OTP messages during fund transfers, online payments, and merchant transactions. Don’t select the transactional content type for nonbanking enterprises.

Service-implicit

Any message arising out of customers’ actions or their existing relationship with the enterprise, and that is not promotional, is considered a service-implicit message. These include:

• Confirmation messages of net banking and credit/debit card transactions
• Product purchase confirmation and delivery status from ecommerce websites
• Customer is making payments through a payment wallet for an ecommerce website or mobile app, and an OTP is sent to complete the transaction. These OTPs are not considered transactional because they’re not sent from a bank but from a third party.
• OTPs required for ecommerce websites, app logins, social media apps, authentication and verification links, securities trading, demat account operations, KYC, and ewallet registration
• Messages from telecom and internet service providers
• Periodic balance info, bill generation, bill dispatch, due date reminders, recharge confirmation (DTH, cable, prepaid electricity recharge, etc.)
• Delivery notifications, updates, and periodic upgrades
• Messages from retail stores related to invoices and warranties
• Messages from schools, such as attendance and transport alerts
• Messages from hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, radiologists, and pathologists about registration, appointments, discharge, and reports
• Confirmatory messages from app-based services
• Government/DOT/TRAI mandated messages
• Service updates from car workshops, repair shops, and gadgets service centers
• Directory services such as Justdial and Yellow Pages
• Day-end and month-end settlement alerts to securities and demat account holders

Service-explicit

Service-explicit messages require explicit consent from customers. Consent must be verified by the recipient in a robust and verifiable manner and recorded by the consent registrar. This category includes any service messages that don’t fall under the service-implicit category.

Service-explicit content templates must be linked to consent templates.

Examples include messages to the existing customers recommending or promoting products or services.

Promotional

Promotional messages promote or sell products, goods, or services. Service content mixed with promotional content is treated as promotional. Plivo will send these messages to customers after scrubbing them to ensure that messages are delivered only according to the consent criteria set by the customer in the national Do Not Disturb (DND) registry.

Promotional content templates must be linked to consent templates.

Promotional content must be sent only from numerical sender IDs.

Benefits of DLT registration for customers

DLT registration reduces spam that, at best, is irritating for customers — and at worst, compromises personal data security. By verifying the identity of message senders, DLT significantly reduces the number of spam and fraudulent messages customers receive. Cutting back on spam increases trust, enhances privacy, and gives customers more control over their communication preferences. With DLT registration, customers know the messages they receive come from verified businesses. DLT prevents unauthorized access to personal information through unsolicited messages.

Plus, many DLT platforms offer customers the ability to opt out of specific message categories or from particular businesses, giving them power over the messages they receive.

Benefits of DLT registration for businesses

The TRAI primarily designed DLT registration for customers, but it benefits businesses, too. Messages from registered senders are more likely to make it past spam filters and reach their intended recipients. In turn, reduced spam and higher message delivery rates contribute to better customer engagement and satisfaction. By adhering to regulatory standards, businesses build trust and credibility among customers.

There are also financial reasons to complete DLT registration. By complying with regulations, companies avoid TRAI penalties and legal issues. Businesses can optimize their SMS campaigns for better results, using pre-approved templates to boost conversion rates. And, DLT registration creates a more reliable communication channel.

After successful registration, leave it to Plivo

Once you’ve registered everything on the DLT platform, please create a ticket to share with us your

• Entity ID
• Header
• Header ID
• Whitelisted CTAs
• Template ID
• Message Template

Include screenshots for reference so Plivo can share the information with the carriers. Once the carriers have mapped the header and content, Plivo will map the sender ID to your account and let you know that you’re good to go.‍

Recently, in a live webinar, Plivo customer LAZ Parking shared the story of how they created a Text to Park revenue stream with the help of Plivo’s SMS API. You can view the recording on demand, or, if you’re more of a reader than a watcher, you can look at the LAZ Parking customer case study we wrote about.

Parking lots — lots of parking

LAZ manages payments for more than 3,500 parking facilities in the US with more than a million parking spaces.

