From large multinationals to SMBs, the challenge is the same: Customers and employees always want the best possible communication experience. In today’s omnichannel world we all interact however we want, whenever we want and from wherever we want. And that makes equipping your business with a smart, scalable ‘all-in-one-place’ communications platform about as important as it gets.
Enterprise applications for tasks such as people management, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and customer relationship management (CRM) may build in rudimentary functionality for voice calling, text messaging, and other communications channels, but businesses can usually benefit by adding communications capabilities to the applications they use.
A cloud-based communications platform — a.k.a. communications platform as a service (CPaaS) — provides an easy way for businesses to add those new communication capabilities via APIs to their existing systems without having to build them from scratch, saving time and money and providing enhanced flexibility.
Here, Tony Graham – head of product marketing at leading global CPaaS provider Plivo – shares his top criteria for businesses evaluating CPaaS platforms.
Minimizing Time to Value
Large or small, businesses nowadays are experiencing rising demand on their communication channels. Deploying a CPaaS provides powerful communication capabilities using channels such as voice and text messaging in less time than it would take businesses to build solutions from scratch.
You may need to get familiar with your CPaaS quickly because your call volumes are spiking, but your business may not have a large IT department or team of developers. At Plivo, we offer a self-service option via an intuitive console that lets you create an account without having to speak to a salesperson beforehand and gives you free credits so you can incorporate our APIs into calling and messaging applications. If you need to authenticate via single sign-on, we can offer SSO through any identity provider that supports Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML). We also offer prebuilt use case templates with options to add custom code, and provide 100% functional parity with other CPaaS platforms for companies that already have familiarity with cloud communications.
Reliability Guaranteed
99.99% uptime is a goal many enterprise-grade CPaaS struggle to reach. Always check providers’ uptime records against their service level guarantees. At Plivo, we can thank our premium communications network for our excellent uptime numbers. We connect directly with Tier 1 telecom network operators in more than 100 countries and have direct connectivity with 1,600+ carriers in all in more than 190 countries. We have points of presence strategically located near high-traffic internet exchange points on five continents, which helps us minimise traffic-delaying network hops. We have network operations centers in Austin, Texas, and Bangalore, India, to deliver round-the-clock support by trained engineers. And after more than a decade of business, we understand complex global telco laws and regulations, which means we can resolve issues faster than API vendors that have to rely on aggregators, gateway providers, and resellers.
Getting the Most Out of CPaaS
Most CPaaS providers offer some level of free functionality, but whether your volume is consistent or growing, consider committing to a monthly spending level if your provider offers discounts to do so. Also, signing up for a premium support plan will ensure you get the guaranteed response time you need. With Plivo, for example, our premium support plan enables you to jump to the front of the queue whenever you need us. Often, these plans also include guided onboarding.
Compliance Covered
All businesses are different, but all have to satisfy national and carrier-based privacy and security regulations. Plivo’s systems are compliant with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); SOC 2 Type 2 certified; HIPAA-compliant; and certified for PCI DSS Level 1, which applies to organisations that process more than six million credit or debit card transactions annually. In addition, we can redact phone number and text message information from saved logs and data to prevent storage of personally identifiable information.
In Conclusion…
A great CPaaS platform lowers the barrier to entry for any business that needs to improve their communications. However, not all CPaaS platforms are created equal. You need to choose a platform that can be up and running quickly and that has all the functionality, reliability, and customer support a modern enterprise needs. Get that choice right and you can deliver a communication experience that sets you apart.
Learn more about how Plivo’s SMS and Voice APIs for Enterprise support the communication needs of enterprises great and small.
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