You can authenticate a phone number by delivering a one-time password (OTP) via a phone call. To do this, you call the number and read a sequence of digits to the recipient via text-to-speech. To verify the number, the user needs to confirm the digits by entering them using the phone’s keypad.

Developers commonly use voice OTP to verify new user registrations, online transactions, and login sessions in an app or website. In this blog post, we walk you through a sample implementation of sending a Voice OTP using the Plivo Voice platform and PHLO, our visual workflow builder. Plivo’s direct carrier connectivity and intelligent routing engine guarantee the best call connectivity and quality.

Prerequisites

Before you get started, you’ll need:

• A Plivo account — sign up for one for free if you don’t have one already.
• A voice-enabled Plivo phone number if you want to receive incoming calls. To search for and buy a number, go to Phone Numbers > Buy Numbers on the Plivo console.

• Rails and Plivo Ruby packages — run gem install rails and gem install plivo to install them.
• ngrok — a utility that exposes your local development server to the internet over secure tunnels.

Create a PHLO to send OTP via phone call

PHLO lets you construct your entire use case and build and deploy workflows visually. With PHLO, you pay only for calls you make and receive, and building with PHLO is free.

To get started, visit PHLO in the Plivo console and click Create New PHLO. On the Choose your use case window, click **Build my own. The PHLO canvas will appear with the Start node. Click on the Start Node, and under API request fill in the Keys as from, to, and otp, then click Validate. From the list of components on the left-hand side, drag and drop the Initial Call component onto the canvas and connect the Start node with the Initiate Call node using the API Request trigger state.

Configure the Initiate Call node with the using the From field and in the To field. Once you’ve configured a node, click Validate to save the configurations. Similarly, create a node for the Play Audio component and connect it to the Initiate Call node using the Answered trigger state. Next, configure the Play Audio node to play a specific message to the user — in this case, “Your verification code is <otp>.” Under Speak Text, click on Amazon Polly and paste the following:

<Speak voice="Polly.Amy">
   <prosody rate="medium">
      Your verification code is
      <break/>
      <break/>
      <say-as interpret-as="spell-out">{{Start.http.params.otp}}</say-as>
   </prosody>
</Speak>

Click Validate to save.

Connect the Initiate Call node with the Play Audio node using the Answered trigger state. After you complete the configuration, provide a friendly name for your PHLO and click Save.

Create a Rails Project

As we have Rails and its dependencies installed, we can use them to create a new Rails project. As the initial step, using rails we can auto-generate code in the ruby on rails folder structure. Use the below command to start your Rails project.

$ rails new plivotest

This will create a plivotest directory with the necessary folders & files for development.

Install Modules

As we have the rails application created, now, let’s add Plivo-Ruby by modifying the Gemfile. Open the Gemfile in any IDE/text-editor and add the following line:

gem 'plivo', '~> 4.16.0'
gem 'redis', '4.2.1'
gem 'json', '2.3.1'

You can use the below command to install the Plivo-Ruby gem into the bundle:

$ bundle install

Create a Rails Controller

Change the directory to our newly created project directory, i.e, plivotest directory and run the below command to create a rails controller for Voice OTP.

$ rails generate controller Plivo voice

This will generate a controller named plivo_controller in the app/controllers/ directory and a respective view will be generated in app/views/plivo directory. We can delete the View as we will not need it.

$ rm app/views/plivo/voice.html.erb

Run the PHLO to send OTP via phone call

Now you can trigger the PHLO and test it out. Copy the PHLO ID from the end of the URL of the workflow you just created. You’re also going to need your Auth ID and Auth Token.

Now, You have to open the app/controllers/plivo_controller.rb file and add the following code:

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include Plivo
require 'redis'
require 'json'
include Plivo::Exceptions

class PlivoController < ApplicationController
	def dispatch_otp
		redis = Redis.new(host: "localhost")
		code = rand(999_999)
		dst_number = params[:dst_number]
		auth_id = '<auth_id>'
    auth_token = '<auth_token>'

    client = Phlo.new(auth_id, auth_token)
    	begin
    phlo = client.phlo.get('phlo_id')
    #parameters set in PHLO - params
    params = {
       from: +15671234567,
       to: dst_number,
       otp:code
  }
  response = phlo.run(params)
  puts response
rescue PlivoRESTError => e
  puts 'Exception: ' + e.message
end
		redis.setex(dst_number, 60, code) # Verification code is valid for 1 min
		puts JSON.pretty_generate({ :status=> 'success', :message=> 'verification initiated' })
	rescue PlivoRESTError => e
		puts 'Exception: ' + e.message
	end

	def verify_otp
		redis = Redis.new(host: "localhost")
		code = params[:otp]
		number = params[:number]
		original_code = redis.get(number)
		if original_code == code
			redis.del(number)  # verification successful, delete the code
			puts JSON.pretty_generate( { :status=> 'success', :message=> 'codes match! number verified'})
		elsif original_code != code
			puts JSON.pretty_generate({ :status => "failure", :message=> 'codes do not match! number not verified' })
		else
			puts JSON.pretty_generate( { :status=> 'rejected', :message=> 'number not found!' })
		end
	end
end

Substitute actual values for <auth_id>, <auth_token>, and <PHLO_ID>. Save the file and run it with the command

Add a Route

Now, to add a route for the outbound function in the PlivoController class, open the config/routes.rb file and change the line:

get 'plivo/voice' 

to

get 'plivo/verify_otp'
get 'plivo/dispatch_otp'

Test & Validate

Now the plivo_controller is ready for your first outbound call, you can use the below command to initiate your first outbound using Rails and Plivo Ruby SDK.

