Commio is pleased to announce that Scott Navratil, VP of Customer Retention and Growth, will be attending Contact.io being held from August 30-September 1 in Denver.
A regular speaker at this and other cloud communication events, Scott has deep experience in the text messaging industry and is a seasoned expert in SMS/MMS compliance, as well as calling in the cloud.
If you will be at the conference and have questions about your company’s omnichannel communications, you are invited to schedule a private consultation with Scott. You can access his calendar here.
Companies, and especially anyone working in a call or contact center, know how important it is to provide customers with clear, timely communication about every aspect of their transaction or service. It is perhaps the leading prerequisite for positive customer experiences.
Via Text Messaging…
While phone calls are the tried and true method of communication for some customers, text messaging has some big advantages, including the fact that 98% of recipients open a message almost immediately. You can also control the timeliness and consistency of your message, as well as the overall cost, and you have an electronic trail.
Some companies are still a little hesitant about A2P messaging campaigns due to the industry’s evolving compliance requirements and fees. Each mobile carrier has their own set of rules and fees, particularly for long code / 10DLC. It can be a little complicated, and although things are settling down there are a fair number of campaign rejections upstream.
Consumers are tired of unwanted communications (spam), whether via phone calls, text messaging, or email, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plus the carriers are working to get it under control. Unfortunately, legitimate businesses are paying the price. Given the high open and read rates, however, it’s worth the effort!
Commio has safeguards in place to ensure messaging compliance for all our customers, including an extensive vetting process (“Know Your Customer”) before we even accept business from a prospect, to ensure their messaging is above board. We also have manual and automated review processes to catch any suspect messages, as well as any sender that doesn’t adhere to our standards.
Everything Commio does to prevent fraud supports our legitimate customers, as well. You need to be able to communicate with your own customers and no one wants to have that 98% open rate go down because people are receiving too much spam. Text messaging is unparalleled in its advantages and we all have a stake in keeping it that way.
We also offer extensive support to our messaging customers, including APIs so that you can quickly and easily register long code campaigns directly within our platform. We provide regular update webinars, as well as blogs, emails, and other educational materials. We have training sessions upon request. We maintain an up-to-date chart of the various fees. We’re open to doing whatever works best for our customers. Your success is our success!
…and Calling (Voice)
Commio Voice is an excellent choice for contact centers that need to optimize call quality and deliverability. Just a few of our differentiators include 40+ carriers, with call transparency and real-time control, and intelligent call routing, which looks for the route with the lowest cost but also the highest call quality. These features are critical for the best call audio and disaster recovery. Both our voice and our messaging can be added to any platform, such as Twilio or Plivo, within minutes with our APIs.
The FCC legislates voice compliance, most recently with STIR/SHAKEN, and so that adds a little more consistency. STIR/SHAKEN requires providers to tag every call with a certification of authenticity – aka, “attestation” – that basically says who the provider is, that we know a bit about the caller, the number is really theirs, and carriers can trust them; it’s okay to send the call through. There are several levels of attestation based on how well your provider knows you. At Commio, we believe it’s important to know our customers so that we can give them an “A” attestation in most cases, and minimize fraudulent calling.
Because there are still a lot of spam calls, STIR/SHAKEN is now being used in conjunction with analytics that also look at blocking data, provider reputation, and other factors. Fortunately for legitimate callers, there are also dialing best practices and options like reputation management. At the top of the list? Knowing your provider! (Okay, we might be slightly biased…)
Voice and Messaging
Is one better than the other? It really depends on the products and/or services and the recipient. If the information is relatively short and straight-forward, messaging is often ideal. If there might be open questions, a call is likely better. If a medical office needs to reschedule an appointment they should probably call; a text message is great for confirming the appointment. Some people have a distinct preference about how they’d like to receive information.
Ideally, your company offers omnichannel communications, so the user or campaign manager has a frictionless customer service experience. And in a perfect world, you have a conscientious provider who supports all of your omnichannel requirements.
You can learn more on our website, or talk with Scott at Contact.io about voice as well as messaging; just book a meeting on his calendar. We look forward to seeing everyone there!
