According to a Validity report, 14% of consumers have left a public negative review of a company due to a poor SMS experience. This underscores the importance of delivering well-targeted and thoughtfully crafted SMS campaigns to ensure customer satisfaction and safeguard your brand's reputation.

In this blog, we’ll explore 18 promotional text message examples designed to inspire your campaigns. These examples will help you craft engaging, effective, and targeted messages that drive customer engagement and foster stronger relationships.

What is a promotional message?

A promotional message is a type of communication that businesses use to market their products, services, or offers to their customers. These messages are typically sent via channels like SMS, email, or social media and aim to drive customer engagement, increase sales, or raise awareness about a specific promotion or event.

In SMS marketing, promotional messages are usually short, attention-grabbing texts that offer discounts, limited-time offers, or exclusive deals to recipients. The goal of these messages is to prompt immediate action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a service, or attending an event. These messages can be tailored to individual customers based on their preferences or past behaviors, making them a highly effective way to connect with your audience.

How to maintain customer engagement

Keeping your customers engaged is crucial in maintaining long-term relationships. SMS marketing allows you to stay top-of-mind, but it’s important to balance promotional messages with value. Providing useful tips, exclusive content, or personalized offers will help build trust and keep customers coming back for more.

Promotional vs. transactional SMS

When it comes to SMS marketing, it's essential to understand the difference between promotional and transactional messages, as they serve distinct purposes and are governed by different rules.

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Now that you know the difference, let’s explore 18 promotional message examples you can adapt and send to drive engagement and sales.

18 promotional message examples to steal and send

Now that we’ve covered the essentials, let’s explore 18 promotional message examples across various use cases. These can be customized for your business, whether you're in retail, healthcare, fintech, or any other industry.

Discount and offers

Offering discounts is one of the most popular types of promotional messages. Here are a few examples that businesses can use:

1. “Get 20% off your next purchase! Use code SAVE20 at checkout. Shop now.”
   A straightforward message with a clear offer and easy-to-remember code.
2. “Hurry! 50% off all items this weekend only. Don’t miss out!”
   The use of “hurry” creates urgency, while specifying the time frame enhances the offer’s appeal.

Limited time promotions

Limited-time offers push customers to make a purchase quickly, leveraging urgency to increase conversions.

3. “Flash sale! 24 hours only! Get 30% off everything in store.”
   A well-timed flash sale can bring in a large number of customers in a short time.
4. “Today ONLY! Buy one, get one free on all shoes. Act fast!”
   A "BOGO" (buy one, get one free) offer adds more perceived value to the promotion.

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Seasonal promotions

Seasonal promotions allow you to tie your offers to specific times of the year, taking advantage of customers' moods and shopping habits.

5. “Celebrate summer with 15% off all outdoor furniture. Limited time offer.”
   A seasonal offer aligned with customer needs (outdoor furniture in summer) makes the message more relevant.
6. “Winter Sale is here! Up to 40% off all coats and jackets.”
   Tailoring the offer to the current season ensures your message is timely and compelling.

Customer appreciation offers

Customer appreciation is vital to fostering loyalty. Showing gratitude with special offers can increase customer satisfaction.

7. “Thank you for being a loyal customer! Enjoy 15% off your next order.”
   Simple, sincere, and effective—this message makes the customer feel valued.
8. “We appreciate you! Use code THANKYOU10 for 10% off your next purchase.”
   Offering a discount with a personalized message reinforces loyalty.

Exclusive offers for subscribers

By creating offers specifically for your SMS subscribers, you add value to the relationship and encourage more people to opt in to your list.

9. “Exclusive deal for SMS subscribers: Get a free gift with your next order!”
   This message highlights the benefit of subscribing to receive special offers.
10. “As a VIP, enjoy early access to our clearance sale! Shop before it’s gone.”
    Exclusivity is a powerful motivator for customers, especially if they feel like they’re getting early access to a great deal.

Event or product launch promotions

Product launches and events are prime opportunities for promotional messages. By promoting these via SMS, you ensure that your audience doesn’t miss out.

11. “Join us for the launch of our new product! Enjoy a special launch discount of 20%.”
    Announcing a new product with a launch discount helps generate excitement and buzz.
12. “Save the date: Our annual sale is coming soon! Get exclusive deals when you sign up.”
    Tease future promotions to build anticipation and prompt sign-ups for your SMS list.

Re-engagement offers

Re-engaging dormant customers can significantly boost your sales, as they’ve already shown interest in your brand. Use a compelling offer to encourage them to return.

13. “We missed you! Get 25% off your next purchase to come back and shop again.”
    A friendly and enticing message to bring customers back to your store.
14. “It’s been a while! Use code WELCOME BACK for 10% off your next order.”
    Use a personalized message to remind customers of the benefits they once enjoyed.

Referral program promotions

Referral programs are an excellent way to expand your customer base. Offering incentives to customers who refer others can help you grow your audience.

15. “Refer a friend and get a $10 credit on your next purchase. It’s a win-win!”
    Encourage customers to spread the word with a simple and rewarding message.
16. “Get rewarded for sharing the love! Refer a friend and earn discounts on your next order.”
    Offering a reward for referrals incentivizes customers to take action and share your brand with others.