Patrick Ryan, vice president of innovation at LAZ, talked with Plivo Product Marketing Manager Tony Graham about how the company relies on Plivo’s SMS API to power a huge number of revenue-producing transactions every day.

Some of the lots LAZ manages had pay stations, which take time and effort and money to support — and when COVID came in, no one wanted to be touching public surfaces. LAZ wanted a mobile-friendly solution, because almost everyone now carries a smartphone. The company already had a mobile app, which was fine for repeat customers, but did they want to force people who might be using a lot just one time to download a new app?

In the webinar we asked attendees how they’d prefer to pay: a pay station, an app, or a text link. Two-thirds chose the link, while one-third liked the old-school pay station. No one wanted to download the app.

One of Ryan’s mottos is “think like a customer,” so LAZ got it right with a text-friendly solution. They rented a short code — a single five-digit number that could accept text messages across the entire country. At each lot, they put up a sign that asked consumers to text a unique code for that lot to their short code. LAZ then automatically replies to the incoming text with the URL of a web page on which customers can enter their license plate and payment information.

Making everyone happy

Customers love the simplicity of texting — and that made lot owners happy too. Many of them removed their pay stations — or just put a bag over them — which cut down on their costs. Some gated garage owners now want to get in on the texting solution that LAZ’s surface lots are enjoying. Today, LAZ sends out more than a million text messages every day using Plivo’s SMS API, with messages traveling over its Premium Communications Network. In the future, they’re considering expanding their use of SMS to send reminders when customers’ time is running out with a link to extend the time, and to provide one-time passwords for added security when customers access saved payment information.

As LAZ ramped up its use of texting, one of the webinar attendees asked, did it experience any issues with scaling? “Literally not a one,” Ryan said. The Plivo API calls put less load on his systems than the application code.

“We’re dealing with a company that really are experts in the cloud space,” he said. ”It really is a best-in-class experience.”

See for yourself how adding Plivo’s SMS APIs to your application code can generate new revenue for your organization. Get started with a free trial.

By using Plivo and an integration platform, you can forward your voicemail messages to your email address without doing any coding. Here’s how to set up voicemail on Plivo and forward it to email using Pipedream.

To get started, you need a Plivo account — sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already. To receive incoming messages, you must have a Plivo phone number that supports both voice and SMS; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console or by using the Numbers API.

You also need a free Pipedream account.

Step 1: Create a PHLO to forward voicemail

We’ll use Plivo’s low-code visual design tool PHLO to set up voicemail and attach it to a Plivo number.

On the Plivo console, go to the PHLO page and click Create New PHLO, then click Build My Own. Drag the Record Audio component onto the canvas, then draw a line from the Incoming Call trigger of the Start node to the Record Audio node. In the Configuration panel at the right, enter the text you want the caller to hear when the call gets connected, then click Validate. Click in the upper left of the page to give your PHLO a name, then click Save to create the PHLO.

To associate the PHLO with a phone number, go to the Phone Numbers page of the console. Click on the number for which you want to forward voicemail. In the Number Configuration, click the Application Type dropdown and choose PHLO. From the PHLO Name dropdown, choose the name of the PHLO you just created, then click Update Number.

Step 2: Configure Pipedream

Now go to your Pipedream console and create a Pipedream workflow. Click New HTTP/Webhook Requests, choose HTTP Requests with a Body, then Save and Continue. Pipedream will display a URL, which you need to copy.

Return to your PHLO on the Plivo console and click on the Record Audio node. Paste the URL you copied from Pipedream into the Event Callbacks box, then click Validate, then Save. This sets up the webhook to which we will post the voicemail recording details, which we’ll use when we send the email.

Step 3: Test the webhook

Now you’re ready to test out your integration. Make a call to your Plivo number and leave yourself a message. Pipedream will capture the HTTP response.

Step 4: Add email connector to receive email

Once you have the response you can set up your Pipedream workflow to forward the recording to your email. Return to the Pipedream console and click the “+” icon below the trigger pane. Click on Send Email. In the new pane that appears, enter Subject and Text values as shown below. Click Test to test the workflow, then Deploy to make it live.