$ rails server

Run the following command in a new terminal tab to start the redis.

$ redis-server

And you should see your basic server app in action as below:

http://localhost:3000/plivo/dispatch_otp?destination_number=<destination_number>
http://localhost:3000/plivo/verify_otp?destination_number=<destination_number>&otp=<otp>

Boom — you’ve made an outbound call with the OTP as a text-to-speech message.

Simple and reliable

And that’s all there is to send OTP via a phone call using Plivo’s Ruby SDK. Our simple APIs work in tandem with our comprehensive global network. You can also use Plivo’s premium direct routes that guarantee the highest possible delivery rates and the shortest possible delivery times for your 2FA SMS and voice messages. See for yourself — sign up for a free trial account.

You can authenticate a phone number by delivering a one-time password (OTP) via a phone call. To do this, you call the number and read a sequence of digits to the recipient via text-to-speech. To verify the number, the user needs to confirm the digits by entering them using the phone’s keypad.

Developers commonly use voice OTP to verify new user registrations, online transactions, and login sessions in an app or website. In this blog post, we walk you through a sample implementation of sending a Voice OTP using the Plivo Voice platform and PHLO, our visual workflow builder. Plivo’s direct carrier connectivity and intelligent routing engine guarantee the best call connectivity and quality.

Prerequisites

Before you get started, you’ll need:

• A Plivo account — sign up for one for free if you don’t have one already.
• A voice-enabled Plivo phone number if you want to receive incoming calls. To search for and buy a number, go to Phone Numbers > Buy Numbers on the Plivo console.

• Laravel and Plivo PHP packages — run composer require laravel/installer and composer require plivo/plivo-php to install them.
• ngrok — a utility that exposes your local development server to the internet over secure tunnels.

Create a PHLO to send OTP via phone call

PHLO lets you construct your entire use case and build and deploy workflows visually. With PHLO, you pay only for calls you make and receive, and building with PHLO is free.

To get started, visit PHLO in the Plivo console and click Create New PHLO. On the Choose your use case window, click Build my own. The PHLO canvas will appear with the Start node. Click on the Start Node, and under API request fill in the Keys as from, to, and otp, then click Validate. From the list of components on the left-hand side, drag and drop the Initial Call component onto the canvas and connect the Start node with the Initiate Call node using the API Request trigger state.

Configure the Initiate Call node with the using the From field and in the To field. Once you’ve configured a node, click Validate to save the configuration. Similarly, create a node for the Play Audio component and connect it to the Initiate Call node using the Answered trigger state. Next, configure the Play Audio node to play a message to the user — in this case, “Your verification code is <otp>.” Under Speak Text, click on Amazon Polly and paste the following:

<Speak voice="Polly.Amy">
   <prosody rate="medium">
      Your verification code is
      <break/>
      <break/>
      <say-as interpret-as="spell-out">{{Start.http.params.otp}}</say-as>
   </prosody>
</Speak>

Click Validate to save.

Connect the Initiate Call node with the Play Audio node using the Answered trigger state. After you complete the configuration, provide a friendly name for your PHLO and click Save.

Use the PHLO in a Laravel application

Now you can use the PHLO in a PHP Laravel application by following the below steps:

• Create a project directory and change into it.

  $ mkdir mylaravelapp
  $ cd mylaravelapp

• Install the Plivo SDK using composer.

  $ composer require plivo/plivo-php

• Install other modules.
  

  $ composer require predis/predis

Run the PHLO to send OTP via phone call

Now you can trigger the PHLO and test it out. Copy the PHLO ID from the end of the URL of the workflow you just created. You’re also going to need your Auth ID and Auth Token.

Create a Laravel Controller

Change the directory to our newly created project directory and create a Laravel controller for outbound calls.

$ php artisan make:controller VoiceController

This command generates a controller named VoiceController in the app/http/controllers/ directory. Edit app/http/controllers/voiceController.php and paste into it this code.