Holiday promotions

Holiday promotions are a tried-and-true strategy for driving sales. Whether it’s Christmas or New Year’s, everyone loves a festive offer.

17. “Merry Christmas from [Brand Name]! Get 30% off all holiday gifts.”
    Incorporating the holiday spirit into your promotional message makes it feel timely and personal.
18. “Happy New Year! Start the year with 20% off your next order.”
    New Year promotions are perfect for encouraging customers to make a fresh start with your brand.

Best practices for sending promotional text messages

To maximize the effectiveness of your promotional text messages, it's crucial to follow a few key best practices.

Timing and frequency

Send messages during optimal times—typically within business hours or late afternoons—when recipients are more likely to engage. Avoid sending messages too early in the morning or too late at night, as this can annoy customers.

Frequency is equally important. Sending messages too frequently can overwhelm your audience, while too few messages may lead to missed opportunities. A good guideline is to send no more than 1-2 promotional messages per week.

Obtaining consent: why opt-in is crucial

Before sending any promotional messages, always obtain explicit consent from your customers to ensure compliance with regulations like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and GDPR. Opt-in permissions also help build trust with your audience. Use clear opt-in messages, such as "Sign up for exclusive offers via SMS," and always provide an easy way to opt-out, like "Reply STOP to unsubscribe."

Crafting a clear call-to-action (CTA)

Each promotional message should feature a direct, clear CTA. Whether it’s “Shop now,” “Claim your discount,” or “Visit our store,” ensure that the CTA is straightforward and easy for the recipient to act upon.

Tracking the effectiveness of SMS campaigns

Tracking key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates (CTR), and conversion rates is essential to evaluate the success of your SMS campaigns. By monitoring these metrics, you can identify what’s working, make necessary adjustments, and optimize your future campaigns for better results.

Legal considerations

When using SMS for promotional campaigns, businesses must ensure they are compliant with various laws and regulations designed to protect consumers from unwanted marketing and data misuse. These regulations govern the use of SMS as a marketing tool and are in place to prevent abuse, such as spamming customers with unsolicited messages. Non-compliance can result in heavy fines, legal repercussions, and damage to your brand’s reputation.

Avoiding spam and building trust

Sending unsolicited or irrelevant messages can lead to high opt-out rates and damaged trust. To build strong relationships, ensure your SMS campaigns are targeted, transparent, and respect customer preferences.

How Plivo can elevate your promotional text messages

Plivo offers an array of features that can help businesses effectively manage SMS marketing campaigns while ensuring compliance with legal regulations. With Plivo’s robust SMS solutions, you can optimize customer engagement, reduce spam, and provide valuable communication that adheres to industry standards.

Key features of Plivo for SMS marketing

1. SMS surveys for customer feedback
   Use Plivo’s SMS platform to send survey links or questions, making it easy for customers to share feedback about your products or services. This valuable input can guide your promotional strategies.
2. Timely alerts and notifications
   Plivo’s alerts and notifications allow you to send time-sensitive information to your customers, such as reminders for upcoming sales or limited-time offers. This helps you stay top-of-mind with your audience without overwhelming them with irrelevant messages, reducing the likelihood of your messages being flagged as spam.
3. Dynamic SMS marketing
   With Plivo’s SMS marketing platform, you can automate your campaigns, segment your audience, and personalize your messages to target the right customers at the right time. 
4. Automated replies with SMS autoresponder
   Plivo’s SMS autoresponder feature allows you to set up automated responses for your customers. The autoresponder ensures that your customers receive immediate acknowledgment and further information, creating a seamless and responsive experience.
5. Effortless appointment reminders
   If your business involves appointments or bookings, Plivo’s appointment reminder feature ensures that customers receive timely notifications about their scheduled appointments. This reduces no-shows and improves customer satisfaction while offering a valuable service to your clients.

Why Plivo is the ideal choice for SMS campaigns

Plivo helps businesses to optimize communication workflows, improve customer engagement, and ensure compliance. With tools for surveys, alerts, reminders, and dynamic marketing campaigns, Plivo delivers an end-to-end solution for your promotional needs.

Ready to transform your promotional text campaigns? Explore Plivo’s SMS solutions today and unlock new ways to connect with your audience. Start now and experience seamless, compliant, and impactful communication. Request a Trial here!

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is an essential safeguard for protecting sensitive information. However, as crucial as it is for security, the MFA recovery process can sometimes be a double-edged sword. If users lose access to their authentication method, they risk being locked out of their accounts. Therefore, a robust MFA recovery process should be a critical part of any authentication strategy.

Let’s walk through best practices for MFA account recovery to ensure your users can easily and securely regain access to their accounts.

Authentication requirements for account recovery

While traditional MFA methods provide excellent security, the MFA recovery process requires a slightly different approach. Recovery methods must be easily accessible, and memorable, and allow for a slower authentication process. Recovering an account isn't something most users would be required to do regularly.

The key requirements for a recovery system are:

1. Long-term memorability or access: Users need to easily retrieve their recovery method, even if they don’t use it regularly.
2. A slower authentication process is acceptable: Since account recovery is infrequent, a slight delay in authentication is fine as long as security is not compromised.
3. Widely usable: The recovery method must be accessible and practical for most users across different devices and locations.

