Every business has a website and a mobile application to be readily available to their customers and prospective users. They are centralized locations to which all the digital marketing efforts of the business are directed. Customer engagement and communication are carried out on these platforms. This makes it a natural choice to offer customer support on the same platforms.
Customer support may be via text, voice, or video. Integration of in-app voice call APIs and SDKs in the business application facilitates customer support through multiple mediums. This includes text-based support such as chat and email and voice-based support such as voice calling and video calling. Integration of voice call APIs into existing business apps enables the business to instantly offer customer service from within the app. Let’s delve deep and discuss how voice call API providers offer the services and support required to enhance customer support through voice API.
Why do businesses need voice call APIs?
Audio communication trumps text-based communication. The tone and voice of a person help in understanding the problem and communicating effectively. This is not possible while communicating through chat or email. Therefore, it is crucial for every business to integrate a voice call API into an existing or new business application.
Several important functionalities, such as call forwarding, voicemail, IVR, text-to-speech, conference calls, call recording, call transfers, and call transcription, can be carried out using voice call software.
How does the voice chat API aid in providing enhanced customer support?
Businesses can build multiple and complex customer engagement flows when they have a voice chat API integrated into their application. As telecom has no role to play in this, businesses do not have to deal with the manual and financial complexities involved in it. This thereby improves customer service, reduces the total cost of ownership, and provides increased global coverage.
Let’s discuss all the benefits in detail below.
- Recording calls
- Call recording
Recording customer support calls is essential for record-keeping and utilizing it to improve the quality of customer service in the future. Customer success teams can revisit the recorded calls to understand the customer issue in case the customer contacts them a second time to follow up on the issue. Also, recorded calls can be assessed for the quality of support provided, and constant improvements can be made in the process to enhance the quality of customer service.
- Audio conferencing
- Video conferencing
Audio and video calls are proven to be more effective than text-based communication. When you build a voice app, you provide your customers with a means to communicate effectively with your business.
- Queuing and routing
- Routing calls and queues
Internally, routing calls to another team or a team member can be carried out using the routing calls facility. Queuing calls in the order of the calls received from the customers to be attended by the customer support agents are also facilitated by the voice call API.
- Transferring calls
- Call transfer
While a customer is on a call with a support agent, the call has to be transferred to another agent or a team that is not as per the business process, which is facilitated by a call transfer facility. It could be transferred to another agent or superior.
- Call history
- Customer call records
Ensuring the preservation of call records for each customer is an essential aspect of running a business. It is required for security, reference, and to improve customer support and business processes.
- Enhance the experience of customers
- Quality improvement of the customer experience
Customer success agents can provide customer support using a single interface. There is no need for them to alternate between various platforms in order to provide customer support. This reduces the wait time for the customer, improves first-response time, reduces escalations, and reduces closure time. All these parameters prove that the quality of customer support improves drastically, which in turn enhances the customer experience.
- Channels can be added easily.
- Quickly add support channels.
Customer tickets can be added to multiple channels with the click of a button within the application. A customer support agent does not have to switch platforms to move the customer to a different channel or to provide support.
- Improve the productivity of the customer support team.
- Increase the productivity quotient of customer support agents.
As all the facilities and features are made available to the customer support team on a single platform, it streamlines the business process. As a result, the team can offer customer support with ease. Additional training to learn new tools is not required, and the effort is reduced. This allows for delivering complete attention to the customer and increasing the quality of support provided. The productivity quotient of the customer success agents is increased with the use of a business voice call API.
How do you evaluate voice call APIs to deploy into your business system?
In a market filled with numerous voice-call API providers, selecting the appropriate provider is crucial. Once you integrate it into your business application, you will rely on the provider to maintain it. Also, certain important factors must be taken into consideration while choosing the right customizable in-app voice call API for your app. Let’s discuss them in detail below.
Key features
Important features
- Receive and send text messages.
- Set up SMS notifications.
- Set up automated alerts.
- Two-factor authentication
- Send reminders
- Autoresponder SMS
- Conference video call
- Call forwarding
- IVR
- Call transfer
- Call transcription
High regional deliverability rate
Your voice call API provider must have a direct relationship with the telephone carriers in the regional areas that your business serves. This is essential because when your customer support agents make an outbound call to your customer, it connects to PSTN. Similarly, the provider must cater to delivering SMS to the geographies that your business serves. High SMS deliverability ensures that your messages reach your customers.
- Easy to migrate
- Seamless migration
In-app voice call APIs for customer service must be easy to integrate into existing business applications and new applications. If there is an existing voice call API in your app and website and you would like to replace it with a voice call API from another service provider, the migration must be seamless. This is essential to ensure that the users of your business app are not affected during and after the transition. It must not affect the customer experience or the process of the business.
- Security
- Secure
The best voice call APIs for mobile apps are CCPA and GDPR-compliant. As customer data is highly sensitive, it is the duty of business owners to secure it appropriately. Also, customers do not return to a business after the mishap of a data theft or threat.
- Scalable
- Highly scalable
Voice call integrations APIs must be able to handle any scale of business. Since the business can scale very quickly, it must be able to continually use the same voice call API.
- Pricing
- Cost effective
Choose the provider that offers all the features your business requires and that falls within your budget. With plenty of service providers in the market globally, it is easy to choose the right one that suits your business.
Top 5 voice-call API providers
After reviewing several service providers in the market, we have picked the top five. Let’s discuss them in detail below.
1. CONTUS Mirror Fly Voice API
One of the best voice API and SDK providers on the market, CONTUS Mirror Fly, can easily integrate into any application or website. Businesses can route, manage, and connect calls to any device to provide support to their customers.
Features
- Encrypted audio
- Low latency
- Elastic SIP trucking
- One-to-one calls
- Conference calls
- Natural language processing
- Dual-channel recording
2. Pivot voice API
Pivot is well known for serving customers across borders. This service provider caters to all geographies, so if your business is spread across multiple countries or if you intend to go global, Pivot is the best choice.
Features
- Scalable cloud IVR
- Conference call
- Voice mail
- Voice alerts
- Call forwarding
- Voice survey
3. Exotel voice API
The Exotel voice API can be integrated not only into apps and websites but also into any platform. This allows your business to be available on voice to your customers from any platform and enhances the customer experience.
Features
- Virtual number allocation
- Click-to-call
- nOTP authentication
- Bulk calls and SMS
- Number mapping
4. Twilio Voice API
Twilio facilitates calling across the world. Your team can modify ongoing calls, make outbound calls, and utilize all other advanced features to serve your customers. It enables you to make voice calls to customers using browsers, apps, phones, and SIP domains.
Features
- Speech recognition
- Call recording
- Conference call
- Embedded calling
- Alerts and notifications
5. Sinch Voice API
Sinch voice API offers cross-platform support. You can create a customized mix of SIP, VoIP, and PSTN as per your business requirements and integrate Sinch into it. As Sinch is certified under ISO 27001 and compliant with GDPR, security and privacy are ensured.
Features
- Number masking
- In-app video calling
- Phone call verification globally
- STIR/SHAKEN
Final word
You are now equipped with detailed information about voice APIs and the best service providers in the market. Selecting the appropriate provider for your business necessitates an evaluation of your business requirements, goals, the provider’s features and services offered, and the cost involved. Utilize the trial pack of the voice API that matches your requirements and switch to the premium version upon satisfaction.