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
require '../../vendor/autoload.php';
use Plivo\RestClient;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Redis;

class VoiceController extends Controller
{
    public function dispatch_otp()
    {
        $dst_number = $_REQUEST["dst_number"];
        $code = random_int(100000, 999999);

        $auth_id    = "<auth_id>";
        $auth_token = "<auth_token>";
        $client = new PhloRestClient($auth_id, $auth_token);
        $phlo = $client->phlo->get(<YOUR_PHLO_ID>);
         try {
         $response = $phlo->run(["from" => "+15673234567", "to" => $dst_number,"otp"=>$code]);
         // These are the fields entered in the PHLO console
         print_r($response);
      } catch (PlivoRestException $ex) {
    print_r($ex);
   }
        Redis::setex($dst_number, 60, $code);
        header('Content-Type: application/json');
        echo json_encode($response);
        echo '{"status": "success", "message": "verification initiated"}';
    }
    
    public function verify_otp()
    {
        $dst_number = $_REQUEST["dst_number"];
        $code = $_REQUEST["otp"];
        
        $value = Redis::get($dst_number);

        if ($code==$value)
        {
            Redis::get($dst_number);
            echo '{"status": "success", "message": "codes match! number verified"}';
        }
        elseif($code!=$value)
        {
            Redis::del($dst_number,$code);
            echo '{"status": "failure", "message": "codes do not match! number not verified"}';
        }
        else
        {
            echo '{"status": "failure", "message": "number not found!"}';
        }
    }
}

Substitute actual values for <auth_id>, <auth_token>, and <PHLO_ID>. Save the file and run it.

Add a route

Now, to add a route for the outbound function in the VoiceController class, edit routes/web.php and add these lines at the end of the file.

Route::match(['get', 'post'], '/dispatch_otp', 'App\Http\Controllers\VoiceController@dispatch_otp');
Route::match(['get', 'post'], '/verify_otp', 'App\Http\Controllers\VoiceController@verify_otp');

Edit your .env file and add this line.

REDIS_CLIENT=predis

Test

Now the VoiceController is ready for your first outbound call. Start the Laravel controller.

$ php artisan serve

Start Redis.

$ redis-server

And you should see your basic server application in action.

http://localhost:8000/dispatch_otp/?destination_number=<destination_number>
http://localhost:8000/verify_otp/?destination_number=<destination_number>&otp=<otp>

Boom — you’ve made an outbound call with the OTP as a text-to-speech message.

Simple and reliable

And that’s all there is to send OTP via a phone call using Plivo’s PHP SDK. Our simple APIs work in tandem with our comprehensive global network. You can also use Plivo’s premium direct routes that guarantee the highest possible delivery rates and the shortest possible delivery times for your 2FA SMS and voice messages. See for yourself — sign up for a free trial account.

You can authenticate a phone number by delivering a one-time password (OTP) via a phone call. To do this, you call the number and read a sequence of digits to the recipient via text-to-speech. To verify the number, the user needs to confirm the digits by entering them using the phone’s keypad.

Developers commonly use voice OTP to verify new user registrations, online transactions, and login sessions in an app or website. In this blog post, we walk you through a sample implementation of sending a voice OTP using the Plivo Voice platform and PHLO, our visual workflow builder. Plivo’s direct carrier connectivity and intelligent routing engine guarantee the best call connectivity and quality.

Prerequisites

Before you get started, you’ll need:

• A Plivo account — sign up for one for free if you don’t have one already.
• A voice-enabled Plivo phone number if you want to receive incoming calls. To search for and buy a number, go to Phone Numbers > Buy Numbers on the Plivo console.

• Express and Plivo Node packages — run npm install plivo express to install them.
• ngrok — a utility that exposes your local development server to the internet over secure tunnels.

Create a PHLO to send OTP via phone call

PHLO lets you construct your entire use case and build and deploy workflows visually. With PHLO, you pay only for calls you make and receive, and building with PHLO is free.

To get started, visit PHLO in the Plivo console and click on Create New PHLO. On the Choose your use case window, click Build my own. The PHLO canvas will appear with the Start node. Click on the Start Node, and under API request fill in the Keys as from, to, and otp, then click Validate. From the list of components on the left-hand side, drag and drop the Initial Call component onto the canvas and connect the Start node with the Initiate Call node using the API Request trigger state.

Configure the Initiate Call node with the using the From field and in the To field. Once you’ve configured a node, click Validate to save the configuration. Similarly, create a node for the Play Audio component and connect it to the Initiate Call node using the Answered trigger state. Next, configure the Play Audio node to play a specific message to the user — in this case, “Your verification code is <otp>.” Under Speak Text, click on Amazon Polly and paste the following:

<Speak voice="Polly.Amy">
    <prosody rate="medium">
        Your verification code is
    <break/>
    <break/>
    <say-as interpret-as="spell-out">{{Start.http.params.otp}}</say-as>
    </prosody>
</Speak>

Click Validate to save.

Connect the Initiate Call node with the Play Audio node using the Answered trigger state. After you complete the configuration, provide a friendly name for your PHLO and click Save.

Use the PHLO in a Express application

Now you can use the PHLO in a Node.js express application by following the below steps:

• Create a project directoryand change into it.

  $ mkdir mynodeapp
  $ cd mynodeapp

• Install the Plivo SDK using npm.