The right balance is essential. Your recovery process should be secure enough to prevent unauthorized access but user-friendly enough to prevent frustration. 

Plivo’s Verify API, which supports multiple channels like SMS and in-app push notifications, can be an excellent tool for ensuring users have quick, secure access to their recovery methods.

What are the options for account recovery?

Gone are the days of relying on security questions for account recovery. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has since recommended shifting away from these outdated methods due to their vulnerability. Today, the most reliable account recovery options involve using possession-based methods or account activity details.

1. Possession methods

Possession-based recovery methods are more secure than knowledge-based methods like security questions. Examples include:

• Backup codes: These are typically one-time-use codes that can be generated during the initial MFA setup. Users should store these codes securely in case of device loss or other issues. While they may seem simple, they offer a solid layer of security.
• Passkeys: A passwordless option that syncs private keys across devices, making it easier for users to recover their accounts without needing to remember complex passwords. Although passkeys are still being adopted, they offer a promising solution for both MFA and recovery.

Implementing these methods provides a secure fallback when users lose access to their primary authentication methods. Plivo’s Verify API can easily integrate into your system to deliver SMS-based recovery codes, offering both security and simplicity for users who need to regain access.

2. Account activity details

Another way to strengthen your recovery process is by leveraging account activity details. For example, asking users to confirm recent transactions or other identifiable actions can serve as a powerful recovery tool. These methods provide additional layers of security, helping to confirm a user's identity when primary credentials are unavailable.

How can social proof enhance account recovery processes?

Digital services and online platforms such as social networks or apps use trusted contacts or social proof to enhance their recovery processes. This could be a friend or family member who can verify the user’s identity. For example, platforms like Apple and Facebook use recovery contacts, allowing users to set up people who can help them regain access if needed.

However, this method works best for social networks with a large, established user base. If your service doesn’t have this feature built-in, focusing on other recovery options—such as backup codes and passkeys—can still provide strong security and ease of use.

How to strengthen your account recovery process?

To improve your account recovery process, consider the following recommendations:

1. Register additional authentication methods: Ensure that users register multiple recovery methods during account setup. This gives them options to access their account if they lose access to one method.
2. Design recovery processes based on data sensitivity: The higher the value of the data you're protecting, the more robust your recovery process should be. For sensitive services like financial applications, additional security layers are necessary.
3. Require successful MFA setup before new methods: Before enabling new MFA methods, ensure users have successfully completed the MFA setup process to avoid issues during recovery.
4. Prompt users about available recovery options: Regularly remind users of the backup methods available to them, particularly when logging in from new devices or after a password change.

Enhancing recovery process security

When enhancing your recovery process, keep these security measures in mind:

1. Implement waiting periods: For sensitive recoveries, a waiting period can act as a deterrent for unauthorized access attempts. This gives you time to review and confirm that the recovery request is legitimate.
2. Maintain MFA during recovery: Don’t deactivate MFA when users are trying to recover their accounts. This ensures that multiple authentication steps are still in place, preventing unauthorized access.

The MFA recovery process should always remain as secure as possible, even if it’s a bit slower than regular authentication. By adding layers of security, such as SMS or app-based MFA, you can ensure that both you and your users stay protected.

Simplify account recovery with Plivo’s Verify API

Plivo’s Verify API streamlines the MFA recovery process with secure, multi-channel options tailored to your business needs. By integrating Verify API into your authentication system, you can ensure users regain access efficiently while maintaining high-security standards.

Key features of Plivo’s Verify API:

• Multi-Channel support: Deliver recovery codes through SMS, voice, or in-app push notifications. With support for global reach across 220+ countries, Plivo ensures reliable account recovery even in regions with strict messaging regulations.
• Fraud prevention at no extra cost: Plivo’s built-in Fraud Shield detects and blocks fraudulent SMS activity, safeguarding your business from unnecessary costs and security breaches.
• Zero compliance hurdles: Pre-registered sender IDs and templates eliminate regulatory paperwork, allowing you to go live instantly in key markets like the US, UK, and India.
• Seamless integration: Plivo’s developer-first APIs and detailed documentation make it easy to integrate Verify API into your existing workflows. With sample code in popular languages like Python and Java, you can go live in one sprint.
• Scalability: Whether supporting a small user base or scaling to millions of users, Plivo’s infrastructure ensures consistent and reliable performance, even during peak traffic.

Why choose Plivo?

• Cost-Effective: Pay only for channel costs (SMS, voice, or WhatsApp) with no hidden fees or additional charges for verification or fraud prevention.
• Proven performance: Achieve a 95% OTP conversion rate across multiple channels, ensuring seamless user recovery experiences.
• Developer-Friendly: Cut implementation time by 90% with ready-to-use sample code and robust support from Plivo’s engineering team.

By leveraging Plivo’s Verify API, businesses can deliver a hassle-free, secure recovery experience while reducing support costs and protecting user data. Whether scaling globally or enhancing regional workflows, Plivo ensures your multi-factor authentication system remains intact during recovery, minimizing vulnerabilities and maximizing user satisfaction.

