WhatsApp as a contact center

Contact centers have been using social media as a channel for a while now. They use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Google+ to connect with leads and customers.

But, have you ever thought of using WhatsApp?

I get it – WhatsApp is a simple messaging app and it does not have the same functionality that other social networks have.

But, that shouldn’t stop you from exploring this channel. WhatsApp has more than1 billion active users. This is more than any other messaging app in the world. Plus, WhatsApp is the fastest growing social network. It is the number one messaging app in India, Brazil, and South Africa.

I know that WhatsApp is not a social network, but when you start a conversation with a prospect, the prospect will see your company’s name and contact details right under your contact details. This is a great way to start a conversation with your prospect and to set the tone for future interactions.

Plus, since WhatsApp is a messaging app, sales reps can send product updates and promotions to their clients. Be careful in using this feature and don't overuse it.

The only downside to this channel is that you cannot integrate it with your CRM. And that's where Cloudagent comes in. We connect your WhatsApp account to your CRM and help you to track your WhatsApp conversations.

You can keep track of your closed conversations, and you can also export your data to your CRM. Cloudagent has some of the best WhatsApp integration plugins that help you to connect your CRM to WhatsApp. Additionally, contact center agents can use their agent console.

Summary: I hope that you have learned something new in this post. I hope that you will integrate some of the channels that I have listed in this post. I’d love to hear about your experience. Please share your thoughts and opinions in the comment section below.

Cloud Telephony-History and state of the art

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...

Telugu ASR speech data collection

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...

Google's approach to business communication

Google has been making silent moves in the business communication space. Google has mostly lost the instant messaging wars. But it does not want to lose the business communication war. WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook have been making their own moves to enable businesses to reach their customers through their channels. Its all about who has control over the communication channels. Especially communication which leads to business. That's where the money is. Currently, Google is the king of search and most online transactions start with a Google search. FB, Amazon, Apple and others want to change that. They want the search to start on their properties. And they have started making the moves. WhatsApp business allows small businesses to conduct their transactions on WhatsApp. FB and Instagram have long supported small businesses to manage their business on their channels. Apple has also made some nice moves with Apple business chat. They have integrated a whole shopping expe...

Cloud Telephony Experiments

Search This Blog