  $ npm install plivo

• Install other modules.
  

  $ brew install redis
  $ npm install redis
  $ npm install express

Run the PHLO to send OTP via phone call

Now you can trigger the PHLO and test it out. Copy the PHLO ID from the end of the URL of the workflow you just created. You’re also going to need your Auth ID and Auth Token. Create a Node.js source code file — let’s call it trigger_phlo.js — and paste into it this code.

const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const redis = require('redis');
const redisClient = redis.createClient();
var plivo = require('plivo');

// Make call to the destination number with OTP.
app.get('/dispatch_otp/:number', function(req, res) {
    const number = (req.params.number);
    const code = Math.floor(100000 + Math.random() * 900000);

    var client = new plivo.Client("<auth_id>", "<auth_token>");
    var response = client.calls.create(
        "+14151234567", // from
        number, // to
        "https://twofa-answerurl.herokuapp.com/answer_url/" + code, // answer url
        {
            answerMethod: "GET",
        },
    )
    console.log(response)
    redisClient.set(`number:${number}:code`, code, 'EX', 60);
    res.send(JSON.stringify({
        'status': 'success',
        'message': 'verification initiated'
    }));
});

// Validate the OTP entered by the user.
app.get('/verify_otp/:number/:code', function(req, res) {
    const number = (req.params.number);
    const code = (req.params.code);
    redisClient.get(`number:${number}:code`, function(err, OriginalCode) {
        if (OriginalCode == code) {
            redisClient.del(`number:${number}:code`);
            res.send(JSON.stringify({
                'status': 'success',
                'message': 'codes match! number verified'
            }));
        } else if (OriginalCode != code) {
            res.send(JSON.stringify({
                'status': 'failure',
                'message': 'codes do not match! number not verified'
            }));
        } else {
            res.send(JSON.stringify({
                'status': 'failure',
                'message': 'number not found!'
            }));
        }
    });
});

app.listen(5000);

Substitute actual values for <auth_id>, <auth_token>, and <PHLO_ID>. Save the file and run it.

$ node trigger_phlo.js

Boom — you’ve made an outbound call with the OTP as a text-to-speech message.

Simple and reliable

And that’s all there is to send OTP via a phone call using Plivo’s Node.js SDK. Our simple APIs work in tandem with our comprehensive global network. You can also use Plivo’s premium direct routes that guarantee the highest possible delivery rates and the shortest possible delivery times for your 2FA SMS and voice messages. See for yourself — sign up for a free trial account.

70% of holiday shoppers prefer retailer communications via email, while 41% prefer SMS communications

Austin, TX — October 12, 2021 — Plivo, the cloud communications platform that enables businesses to engage with their customers, today announced the results of its Holiday Shopping Communications Survey. The survey, conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of Plivo, polled over 2,000 U.S. adults aged 18 and older, revealing the manner and channels customers prefer when communicating with retailers.

The survey found that nearly 9 in 10 Americans (87%) would want to receive communications from retailers they shop or want to shop with, most commonly via email (66%). About 3 in 4 Americans (74%) would opt in to receiving SMS/text messages from retailers, primarily for shipping/delivery notices and updates (45%) and coupons (43%).

Of those surveyed, 1,222 US adults ages 18+ said they will be shopping for the upcoming holiday season — one that, due to supply chain issues, will likely be impacted by delays, shortages, and higher prices. For retailers with a poor communication strategy, this could mean unhappy customers.

Key insights into holiday shoppers’ communications preferences include:

• Holiday shoppers are open to receiving communications from retailers. 93% of Americans who plan to holiday shop this year would want to receive communications from retailers they shop with or want to shop with. Their preferred form of communication is email (70%) followed by SMS text messaging (41%).
• Holiday shoppers over 35 are open to direct mail communications, while younger holiday shoppers are more likely to prefer in-app messaging. Among those who plan to holiday shop this year, adults ages 35+ are more likely than those 18-34 to prefer to receive direct mail communications from retailers they shop with/want to shop with (40% vs. 21%). Meanwhile, younger adults ages 18-44 are more likely than older adults 45+ to prefer in-app messaging (32% vs. 10%).
• Holiday shoppers are likely to opt in to text messages. 83% of holiday shoppers would opt in to receive SMS text messages from retailers, with the top notification type being shipping/delivery notices and updates (54%) and coupons (52%). This means SMS is a particularly valuable channel for communicating with shoppers about product availability and shipping timelines this holiday season.
• Some holiday shoppers are more likely to prefer curbside pickup. Holiday shoppers ages 18-64 are more likely than those 65+ to opt in to curbside pickup notifications (35% vs. 15%).

“With ongoing supply chain disruptions, shipping issues and shortages of key products such as microchips, holiday shopping is going to look pretty different this year,” said Anusha Venkat, Product Manager for Plivo Messaging. “To help consumers cope with these changes, and prevent gift-givers from feeling stressed and frustrated, retailers need to be smart about how they communicate with customers — reaching out to them at the right time, with the right message, via the right channel.”