Take the next step with Plivo’s Verify API
Empower your business with a secure, cost-effective, and seamless account recovery solution. Whether you’re looking to improve OTP conversion rates, prevent fraud, or streamline user authentication, Plivo’s Verify API delivers the tools you need.

Get started today—integrate our Verify API in under a sprint and experience unparalleled reliability, global scalability, and expert support. Book a demo or request trial access now to see how Plivo can transform your account recovery process.

Voice commerce is a $421.7 billion opportunity.

Yes, more than 27% of U.S. consumers made online payments with voice assistants instead of manually browsing multiple screens and navigating the checkout process. Devices like Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings now act as virtual shopping assistants.

With the number of voice search users anticipated to reach 157.1 million by 2026, voice commerce opens up a faster purchasing channel. For businesses, this means a higher conversion rate, stronger sales, and streamlined customer support.

In this blog post, we’ll explore voice commerce, how it works, and its benefits for your business.

What is voice commerce?

Voice commerce, or v-commerce, is a technology-driven shopping experience that allows customers to search for, purchase, and manage orders using voice commands. It reduces the reliance on screens and keyboards during the buying process.

The technology relies on two components: smart speakers that convert speech into digital commands and AI assistants that interpret these commands and take action. Customers can shop hands-free while cooking, driving, or multitasking.

How does voice commerce work?

The process starts when your customer speaks a command into voice-enabled devices. While it seems simple on the surface (the customer speaks and the device responds), the technology performs several steps to complete each task. These steps include:

• Converting speech to actionable data: Your customer's spoken command gets captured and converted to text through automatic speech recognition (ASR) algorithms. For example, when they say "buy new headphones," the system captures each word.
• Understanding customer intent: The system analyzes this text to understand what your customer wants. It breaks down the command to identify the action (buying) and the product (headphones). This involves natural language processing (NLP) to interpret the meaning behind the words.
• Finding the right products: Once the system understands the intent, it searches your product database or online store for relevant items. It pulls up matching products, prices, and availability.
• Creating the right response: Then, the system creates a response based on its findings. If multiple headphone options exist, it might ask for more specifics about the price range or features your customer wants.
• Completing transaction: The customer can then confirm their choice, and the system completes the transaction — adding headphones to the cart, processing payment, or scheduling the delivery.

When you implement voice commerce for your business, pay attention to the following:

• Speech recognition must handle different accents and background noise.
• Your product database needs clear categorization for accurate matching.
• Response systems should sound natural while providing accurate information.

Plivo’s AI voice agent makes integrating voice commerce simple. The platform combines three models: speech-to-text (STT) to convert customer voice to text, large language models (LLM) to understand customer intent, and text-to-speech (TTS) for natural responses.

Here's how an interaction with Plivo’s AI voice agent flows:

Customer: "I want to buy a new dress."

AI voice agent: "What style or color are you looking for?"

Customer: "A red cocktail dress."

AI voice agent: "We have red cocktail dresses in stock. What size do you need?"

Customer: "Medium."

AI voice agent: "Found a medium red cocktail dress. Ready to check out?"

Customer: "Yes."

AI voice agent: "Order confirmed. Delivery in three business days."

Each question narrows down options until the customer finds exactly what they want. The system handles real-time conversations with minimal latency and can process and respond to mid-speech interruptions.

Plus, you can train it on your product database and business rules to deliver relevant, contextual responses.

You also control the tech stack behind these interactions. Integrate Plivo with your preferred tools for speech recognition (like Deepgram), language processing (OpenAI), and voice generation (ElevenLabs).

Benefits of voice commerce for business

Let’s now look at what voice commerce means for your business.

Increased key sales metrics

Voice assistance commerce will claim nearly 30% of all e-commerce revenue by 2030. It directly impacts the sales metrics and drives growth through:

• Increased conversion rates: Instead of manually searching for items, customers have to speak to get instant tailored recommendations. This makes shopping more intuitive and reduces drop-offs, leading to a higher conversion rate.
• Reduced cart abandonment rates: Many customers abandon carts due to lengthy or complex checkout processes. Commands like “Buy this now” or “Complete my order” will reduce friction and promote seamless shopping experiences.
• Improved customer lifetime value (CLV): Simplified reordering of previous purchases increases sales frequency and long-term customer retention. Customers can simply say, “Reorder my protein powder” or “Buy the same shampoo as last time.”
  
  • Impact:
    
    • Reduces effort, making repurchasing quick and effortless
    • Customers stick with the brand due to convenience
    • More frequent purchases → Higher CLV

For example, Starbucks integrated voice ordering through Amazon's Alexa for customers to place orders via voice commands. This led to a 16% higher monthly revenue per user from customers who used the feature.

Reduced support cost

Voice commerce reduces support costs as it handles routine customer inquiries with ease. Your support team can focus on complex issues while the voice system manages common questions about order tracking, store hours, and product information.

The system operates 24/7, so customers get immediate answers without waiting for support staff. This self-service approach cuts call volumes and support queue times. Plus, voice assistants can manage multiple customer conversations simultaneously, eliminating additional staffing costs.

Improved customer experience

82% of customers report that personalization drives brand choice. With tailored recommendations and natural conversations, voice agents let customers connect with your brand on their terms.