Your integration should now be complete. Whenever someone leaves voicemail at the number you specified, Pipedream will send an email message that contains the from and to numbers and the voicemail recording to the address you used when you signed up for your Pipedream account.

Integrations for all kinds of applications

Pipedream offers integrations for many applications, so you could use a similar process to send voicemail messages from a Plivo number to Slack, Discord, or a Google Drive.

Haven’t tried Plivo yet? Getting started is easy and only takes minutes. Sign up today.

Plivo customers control call flows and business logic based on webhook requests Plivo sends to their servers, which also convey critical information such as call records and message status. To keep these webhooks secure, we enable signature validation using hash-based message authentication codes (HMAC-SHA256) so you can check whether the webhook delivered to your server originated from Plivo. This post walks you through how to secure webhooks and authenticate webhook requests using the Plivo Python SDK.

All voice API requests from Plivo’s platform to your application server contain three custom HTTP headers for signature validation: X-Plivo-Signature-V3, X-Plivo-Signature-Ma-V3, and X-Plivo-Signature-V3-Nonce. (For SMS we use X-Plivo-Signature-V2 as of now.) To verify that the request to your server originated from Plivo and that it was not altered en route, you can generate your own request signatures and compare them with the Plivo-Signature headers we pass.

Validating requests on the application server

Plivo Server SDKs include functions to help you validate incoming requests with X-Plivo-Signature HTTP headers. Here’s some sample code that shows how to validate a signature and return an XML element if the webhook is authenticated.

To start, create a working directory and change into it. Within the directory, create a Python virtual environment and activate it, then install the Python libraries we’ll be using.

Create a file named signature.py and paste into it this code.

When someone makes an outbound call to a destination number, Plivo requests the webhook associated with this code. The code runs and returns a Speak XML element if it can authenticate the request sent. If the validation fails the call will terminate, since no XML is returned to the Plivo server.

Run the file using the command python signature.py to initialize the server locally.

When you’re satisfied, make the application publicly available with ngrok. To test it, make a call to the API using Postman and use the ngrok URL as the answer URL.

Stay secure

Be sure to verify your webhooks using Plivo’s Python SDK and avoid causing any harm to your servers. You can learn more about signature validation logics for voice and messaging.

By the way, signature validation isn’t the only technique we use to keep webhooks secure. All webhook communications run over HTTPS, which are secured by SSL certificates on your server. We also provide a list of IP addresses for our voice API from which you can expect callbacks. You can whitelist these addresses in your infrastructure.

Haven’t tried Plivo yet? Getting started is easy and only takes minutes. Sign up today.

When you receive a phone call on your smartphone, you get information about who’s contacting you in the form of a caller ID. Similarly, when you get a text message, it’s accompanied by a sender ID. Though they’re used in similar ways, caller ID and sender ID aren’t the same. Here’s a brief primer on the two most prominent telecom IDs.

What is caller ID?

Caller ID has been around since the late ‘80s as a numeric indicator of the phone number of the originating caller. Back in the days before cellphones, caller ID used technology called frequency shift keying (FSK) to encode data into discrete tones that could travel over analog phone switches and be decoded at the receiving end. At the time most phones didn’t have a display, but you could buy a little device to plug in between your phone and the wall to show the calling number.

Later, caller ID was enhanced to include caller names via Calling Name Presentation (CNAM). CNAM records associate a number with a 15-character alphabetic description — a company’s or a person’s name. CNAM information is not transmitted over phone lines, but entered in a line information database (LIDB) by the carrier that provides the business or individual’s service. When a call is made, the terminating carrier looks up the CNAM information and presents it to the call recipient along with the calling line identification (CLI — another name for caller ID).

Today, cell service providers offer caller ID for voice calls over their networks, but since everything that travels over cell networks is digital, caller ID on cell networks relies on protocols defined for voice over IP (VoIP) networks instead of FSK.

Different countries have differing regulations around caller ID. Lack of a global standard means that carriers may not be able to maintain CLI across international borders.