To see the full results of Plivo’s Holiday Shopping Communications Survey, please visit www.plivo.com.

**The survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of Plivo from August 10-12, 2021, among 2,082 U.S. adults ages 18 and older, of whom 1,222 plan to shop for the holidays this year. For complete survey methodology, please contact press@plivo.com.

Happy holiday shopping with SMS from Plivo

Christmas comes early this year — not on the calendar, but for retailers hoping that widely reported supply chain issues won’t keep them from being able to stock their shelves. Given the possibility that retailers won’t have enough goods to ensure a happy holiday for everyone, smart shoppers are likely to be out early — so now’s the time to consider how to let customers know how to get what they want from your business.

To find out how shoppers want to communicate with retailers, Plivo commissioned The Harris Poll to conduct a survey among more than 2,000 US adults aged 18 and older. We found that nearly 9 in 10 Americans (87%) are open to receiving communications from retailers they shop with or want to shop with.

Click here to access the survey results report.

About 3 in 4 (74%) Americans we surveyed would opt in to receive text messages from retailers — and when we zeroed in on people who plan to shop for the holidays, we found that 83% were open to receiving SMS text messages from retailers, with the top notification types being shipping and delivery notices and updates (54%) and coupons (52%).

That preference for SMS text messaging confirms what we’ve seen elsewhere, including these statistics from TechJury:

• 66% of Americans check their phones 160 times a day on average.
• SMS has a 98% open rate.
• More than 60% of people read their SMS messages within five minutes.

All of these statistics show that text messaging is a tool you can’t afford to ignore.

Add SMS via a cloud communications platform

While businesses may see the value of adding text messaging to their applications, they may be baffled about where to start. The answer is a cloud-based communications platform, also known as communications platform as a service (CPaaS), that provides a set of APIs that your developers can use to add the ability to send and receive messages to your existing applications.

Of course CPaaS platforms vary, so to take advantage of the power of SMS, you should look for a communications platform with a reliable network of high-quality carriers, a presence in every market you serve (with local phone numbers), and a simple, well-documented API that makes it easy for developers to add SMS messaging to your applications. Plivo not only provides all that, we walk our customers through the complex world of regulatory compliance for things like sending rate limits, data privacy, and sender ID regulations. Put all of that together and you can see why Plivo is the top cloud communications platform in customer satisfaction on G2.

Want to see for yourself? We’ve written use case guides on how to implement more than a dozen common business tasks, including sending SMS messages, with coding examples in seven common development languages. You can test any and all of them for free by creating a free Plivo account.

If you’re not already using SMS to communicate with your market, we’ve got some useful holiday gifts for you. You can read about the power of using SMS for marketing. We’ve also written a white paper on how to optimize your SMS communications, and an SMS best practices guide for more insights and tips. If you have questions on other topics, we encourage you to talk to one of our experts. They can help you ensure that both your customers and your business get what they want this holiday season.

*This survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of Plivo from August 10-12, 2021, among 2,082 U.S. adults ages 18 and older, of whom 1,222 plan to shop for the holidays this year. For complete survey methodology, contact press@plivo.com.

New Contact Center as a Service delivers a human experience at scale with omnichannel, mobile-first interactions

Austin, TX — October 6, 2021 — Plivo, the cloud communications platform that enables businesses to engage with their customers, today announced Contacto, the omnichannel, mobile-first contact center platform that delivers seamless customer experiences with a human touch. Contacto allows B2C businesses in retail and ecommerce to boost customer service teams’ efficiency and enable personalized, high-touch interactions—weaving together artificial intelligence, sentiment analysis, and omnichannel capabilities to offer a superior experience, embedded directly into brands’ websites and applications.

Now more than ever, customers interact with brands online. Ecommerce has soared throughout the pandemic—in the US, ecommerce sales in 2020 grew more than 30% from 2019, with mobile commerce accounting for 45% of the total market . And this trend shows no signs of slowing down. With more mobile-first customers come more avenues with which customers can request help—retailers must be able to service their customers with the same experience regardless of channel—whether that be Twitter, Facebook, in-app chat, WhatsApp, SMS messaging, or voice call.

In fact, as B2C sees tremendous growth, with new businesses entering, disrupting and innovating in the space, a contact center built for today’s mobile-first customers will be a significant differentiator for B2C businesses. Winning and retaining customers is dependent on delivering a seamless, effective and efficient experience. No one wants to sit on hold for an hour—or repeat their problem or information endlessly—and, with Contacto, there’s a better way.

“Most businesses don’t have the time or resources to build out a fully customized call center. They’re already too occupied with running their own business,” said Venky Balasubramanian, Founder and CEO at Plivo. “That’s why we created Contacto—so every company from Fortune 100s to small business owners can provide their customers with world-class customer service interactions. Contacto’s AI-powered chatbots can quickly qualify customers and escalate tickets seamlessly to live representatives, where real-time sentiment analysis helps them provide better service—all within the brand’s existing platforms.”