For example, Domino's virtual voice ordering assistant, Dom, handles customized orders, suggests additions, and finds the best deals.

Beyond convenience, voice commerce helps collect direct customer feedback to improve your service. Customers can quickly share their thoughts through simple voice commands, helping you understand and address customer needs faster.

Challenges of voice commerce

Voice commerce brings three core challenges you need to consider.

Technological complexity

Voice commerce relies on expertise in NLP and voice recognition technology to get started. The system must accurately capture and convert voice commands to text, even with different accents and noisy backgrounds. Misinterpretations of customer queries can affect the entire brand's reputation and reduce customer satisfaction.

Invest in advanced NLP and machine learning algorithms to improve performance. Partnering with a voice-first vendor like Plivo gets the task done through high-quality, low-latency audio and context-aware interactions without a hitch.

Security concerns

Voice commerce shoppers often worry about their data being recorded, stored, and potentially shared with third parties since AI handles sensitive customer data.

This system requires extra security layers for data protection and purchase verification. Businesses must address potential vulnerabilities to prevent fraud or unauthorized access through sophisticated encryption techniques.

Integration challenges

Your voice platform must connect with your e-commerce infrastructure, inventory management, payment processing, and customer data systems. The system should also sync with your product database for accurate pricing, availability, and descriptions.

While platforms like PayPal support voice transactions, many payment systems and banks don't offer voice commerce capabilities yet.  This can slow implementation and limit your growth potential until more providers adopt voice technology.

Measures to make voice commerce the next big thing

Voice commerce relies on advanced technology, but making it right doesn’t have to be complicated. Let’s look at measures to ensure its success and drive customer engagement.

Boost discoverability with voice search SEO

Voice search behavior differs from text — your customers speak in full sentences of 6-10 words. They ask, "Show me high-performance running shoes under $100" instead of "running shoes." So, connect your catalog with search engines and optimize product descriptions for these longer, conversational searches.

With 18% of global consumers using voice shopping weekly, discoverability improves when you optimize for natural speech patterns.

Streamline purchases with voice-activated shopping

Set up quick voice checkout flows and minimize steps between product discovery and purchase.

Nike launched Adapt BB shoes through Google Assistant. Fans bought the entire stock in six minutes using voice commands during an NBA game halftime. The launch proved voice shopping can drive quick sales when you make purchasing effortless.

Deliver hassle-free support with voice AI

Train your voice AI on common customer issues. Build responses for tracking, returns, product specs, and shipping questions. Update the system with new products and policies. For example, 1-800-Flowers runs voice self-service for customers to track orders, change delivery details, and check FAQs. This support channel works 24/7, letting customers get help when they need it.

Track voice commerce performance

Set clear metrics for your voice channel and use insights to refine your strategy. Track voice-activated sales, search volume, and support requests. Monitor how voice affects customer behavior. Do they order more often? Place bigger orders? Buy different products?

Analyze patterns and optimize voice interactions to improve customer engagement and maximize ROI. Voice support cuts operational expenses, and self-service options reduce agent workload. This automated ordering speeds up sales processing.

Turn customer insights into smarter strategies

Update your voice features based on user needs. Fix common pain points, add requested features, and remove unused options.

Estée Lauder's voice-enabled makeup assistant (VMA) collects user input during key moments of the experience. Customers share thoughts through voice commands or the feedback menu. Their app updates reflect direct user feedback.

Voice commerce then, now, and beyond

From basic speech recognition to sophisticated shopping systems, voice commerce has evolved so much. Here’s a timeline of the evolution:

• IBM's 1961 "Shoebox" could understand just 16 spoken words.
• In 1971, Carnegie Mellon's "Harpy" system processed 1,000 words through DARPA funding.
• The real breakthrough came in the 1980s when Dragon Systems brought speech recognition to personal computers.
• The 2010s marked the shift to mainstream voice commerce adoption:
  
  • Apple's Siri (2011) introduced voice assistance to millions of iPhone users.
  • Amazon's Alexa voice assistant (2014) transformed voice shopping by connecting speech recognition with e-commerce.
  • Google Assistant (2016) joined the voice commerce market, driving competition and innovation.

Today, voice commerce is no longer used just for single-store transactions. Businesses can now integrate with multiple voice platforms — Alexa supports transactions for Walmart, Best Buy, 1-800-FLOWERS, and Starbucks. Customers only need to link their retail accounts to start voice shopping.

REI Co-op, Redbox, and eBags also use the platform to distribute deals and track orders.

Apple Store handles peer-to-peer payments through Siri. Walmart's mobile app tests hands-free shopping, order scheduling, and voice-based customer support.

The market shows strong growth potential. Research projects voice commerce to grow at a CAGR of 24.34% annually from 2024 to 2030. That means v-commerce is slowly becoming a necessity to stay competitive for businesses.

Explore voice commerce with Plivo’s AI voice agent

Launch, scale, and manage voice commerce through Plivo’s AI voice agent, which offers 99.99% uptime and 16kHz audio quality for clear conversations along with:

• Human-like interactions: Keep emotion and accent in conversations. Voice detection creates a natural conversation flow
• Context-aware responses: Provide relevant answers with AI that learns from your business knowledge base
• Flexible tech stack: Connect any STT, LLM, or TTS system
• Low-latency audio: Process conversations in real time with minimal delays
• Backup protection: Reroute networks reroute in under 2 seconds during outages
• Voice activity detection: Track speech onset and end for smooth conversations

Guide your customers through product selections, deliver personalized recommendations, and close sales on auto-pilot. Contact us to get started.