Caller IDs apply to long codes and toll-free numbers but not to short codes, because short codes are never used to make voice calls.

What is sender ID?

Sender ID is a different way of identifying an originating endpoint. Caller IDs were developed for plain old telephone service (POTS) to identify who made a voice call, but sender IDs originated with SMS to identify who sent a text message on cellular networks. The two are generated in different ways: Caller IDs originate with the telecom provider based on a phone number, while sender IDs are registered by businesses’ service providers.

Sender IDs are alphanumeric strings of six to 11 characters that appear on call recipients’ handsets. Consumers in the US, Canada, and 40 other countries could be forgiven for thinking that “caller ID” and “sender ID” mean the same thing, because sender ID doesn’t exist in their countries. When no sender ID is set, the initiating party’s phone number appears to the recipient instead, in a way that’s functionally identical to caller ID.

In countries where it’s available, however, sender ID can be a valuable way for businesses to identify themselves. You can read more about sender ID in our detailed guide on sender ID.

Different countries have different regulations around sender IDs. Some require that sender IDs be registered with a carrier or regulatory body as a way of cutting down on fraud; others are more relaxed and allow instant registration and use of sender IDs.

Sender IDs are available for long codes, toll-free numbers, and short codes.

What caller ID and sender ID have in common

Both caller ID and sender ID help build trust between the originating and receiving parties. When caller recipients see a familiar local number, they’re more likely to answer the phone, and when they receive a message from a familiar party, they’re more likely to trust it.

Unfortunately, it’s fairly easy for bad actors to spoof a caller ID — that is, provide a fake number to mask the real source of a call. This has been a common practice among telemarketers, who use the number of a trustworthy brand or a local area code and exchange to make their targets more likely to take a call.

The US Federal Communications Commission is cracking down on caller ID spoofing. Last year it began requiring carriers to implement call authentication via standards called STIR/SHAKEN as a way to attest the validity of the originating number.

Whether you need to customize the CNAM information for your caller ID or set up an alphanumeric sender ID, Plivo’s voice API can help you out.

Improving the ecommerce customer experience

Why customer service is especially crucial in ecommerce

Customer service is important in almost every industry for improving the customer experience. In fact, data from Microsoft shows that 95% of consumers think customer service is important for brand loyalty.

However, customer service is especially important for ecommerce businesses. In ecommerce, the customer service agents are often the first and only people at the company with whom customers interact.

It’s not like real estate or SaaS where a buyer develops a strong relationship with a salesperson before making a purchase. Ecommerce customers often buy a product without ever talking to a representative of the brand. Only when they have a question or problem do they reach out.

And when that happens, it’s a member of the customer service team who answers. So this department holds a lot of power to hurt or improve customer relationships.

Beyond this, customers in the ecommerce space have extremely high standards. They expect fast, hassle-free resolutions to their issues, along with personalized treatment. If you don’t offer this, customers can easily find a similar product at another brand.  

For these reasons, ecommerce companies need to prioritize initiatives to bolster their customer service more so than most other business types.

Six simple ways to improve the ecommerce customer experience

There are two chief indicators of ongoing success as an ecommerce company: top-notch products and exceptional customer service. Below are six effective ways to work toward the latter.

Use data and agent context to understand customer preferences

Customers have distinct and constantly evolving preferences. Some prefer phone calls, while others want to reach out over live chat. One might desire an email to resolve a billing issue but social media to ask for a refund.

It’s important to constantly monitor your customers’ preferences and adjust your communications strategy accordingly. You can figure out these changes by sending recurring surveys, tracking channel data in your customer service software, and reading industry reports.

To ensure they satisfy all customers, many companies also use contact center as a service (CCaaS) software, which allows users to communicate with customers across multiple channels, including self-service methods like chatbots or IVR.

CCaaS companies are always monitoring customer preferences and adding new channels to their platforms as customer demand for them increases. That way their users are always on the cutting-edge of customer service.

360° coverage across support channels

Seventy-one percent of consumers experience frustration when their shopping experience is impersonal. Customers dislike it when they can’t use their favorite communication channel or when they have to repeat information to a customer service agent that they’ve already shared with another agent.