Contacto: Next-level customer service with a human element

Great customer experience depends on the human touch—customers want to feel heard and appreciated while their requests are efficiently resolved. Contacto delivers on these expectations, making technology feel more human and helping agents provide contextualized, personal, and effective service in the customer’s preferred channel.

Key features and benefits include:

• Conversational chatbots: Intelligent chatbots help verify and qualify customers, increasing agent productivity and helping resolve requests faster.
• In-app chat: Embedded directly into a brand’s application, customers can easily raise a request via in-app chat, initiating their customer service journey without having to switch channels.
• Native voice calling: Contacto comes with full-featured voice and messaging capabilities, native to the platform, so there’s no need to engage costly, third-party vendors.
• Omnichannel platform: Integrating chat functionality, social media, SMS messaging and voice calls, Contacto allows customers to select the channel they prefer to communicate in, then switch channels as desired throughout their journey. For example, a customer could choose to describe their problem via voice call, then have an order tracking number sent to them via SMS. This level of channel personalization helps to reduce friction and create a positive experience for every customer.
• Customer interaction history: Contacto allows agents to view all of a customer’s previous interactions alongside their current service request, giving them the context they need to solve issues faster and create a better customer experience.
• Sentiment analysis: Agents interacting with customers see real-time coaching scores, based on sentiment analysis, so they can adopt the right approach to helping the customer. These scores help ensure quality and allow supervisors to provide effective feedback and update workflows.
• Deep CRM and Help Desk integrations: Designed to work seamlessly with a business’ existing systems, Contacto features out-of-the-box integrations with Salesforce, Service Cloud, Zendesk, Shopify and many more.

Contacto Launch Marks the Next Phase of Plivo’s Growth

The launch of Contacto marks the culmination of Plivo’s first phase as a company—its 10-year evolution in providing customers with a simpler, better business communications platform. Quietly rising to the top of the Communications Platform as a Service market, Plivo has spent the last 10 years building a solid customer base and a stellar suite of APIs alongside a comprehensive and evolving product offering. Today, Plivo’s SMS and Voice APIs are used by thousands of innovative businesses in more than 190 countries, including IBM, Mercadolibre, BYJU’s and Deckers Brands.

Now, with Contacto, Plivo is entering into its next evolution in the market—offering not only best-in-class API products for technical teams, but also cloud-based communications solutions that offer superior out-of-the-box functionality for B2C customer service teams.

“Plivo is in a unique position to offer vertically integrated, end-to-end products, and the market opportunity here is tremendous,” said Balasubramanian. “As Plivo embarks on its next 10 years of growth, we look forward to continued innovation and evolution, while maintaining our focus on providing customers with the solutions they want and need to succeed.”

To learn more about how Contacto enables B2C businesses to create better customer experiences — visit www.contacto.com.

About Plivo

Plivo is a communications platform that enables businesses to connect, engage and interact with their customers in over 190 countries. Thousands of businesses like IBM, Workday, Nutanix, and Gojek rely on Plivo to deliver better customer experiences globally. The Plivo team brings deep experience in communications and modern software to address the needs of today’s businesses – quality, scale, innovation, and agility.

Almost everyone has had a poor customer service experience at some time or another. We’ve heard them all:

• Waiting on the phone line for hours for the next available representative
• Repeating basic information over and over again as you’re transferred to new agents
• Being unable to find the answers to a simple, standard question without connecting with an agent
• Finding out the only way you could contact the customer service department was via email

We have a better way.

We want to make it possible for every company, no matter their size, to provide customers with world-class customer service interactions.

A mobile-first omnichannel contact center for consumer-facing businesses

Most businesses don’t have the time or resources to build out a fully customized contact center — especially not those nimble businesses in B2C retail and ecommerce, where efficient, effective customer service is a growing competitive advantage.

Contacto was purpose-built for today’s mobile-first consumer world so businesses can deliver the fast, flexible, and frictionless customer support that shoppers want. The platform combines traditional and emerging communication channels with an easy-to-use interface and out-of-the-box customizability to fit your business and your shoppers.

With Contacto, you can deliver exceptional customer experiences across channels, all while boosting agent productivity and effectiveness — and potentially even reducing your operational costs.

Let’s look at the channels of communication Contacto can facilitate, then dig deeper into the features of the platform.

Communication channels

The essence of omnichannel is offering a cohesive customer experience at every touchpoint, and that includes facilitating convenient communication methods for fast, easy resolutions.

Contacto comes with native, full-featured voice capabilities so there’s no need to engage costly third-party vendors for enterprise-grade, in-call features, excellent call quality, and high reliability.

Web and in-app chat embedded directly into a brand’s application or website let customers interact with retailers while they shop and beyond.

Customers can choose messaging via SMS, MMS, or WhatsApp — the leading consumer chat app. Brands can also utilize notifications to deliver proactive support updates.

Native integrations with social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are set to debut in Q4 2021.