Natural language processing (NLP) works behind the scenes in places you might not even notice — filtering spam emails, customer service chatbots, and even accurate Netflix recommendations. It’s woven across industries and is rapidly evolving, with the market projected to hit 156.76 billion by 2030.

It's natural to wonder whether NLP is too complex or worth integrating into your systems. This guide offers five digestible NLP steps so you can understand how the technology works and whether it’s a good fit for your business.

What is NLP?

Simply put, NLP lets a machine understand, interpret, and respond to human language, written or spoken. It's the reason voice assistants listen to your commands, chatbots answer your queries, and search engines predict what you’re looking for even before you finish typing.

The NLP process is powered by two key components.

Natural language understanding (NLU) helps machines decode what humans mean, even if the content isn't totally clear. For example, customer support chatbots use NLU to recognize when a user is frustrated (based on words like “poor service” or “I need help now”) and escalate the issue appropriately.

Once the machine understands what the user is saying, natural language generation (NLG) generates a response in a way that sounds natural. Instead of just responding with pre-set phrases, the system personalizes the response based on the user’s request, offering logical next steps, similar to how a human agent would.

Here’s a quick rundown of the stages of NLP:

• Splits sentences into smaller chunks (tokenization in NLP) for easier processing.
• Identifies keywords, grammar, and structure to understand context.
• Detects names, dates, locations, and brands (e.g., virtual assistants retrieving order details).
• Determines if a message is a question, request, or complaint for accurate chatbot/voice assistant responses.
• Assesses tone and emotions to gauge customer satisfaction in chats.

To better understand NLP techniques, let’s go through the most common everyday NLP applications.

Most common everyday NLP applications

Along with autocorrecting and filtering spam emails, NLP is most commonly used in the following use cases:

• Chatbots and virtual assistants: NLP enables AI chatbots in customer service to understand and respond to human language, improving customer support and user engagement. These virtual assistants handle tasks like answering FAQs, scheduling appointments, and providing 24/7 customer service, mimicking human interactions to improve efficiency.
• Language translation: Tools like Google Translate use NLP to provide real-time multilingual support. You use this to communicate with global customers and break language barriers in customer service.
• Sentiment analysis: How does a machine know when a caller is frustrated, angry, or simply uninterested in your product? Sentiment analysis scans customer reviews, support tickets, or even social media mentions to determine if the feedback is positive, negative, or neutral. You can use it to gauge customer opinions.
• Speech recognition and voice AI: Speech recognition converts spoken words into text which helps businesses with real-time transcription, AI-driven interactive voice response (IVR) responses, and improved call routing. An advanced ASR (automatic speech recognition) tool like Plivo also masks inappropriate content in transcriptions and improves speech recognition accuracy by providing a list of hint words expected from the caller.

Now that we know about the most basic everyday NLP applications, let’s understand the five NLP steps in detail. 

5 steps in natural language processing

Let’s go through the five steps in NLP with examples.

Step #1: Lexical analysis

Text preprocessing in NLP precedes lexical analysis as it undergoes cleaning, tokenizing, and structuring raw data to make it readable for NLP models.

A study emphasizes that understanding grammatical structures and keywords is vital for chatbots to provide coherent and relevant responses in real-world situations. Lexical analysis helps NLP do so, making it one of the most important natural language processing steps.

It converts a sequence of characters into a sequence of tokens. This tokenization in NLP deciphers and segments languages into units (lexemes), such as sentences, phrases, and words.

Some words can stand alone, like “cat” or “jump”. These are free morphemes because they don’t need any extra help to be complete words. However, then there are bound morphemes, which have to latch onto something else to make sense. For instance,  “replaying”:

• “re-” (a prefix meaning “again”)
• “play” (the root word that holds the meaning)
• “-ing” (a suffix showing it's happening right now)

Neither of these words can exist alone, they always need a root word to stick to.

Machine learning in AI plays an important role in lexical analysis by helping NLP systems continuously improve their ability to identify and segment words accurately. When NLP analyzes text, it goes through a process to understand these layers, which helps understand word meanings, grammatical structures, and even how words change depending on context.

Lexical analysis teaches AI to deconstruct language the way the human brain does, but faster.

Step #2: Syntactic analysis

Syntax is the foundation of language, it’s how words and phrases come together to form meaningful sentences. Syntactic analysis (or parsing) lets NLP systems understand sentence structure and relationships between words rather than analyzing them in isolation.

This ensures that AI-powered chatbots, smart IVR systems, and voice assistants interpret user queries correctly.

When NLP performs syntactic analysis, it:

• Identifies sentence structure: Breaks a sentence into subject, predicate, objects, clauses, etc.
• Determines relationships between words: Determines which words depend on or modify others.
• Checks for grammatical correctness: Ensures the sentence follows valid language rules.

