Skip to main content

Launching KOOKOO Number Mask API

By C Chaitanya
Well, it's finally here. The number masking API.
To be fair, KOOKOO has supported number masking since when we launched the <dial> tag and already a lot of our customers use our number masking services. But this launch makes it easier for new developers to use the virtual number services. Instead of building a full KOOKOO app and hosting it, you can just call the API.
Flickr


What is it?
Number mask API allows you to create conversation sessions between your customers and your mobile workforce without revealing their personal phone numbers. Create virtual phone numbers instantly with this API.

Who can use this?
Any business which needs to protect the privacy of its customers and it's employees will find this API useful. For example, ride hailing services a-la Uber, Ola etc can use this API to create virtual number sessions per ride. Delivery services like Zomato, Foodpanda, Swiggy etc can use this API to create virtual numbers on demand per delivery.

How can I use this?
Lets assume you are a delivery startup. When a customer places a delivery order and you assign a delivery agent to the order, call this API to create a virtual number for this delivery session. The API will return the virtual number for this session and you can publish this virtual number. When your delivery agent calls this number they will be connected to the customer and when your customer calls this number they will be connected to the delivery agent. The mapping is transparently handled by KOOKOO in the backend. This way, both the agent and the customer phone numbers are not shared. Once the delivery is completed, call the API again to invalidate the session. This is the easiest way to incorporate virtual numbers into your delivery pipeline.

What are the advantages?
  • Automatic scaling.
  • Innovative reuse of phone numbers so that you need to buy only the least amount of phone numbers for maximum sessions.
  • Automatic call recording.
  • Upgrade for a full KOOKOO experience.
When is this available?
NOW!
You can check out the API here.
If you want to try it out, just let us know and we will get back to you.

Popular posts from this blog

Cloud Telephony-History and state of the art

By C Chaitanya
Well, its been 11 years since Twilio launched their voice API in November 2008. I would say that was a major turning point in the cloud telephony industry. Before that, for people to build telephony applications, you either had to depend on proprietary platforms like Avaya dialog designer or build on arcane technologies like VXML which again was supported at varying degrees by the incumbents. Enter Twilio with their voice API and the industry changed for the better. Since it's been almost 11 years now I thought now might be a good time to do a comprehensive review of the cloud telephony industry as a whole in general and in India in particular. The Beginning Twilio was undoubtedly the startup which ushered in the era of cloud telephony. They started in November 2008. At that time in India, we at Ozonetel had launched a hosted VXML platform. There were no takers. After all who coded in VXML :) So when Twilio launched and we saw them take off, we immediately realized tha...
Read more

Google business messages and chat agents-A match made in heaven

By C Chaitanya
Google has launched Google business messages without much fanfare. It's just a small button that pops up when someone searches for your business on Google. But from the conversation industry perspective this is HUGE .   Do you know that the small call button drives millions of calls i n a year for pizza joints and other retailers in the US. Businesses spend more than a trillion dollars supporting billions of customer service calls each year. Now imagine how many chat conversations the "Message" button can drive.  Think of how customers interact with business. 1. Search on Google. 2. Click on web site link. 3. Web site shows chat pop up and tries to force the user to chat.(Annoying. I know :)) 4. User clicks on chat and starts conversing with a bot or an agent. This flow can now be completely changed. The new flow can be: 1. Search on Google. 2. User clicks on Message and starts conversing with a bot or an agent. What if you could design a customer experience that helps...
Read more

Telugu ASR speech data collection

By C Chaitanya
Image Source: IIIT-H Developing an indigenous ASR for Indian languages has been a goal for us since a long time. In that regard we have been experimenting a lot, trying out various neural network architectures.  While doing these experiments we found that there was no good dataset for Indian languages. While discussing with IIIT professors we got to know that the government of India was also exploring options to generate a good dataset. We immediately offered our help and our platform for this endeavor. So, as a starting step we have come up with a few campaigns to encourage users to donate speech data. We wanted to make it fun, so our first few campaigns are along the lines of JAMs(Just a Minute speech topics) etc. A topic will be provided and you need to speak for a minute on that topic. We have started this campaign for college students to start with. Of course anyone can participate and contribute their data. The more the merrier :) We will adding a lot more innovative ways ut...
Read more