Feature highlights

Contacto revolves around a unified agent desktop, where all communications channels are presented in a single simple interface.

That enables agents to:

• Respond to all incoming conversations from one screen, no matter their channel
• View the customer’s associated conversation timeline and interaction history
• Create and manage information in third-party systems without leaving Contacto

Contacto is designed to work seamlessly with a business’s existing systems, with out-of-the-box integrations with Salesforce, Salesforce Service Cloud, Zendesk, Shopify, and more.

With all that information in one place, agents have the context they need to solve issues faster and create a more tailored experience for the customer.

The Plivo advantage

Contacto is built on Plivo’s Premium Communications Network, which has been proven for scale over the last 10 years with billions of requests each month. Contactonatively supports voice and emerging channels like in-app chat, WhatsApp, and social media, and has prebuilt integrations with existing applications like Salesforce, Zendesk, Shopify, and Kustomer.

Sound interesting? Join our waitlist!

Interested in giving Contacto a try? You can join the waitlist to try Contacto for free, and our team will reach out when we’re ready to onboard our next batch of customers. We look forward to helping you delight your customers through service with a human touch.

We’ve all spent much more time on a customer service call than we expected. We may have interacted with voice menus, listened to long menus, and still had to repeat the same information again and again. And we’ve left with the feeling of, “Why can’t this experience be better?” Studies show these subpar experiences decrease customer retention.

In a July 2021 report, The future of customer conversation, Accenture wrote: “We’re moving to a world where customers expect to engage with brands at any time, across multiple devices, channels, and touchpoints. Customers also expect interactions to be in tune with their personal preferences and schedules.”

In today’s mobile-first consumer world, customers want fast, flexible, and frictionless assistance. That’s why we built Contacto.

Contacto is an omnichannel contact center platform that combines traditional and emerging customer service channels with an easy-to-use interface, out of the box customizability for a focus on today’s mobile-first consumer.

Contacto is built on Plivo’s Premium Communications Platform that has been proven for scale over the last 10 years with billions of requests each month. It natively supports voice and emerging channels like in-app chat, WhatsApp, social media, and has pre-built integrations with existing applications like Salesforce, Zendesk, Shopify, Kustomer, and more.

Why Contacto, and why now?

Plivo has long been focused on the back end of communications and on building its voice and messaging API business.

But based on feedback from customers, we recognized an opportunity to package that back end into a vertical application for an underserved niche. Most businesses don’t have the time or resources to build out a fully customized contact center for their customer service needs. They’re already too occupied with running their own business.

That’s especially true for nimble businesses in the B2C retail and ecommerce space, where efficient, effective customer service is a growing competitive advantage. And customer expectations are very high.

We want to make it possible for every company, no matter their size, to provide customers with world-class customer service interactions.

Communication channels

Contacto comes with native, full-featured voice capabilities so there’s no need to engage costly third-party vendors for enterprise-grade on-call features, excellent call quality, and high reliability.

Web and in-app chat embedded directly into a brand’s application or website let customers interact with retailers while they shop and beyond.

Customers can choose messaging via SMS, MMS, or WhatsApp — the leading consumer chat app. Brands can also utilize notifications to deliver proactive support updates.

We plan to add native integrations with social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram later this year.

Feature highlights

All agent activity in Contacto revolves around a unified agent desktop, where all communications channels are presented in a single simple interface.

That enables agents to:

• Respond to all incoming conversations from one screen, no matter their channel
• View the customer’s associated conversation timeline and interaction history
• Create and manage information in third-party systems without leaving Contacto

With all that information in one place, agents have the context they need to solve issues faster and create a more tailored experience for the customer.

Contacto is designed to work seamlessly with a business’ existing systems, with out-of-the-box integrations with Salesforce, Salesforce Service Cloud, Zendesk, Shopify, and more.

Plivo’s next phase of growth

With Contacto, Plivo is entering into its next evolution in the marketplace — offering not only best-in-class API products for technical teams, but also cloud-based communications solutions that offer superior out-of-the-box functionality for B2C customer service teams.

As Plivo embarks on its next 10 years of growth, we look forward to continued innovation and evolution, while maintaining our focus on providing customers with the solutions they want and need to succeed.

Sound interesting? Take a tour!

Interested in giving Contacto a try? We’d be happy to give you a quick tour. We look forward to helping you maximize agent productivity and meet customers on their terms with our unified cloud contact center for B2C teams.

Voice OTP is used to authenticate a phone number by delivering a one-time password (OTP) via a phone call. This verification is done by making a call to the mobile number and playing a sequence of digits. To verify the mobile number, the user needs to confirm the played sequence of digits.

OTPs are commonly used to verify new user registrations, online transactions, and login sessions in an app or website. In this blog post, we walk you through a sample implementation of sending a voice OTP using the Plivo Voice platform and PHLO, our visual workflow builder. Plivo’s direct carrier connectivity and intelligent routing engine guarantee the best call connectivity and quality.