The first issue can be handled with a multichannel approach, but that doesn’t resolve the second issue given that each channel’s data is siloed. A rep on a phone call with a customer can’t easily find what that customer said previously on live chat or email.

To service customers on their favorite channels and provide a seamless experience, you need an omnichannel approach where all channels are integrated and their collected customer data is accessible to agents from one dashboard regardless of which channel the customer is currently using.

Empower your customers with self-service tools

Sometimes customers don’t want to speak with a live agent. Perhaps they feel their issue is simple to resolve — 74% of internet users prefer using chatbots when looking for answers to simple questions.

Or maybe they’re just feeling especially introverted that day. Regardless of their reasons, those customers will appreciate the self-service options your team provides.

Here are some customer self-service types to offer:

• Chatbots: These are computer programs that simulate conversations with your website visitors.
• Interactive Voice Response: IVR enables users to interact with an automated phone system through voice or dial tones.
• Knowledge Center: This is a part of your website that hosts tutorials, guides, and videos that answer commonly asked questions.

When you empower your customers to handle their own issues, you improve their experience and also reduce the pressure on your agents, which leads to shorter wait times for customers who really do need an agent’s help.  

Follow the sun—24/5 customer support

If you have trouble with a customer service tool, it indirectly impacts your customers in a negative way. For example, if your live chat system crashes, customers in the middle of a conversation will have to start all over.

That’s why it’s so critical to use high-quality customer service tools that come with support 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, so that you can get answers and assistance quickly and get back to focusing on your customers instead of technical difficulties.  

Modernized support for the mobile-first era

Statista predicts that 187.5 million people will make a purchase via their smartphone in 2024, an increase of 20 million from 2020. The trend toward mobile shopping is obvious.

Therefore, it’s critical that you give your customers the ability to easily access your ecommerce store and customer service team via their mobile devices. Consider designing your website for mobile users and offering an ecommerce mobile app for your business.

Support that evolves with your customers

Improving customer experience is an iterative process. You have to try new techniques, measure your customers’ reaction to them, and then, based on the results, take another step in the right direction.

To do this, you need to collect customer data and feedback. Many companies use surveys with specific questions to measure their customer satisfaction.

They also use some sort of customer service software to track key customer service metrics like busiest hours, communication volume by channel, and average resolution time.

Collecting and analyzing this information enables customer service teams to make data-driven decisions about their strategy.    

Picking the right ecommerce customer service software

An ecommerce customer service team looking to improve their overall customer experience should look for customer service software that allows them to enact the strategies we’ve listed above.

The right platform will have 24/5 support and empower you to use an omnichannel approach, offer self-service options, go mobile-first, and track customer service data.

Conclusion

Customer experience is essential to an ecommerce business’s success, and the customer service team has a tremendous effect on this experience.

It’s crucial that you arm your agents with the tools they need to best serve your customers. Check out how PlivoCX, a cloud-based contact center software, can help.

SMS — short message service — is one of the best tools for building relationships with your customers. 81% of Americans use SMS every day, and more than three-quarters of Americans wish they could text with a business.

We could go on and on about the benefits of using SMS, but let’s say you’re convinced that SMS can be a valuable tool for your business and you’re raring to get started. Before you implement any text messaging campaigns, one of the first things you need to do is figure out what kind of phone number to use to send out messages and receive responses.

Your first thought might be to use normal 10-digit phone numbers, known as long codes. In the US, long codes should be used only for person-to-person (P2P) conversational texting.

In the United States you have a choice of three types of phone numbers for business texting.