Syntactic analysis is important for chatbots and virtual assistants to improve customer experience with smart IVR. When a customer says, “I need help to reset my password”, the system uses syntactic analysis to recognize:

• “I” as the subject
• “need help” as the action
• “resetting my password” as the specific request

This structured understanding helps the AI respond appropriately, directing users to the right solution without confusion or misinterpretation.

Step #3: Semantic analysis

Semantic analysis in NLP deciphers meaning based on context, intent, and sentiment. The same word or phrase can imply different things depending on how it's used, and semantic analysis ensures AI comprehends these nuances accurately.

For instance, if a caller says, "I need to cancel my order because I wasn’t happy with the last one," a basic AI might fixate on the keyword "cancel" and proceed with the request.

But a Plivo-powered voice agent with semantic analysis understands the full context. It detects dissatisfaction from "wasn’t happy with the last one" and responds empathetically:

• “I’m really sorry about your previous experience. Let’s make this right.”
• Apart from processing the query, it might offer a resolution: “How about a 20% discount on your current order as an apology?”

Semantic analysis helps voice agents understand natural conversations instead of just keywords. This context-aware approach makes customer interactions more human, but you can also use these voice transcriptions for customer analytics to make informed decisions.

Step #4: Disclosure integration

Discourse integration helps NLP models grasp the broader meaning of conversations by considering previous sentences for context. This ensures more accurate interpretations and reduces confusion in AI-driven interactions.

For example, in a customer support chat:

Caller: "I lost my credit card yesterday."

Bot: “I’m sorry to hear that. Would you like to report it as lost or request a replacement?"

Caller: “Cancel it.”

Without discourse integration, the AI might struggle to understand whether the user wants to cancel the report or the card itself. By analyzing the conversation history, it correctly determines that "cancel it" refers to the lost card and proceeds accordingly.

This is important for businesses to automate customer interactions, and ensure smarter, context-aware responses in finance, healthcare, and beyond.

Step #5: Pragmatic analysis

Pragmatic analysis interprets meaning based on context, tone, and real-world knowledge rather than just literal word definitions so that the conversations feel natural and relevant. For instance, when a user asks, "What's the price of your premium subscription plan?"

The bot responds with, "Sure, our premium starts at $50 per month.”

Now, if the user simply responds, "That's a little steep," the bot automatically suggests, "Would you like to explore our standard plan starting at $30?"

While the user doesn't explicitly mention they want to explore a lower-priced option, pragmatic analysis recognizes the implied concern and suggests an alternative.

Businesses benefit from this by providing better customer engagement, fewer misunderstandings, and more effective automation.

While the steps in NLP help make customer experience better, it’s not all pros. 

Challenges and future advancements in NLP

One of the biggest NLP challenges is the bias in AI models.

Since AI learns from human data, it can reflect societal biases, leading to unfair or misleading outputs. MIT researchers developed a technique that reduces bias in AI models while preserving or even improving their accuracy for fairer and more reliable AI decision-making.

Another challenge is understanding regional dialects and slang. Many NLP models struggle with informal speech, code-switching, and cultural nuances, making accurate interpretation difficult in multilingual or diverse environments.

Ethical concerns, such as misinformation, privacy risks, and deepfakes (AI-generated content that falsely mimics real people) add to the complexity.

Looking ahead, context-aware AI conversations will improve chatbot and virtual assistant interactions, making them more natural and relevant. Real-time speech translation is also advancing, aiming for easy, culturally aware translations without robotic phrasing. As NLP evolves, voice integration in conversational AI will focus on making AI communication more inclusive, ethical, and human-like.

How Plivo's AI-powered voice agents advance intelligent  conversations

Keeping up with customer queries can be overwhelming, especially as your business grows. Long wait times, repetitive questions, and overworked support teams aren’t exactly a route to greater customer experiences.

This is where AI-powered voice automation comes in.

With a system that instantly understands customer requests, responds in natural language, and even recognizes 27 languages to serve a diverse audience in place, keeping your customers happy becomes easy. That’s what Plivo’s AI voice agents do.

They streamline customer interactions with features like real-time transcription, smart IVR for self-service that’s ideal for healthcare, banking, and routine queries, and a secure, scalable voice agent with built-in message redaction and compliance. 

Plus, Plivo lets you integrate any speech-to-text provider, large language model (LLM), or text-to-speech (TTS) engine, giving you complete control over your AI experience.

Thousands of businesses use Plivo to reduce support load, improve response times, and keep customers happy, without disrupting workflows. Contact us to see how our solutions can make your communication systems more efficient.

In 2024 alone, Intercom’s artificial intelligence (AI) voice bot, Fin, tackled 13 million customer questions for over 4,000 businesses. And it’s not just chatbots. Gartner predicts that by 2026, 30% of enterprises will automate over half of their customer interactions, up from just 10% in 2023.

Clearly, AI voice intelligence in customer service is leading the charge.

However, despite its benefits, many business owners still wonder: will automation make customer interactions feel robotic? More importantly, how do you use voice AI in a way that actually improves customer experience?

This guide will break it all down — what voice intelligence is, how businesses use it, and the real impact it has on customer interactions across industries.

What is voice intelligence?

Voice intelligence is an AI-powered system that can understand, interpret, and respond to spoken language the way humans do.