Prerequisites

Before you get started, you’ll need:

• A Plivo account — sign up for one for free if you don’t have one already.
• A voice-enabled Plivo phone number if you want to receive incoming calls. To search for and buy a number, go to Phone Numbers > Buy Numbers on the Plivo console.

• Flask and Plivo Python packages — run pip install plivo flask to install them.
• ngrok — a utility that exposes your local development server to the internet over secure tunnels.

Create a PHLO to send OTP via phone call

PHLO lets you construct your entire use case and build and deploy workflows visually. With PHLO, you pay only for calls you make and receive, and building with PHLO is free.

To get started, visit PHLO in the Plivo console and click on Create New PHLO to build a new PHLO. In the Choose your use case window, click Build my own. The PHLO canvas will appear with the Start node. Click on the Start Node, under API request, fill in the Keys as from, to, and otp, then click Validate. From the list of components on the left side, drag and drop the Initial Call component onto the canvas and connect the Start node with the Initiate Call node, using the API Request trigger state.

Configure the Initiate Call node with the using the From field, and in the To field. Once you’ve configured a node, click Validate to save the configurations.

Similarly, create a node for the Play Audio component and connect it to the Initiate Call node using the Answered trigger state. Configure the Play Audio node to play a specific message to the user — for example, in this case, “Your verification code is <OTP>”. Under Speak Text, click on Amazon Polly and paste the following:

<Speak voice="Polly.Amy">
    <prosody rate="medium">
        Your verification code is
    <break/>
    <break/>
    <say-as interpret-as="spell-out">{{Start.http.params.otp}}</say-as>
    </prosody>
</Speak>

Click Validate to save.

Connect the Initiate Call node with the Play Audio node using the Answered trigger state.

After you complete configuration, provide a friendly name for your PHLO and click Save.

Use the PHLO in a Flask application

Now you can use the PHLO in a Python Flask application.

• Create a project directory and change into it.
  

  $ mkdir mypythonapp
  $ cd mypythonapp

• Install the Plivo SDK using pip.
  

  $ pip install plivo

• Install other modules.
  

  $ brew install redis
  $ pip install redis
  $ pip install flask

We recommend that you use virtualenv to manage and segregate your Python environments, instead of using sudo with your commands and overwriting dependencies.

Run the PHLO to send OTP via phone call

Now you can trigger the PHLO and test it out. Copy the PHLO ID from the end of the URL of the workflow you just created. You’re also going to need your Auth ID and Auth Token. Create a Python source code file — let’s call it trigger_phlo.py — and paste this code into it:

import plivo
import random
import redis

from flask import Flask, jsonify

app = Flask(__name__)

r = redis.StrictRedis()

def generate_code():
    code = random.choice(range(100000, 999999))  # generating 6 digit random code
    return code


# Make call to the destination number with OTP.
@app.route("/dispatch_otp/<destination_number>")
def dispatch_otp(destination_number):
    try:
        # generate OTP.
        code = generate_code()

        # Make a call
        auth_id = <auth_id>
        auth_token = <auth_token>
        phlo_id = 'Your PHLO ID' # https://console.plivo.com/phlo/list/
        payload = {"from" : "+15671234567","to" : destination_number, "otp":code}
        phlo_client = plivo.phlo.RestClient(auth_id=auth_id, auth_token=auth_token)
        phlo = phlo_client.phlo.get(phlo_id)
        response = phlo.run(**payload)
        print str(response)
        print(r.setex("number:%s:code" % destination_number, 60, code))
        return (
            jsonify({"status": "success", "message": "verification initiated"}),
            200,
        )
    except:
        return ("Error encountered", 400)

# verify the OTP enetered by the user.
@app.route("/verify_otp/<destination_number>/<code>")
def check_code(destination_number, code):
    """
    check_code(number, code) accepts a number and the code entered by the user and
    tells if the code entered for that number is correct or not.
    """
    # fetch the OTP set for the destination number
    original_code = r.get("number:%s:code" % destination_number)

    if int(original_code) == int(code):  # verification successful, delete the code
        r.delete("number:%s:code" % destination_number)
        return (
            jsonify({"status": "success", "message": "codes match! number verified"}),
            200,
        )
    elif original_code != code:
        return (
            jsonify(
                {
                    "status": "rejected",
                    "message": "codes do not match! number not verified",
                }
            ),
            404,
        )
    else:
        return (jsonify({"status": "failed", "message": "number not found!"}), 500)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(host="0.0.0.0", debug=True)

Substitute actual values for <auth_id>, <auth_token>, and <PHLO_ID>. Save the file and run it.

$ python trigger_phlo.py

Boom — you’ve made an outbound call with the OTP as a text-to-speech message.

Simple and reliable

And that’s all there is to send OTP via a phone call using Plivo’s Python SDK. Our simple APIs work in tandem with our comprehensive global network. You can also use Plivo’s premium direct routes that guarantee the highest possible delivery rates and the shortest possible delivery times for your 2FA SMS and voice messages. See for yourself — sign up for a free trial account.