• 10DLC (10-digit long code) is a service offered by major US carriers to explicitly allow commercial application-to-person (A2P) SMS traffic over long code phone numbers. How do you turn long codes into 10DLC numbers? You have to register them with your carrier. 10DLC is exclusively a US service; you can use long codes for sending and receiving SMS and MMS messages in Canada and other countries.
• Toll-free numbers are used by businesses that want their customers to reach them at no cost. Incoming calls are billed to the called party and are free of charge for the calling party. Most countries reserve a set of dialing prefixes to denote toll-free services. In North America, 800, 888, 877, 866, 855, 844, and 833 denote toll-free numbers. You can use toll-free numbers for two-way messaging as well as voice.
• Short codes are five- or six-digit numbers (for example, 123456) used to send and receive SMS messages. Unlike 10DLC and long code numbers, short codes are not tied to an area code, so they can be used across a country to provide a nationwide brand identity under one easy-to-remember number. Unlike long codes and toll-free numbers, you can’t use short codes for voice calls. You can order a regular short code or a vanity one, which allows you to choose the number you want instead of getting assigned a random number. Vanity short codes cost more to lease, but they can be worth the money if you can get a memorable number as your short code. 7-Eleven, for instance, has the vanity short code 711711.

We’ve created an infographic to help you decide what number types might work for your messaging use cases. Download it for reference or share it with colleagues.

Whichever number type you use, you must obtain consent from the people you want to send messages to before you begin a texting campaign.

As you can see, if you need the highest possible throughput, a short code is the way to go. 10DLC and toll-free numbers don’t offer as high a rate of messages per second, but they can be more economical — which brings us to the question of costs.

Cost comparison

A lot of factors affect the cost of a text messaging campaign. This chart shows costs for the four different number types in the US. Plivo offers SMS services in 190+ countries — check our pricing page for up-to-date costs in the countries you’re interested in.

Each number may have three general types of costs: initial setup, monthly number rental, and per-message fees, some of which are charged by your carrier and some of which are imposed as surcharges by the carrier whose customers receive your messages. Note that carrier surcharges vary by carrier — Verizon may impose a different per-message charge than T-Mobile. We chose AT&T surcharge rates to illustrate this chart.

Making the best choice

That’s a lot of numbers to juggle. How do you know which phone number type to use?

If you’re already using SMS, go over a past bill and see how many SMS and MMS messages you sent and received. Multiply those numbers by the per-message rates for each number type, add in the monthly costs, and see what the total is for each number type.

If this is a new initiative you can do the same exercise but you’ll have to estimate your messaging volume.

What is Call Routing? Types, Benefits & How it Works

From a consumer perspective, B2C companies are measured by two things:the quality of their products, and quality of customer service.

While most businesses understand the importance of providing quick support to their paying customers, modern businesses utilizing new-era omnichannel cloud contact centers like PlivoCX service have a secret weapon available to them—call routing.

What is call routing?

Call routing describes the process by which support requests are assigned to a specified customer service queue based upon the needs of the consumer.

While call routing traditionally applies to voice calls, the emergence of modern support channels like SMS messaging, chat, social media, etc. have caused the term to take on a broader meaning for the process of pairing a customer with the right agent.

Types of call routing and how does call routing work?

So, how exactly does call routing work, and how are modern contact centers pairing customer support requests with the right agent?

To answer this question, we must first understand the different types of call routing, and how you might want to employ each within your customer service operation.

Source: GetVoIP.com

A next-generation contact center like PlivoCX Service will come equipped with a robust drag-and-drop workflow builder, allowing B2C teams to establish rules that assign support requests to agents with respect to the type of call routing at play.

You can see how this works in practice with our quick 1-minute video on drag & drop queue configuration:

With a custom workflow in place, customer support voice calls will be automatically routed to an agent based on criteria provided by the customer at the time the call is placed.

What is the difference between call routing and call forwarding?

If you’ve asked yourself “what is call routing”, you may also be curious about call forwarding. While virtual call routing is a dedicated procedure by which customer support calls are directed to the best agent for the job, call forwarding is a process which forwards voice calls to multiple phone numbers for a single agent, enhancing that agent’s coverage across devices.

In practice, this means that if an agent is unable to answer their desk phone for a customer call when it rings, that call will be passed on to their mobile or home phone number automatically without any difficulty for the customer.

Call forwarding serves as a useful, complementary tool for call routing that can enhance an agent’s ability to best serve their assigned customer.

Common use cases of call routing & business impact

So now that we’ve covered the questions of “what is call routing” and “how does call routing work”, let’s talk about how a contact center with a robust call routing system can empower your customer service agents, reduce customer friction, and promote growth in your business.

Top 5 use cases of call routing

There are innumerable benefits to incorporating a virtual call routing system into your business, but here are five popular use cases to get your started, and how each can help you grow your business.

Always-on customer service operation

Customer’s feeling like nobody is listening to them is a $75 billion dollar problem. Establishing workflows designed to route voice calls to different support operations depending on agent hours ensures that your customers never feel unheard, as somebody will always be available to solve their problems.

Premium service for premium customers

Whether they earn their premium status through purchase or over a period of time, it’s important to reward customer loyalty. B2C teams can configure call routing workflows to ensure that their best customers always have a direct line to an agent.

Skills to pay the bills

Let’s say a longtime customer has a billing issue that threatens their retention—skills-based call routing can guarantee that your customer is assigned an agent equipped with the proper skill set and tools necessary for a prompt resolution.

Building a relationship

There’s nothing worse than having to explain your customer support needs five different times to five different agents—14% of customers take their business elsewhere because their complaints aren’t handled properly. Relationship-based call routing allows teams to automatically assign support requests to agents who have previously helped a given customer.

Support at light speed

Sometimes, the best thing you can do for your customers is to give them somebody to talk to as quickly as possible. With round robin call routing, you can set a workflow that immediately pairs a customer with the next available agent, cutting down on wait times and reducing abandonment rates.

How PlivoCX pairs the right agents with the right customers

PlivoCX is cloud contact center software for B2C teams built with customer and agent satisfaction in mind. With Contacto, agent teams are supported by helpful automations, a unified desktop, and an omnichannel experience to exceed consumer needs and create happy customers and agents alike.

If you’re looking to keep up with the demands of the new era of support operations, we’re here to help.

Book a demo with our sales team, and we’ll help you find the right solution for your team’s needs.

When we talk about porting a phone number, we mean the process of transferring the number from one service provider to another, which allows a business to keep a number but switch providers and services. Businesses build relationships using their phone numbers, so keeping those numbers is important for customer relationships. For a business, porting is like a consumer taking their phone number when they switch cell service providers. You want to keep your old number when switching so you don’t have to reach out to all your contacts and update all your personal information everywhere. Porting prevents a similar hassle for businesses.

Our customers have been able to port numbers in to Plivo for some time by working with Plivo’s support team. Now Plivo has streamlined the process to make it easy for customers to bring their current US or Canada numbers over via the console. (While you can port international numbers in to Plivo, they can’t be ported using the console.)

To port in a number, navigate to Phone Numbers > Port-In and click New Port-In Order.

The next screens walk you through the process, asking for your business information, phone numbers, and desired port-in date and letting you upload a Letter of Authorization (LOA).

After you submit your port-in request, Plivo will reach out by email in approximately 24 hours to let you know your request was accepted.

Plivo then submits your request to your current number provider. Within a week you should get a response stating whether your request was approved or rejected. If it’s approved, Plivo will reach out to you with a Firm Order Commitment (FOC) date when your number will be ported to Plivo. Once that date has passed, you can use your number with Plivo and close out your previous account.

If your request is rejected, you’ll need to reach out to your old provider and find out what needs to be done to move forward with the port-in process. A request may be rejected for reasons such as mismatched data, unsatisfactory business relationship, inactive number, invalid PIN, or the number does not qualify for porting, as is the case with international numbers.

Additional port-in details

The port-in process takes time — up to four weeks — so please plan accordingly. Don’t cancel or close out your old accounts until the port-in process is complete.

Bulk requests? Not a problem. You can submit up to 20 numbers on the console.

Port with confidence

Plivo continues to keep the customer experience at the forefront of everything we do. Whether it’s simplifying processes or making processes more intuitive for the customer, we strive to alleviate pain points in the voice and messaging space. The addition of the port-in process to the console is a great example of simplifying a process while adding convenience for our customers.