Unlike conventional interactive voice response (IVR) systems, which rely on rigid menu-based navigation, natural language processing (NLP) in voice AI listens to callers' words, processes their intent, and delivers relevant responses.

For example, Apple's Siri goes beyond setting alarms or reminders and asks follow-up questions to maintain context in a conversation. Similarly, Google’s Gemini can summarize web pages, suggest replies, and help you with booking appointments. 

But how does it actually work?

How voice intelligence works

Voice intelligence combines AI tools like NLP, machine learning, and real-time AI-powered speech analysis to analyze calls, voicemails, and digital conversations, helping businesses respond faster and more accurately.

This means they can catch key issues, offer better support, and even automate certain interactions, without losing the human touch.

Let’s break this down with a use case.

User A calls their bank’s support line after noticing an unfamiliar charge on their credit card.

Speech recognition converts voice into text

At the core of voice intelligence lies speech recognition. It converts spoken words into text and allows AI-powered voice agents to "listen" to a caller.

Going back to our example where the user calls their bank, here’s what happens behind the scenes:

When they say, "I see a charge I don't recognize on my card.", the speech recognition gets to work. It transcribes the words into text, identifies individual words, corrects minor pronunciation errors, recognizes the accent, and captures the intent without losing context.

Plivo's automatic speech recognition (ASR) takes it a step further. It filters inappropriate content in transcriptions, supports speech recognition in 27 languages, and offers pre-built models for different industries.

So if the user uses rash language like “I’m pissed off with this bank”, the ASR identifies “pissed off” as inappropriate and removes it from the transcript. At the same time, it correctly interprets 'charge' in the context of financial transactions, avoiding confusion with alternative meanings such as charging a device.

NLP understands intent and context

NLP in voice intelligence recognizes accents, slang, and even sentiments. It actually grasps the meaning behind those words the way humans do.

When the user says, "I see a charge I don't recognize on my card," the system, using NLP, identifies key terms like “charge” and “don't recognize” to understand that the user is reporting a potentially fraudulent transaction.

If such an interaction has occurred in the past, machine learning in voice intelligence learns from it and improves its ability to detect predictable phrases like "unauthorized charge," "fraud," etc. It also detects a spike in customers calling about fraudulent charges in the future.

AI-driven decision-making determines the right response

After the call gets transcribed and analyzed, AI taps into past interactions to offer a faster, personalized resolution. For instance, if the user has travel alerts active on their account, AI determines the charge is legitimate and reassures them.

If the user expresses urgency with phrases like, "It's serious", or "I need to talk to a specialist now", AI picks up on the tone and escalates it to a human fraud specialist. 

But even the smartest voice AI can only make good decisions with high-quality voice data.

Plivo’s call analytics plays a vital role by identifying audio issues like poor network conditions, background noise, or low call clarity. It correlates audio quality metrics with device metadata and network conditions so that businesses can ensure AI decisions are based on accurate, uninterrupted speech data.

This leads to better fraud detection, sentiment analysis, and overall customer experience.

Text-to-speech (TTS) helps bots sound human-like

While voice recognition AI converts the call into text, text-to-speech (TTS) does the reverse. It converts the AI-generated responses into natural, human-like speech.

TTS gauges intent adapts to different accents, and structures responses naturally. Instead of a robotic reply, it might say, “I understand that an unfamiliar charge is concerning. Let me check that for you.”

For urgent cases, it might say, “Let me transfer this call to our fraud specialist right away.”

Unlike stiff, pre-recorded messages, TTS adapts to each conversation in real-time, making AI-powered voice responses feel more human and helpful.

This brings us to our next question: what are the benefits of voice intelligence?

Benefits of voice intelligence for businesses

Now that we know how voice intelligence works, let’s understand its benefits for businesses.

Scalability: Never leave a customer on hold

Voice intelligence enables businesses to manage customer interactions efficiently, regardless of call volume. AI-powered tools ensure immediate attention for every customer, eliminating long wait times and improving satisfaction.

For example, a retail business may experience a surge in inquiries about shipping, returns, or product availability during the holiday season. Voice intelligence deploys agents to answer common questions like "What is your return policy?" or "When will my order arrive?" for multiple customers at the same time.

For calls requiring human assistance, the AI gathers details such as order numbers or the nature of the issue beforehand, helping representatives resolve concerns more quickly.

What’s more, AI can offer callbacks instead of making customers wait on hold, keeping frustration levels low and satisfaction high.

Reduced costs: Say goodbye to excess customer support hiring

Since AI-powered voice agents handle repetitive inquiries, it reduces the workload for human agents. Businesses don't need to hire extra staff to manage call spikes. Plus, during high call volumes, it absorbs extra demand, keeping customer service intact without additional payroll expenses.

AI-powered voice agents also learn instantly and require no training, further reducing the overhead of onboarding new employees.

Increased customer satisfaction: Make context-aware conversations in multiple languages

Become, a financial technology company, integrated Plivo's Browser SDK to enable high-quality voice calls within their web application. This integration allowed account managers to communicate effectively with customers worldwide, totaling over 6 million minutes of calls, thereby improving customer relationships and operational efficiency.

Voice intelligence, however, isn't just for call centers.

It can enhance learning, customer support, and global communication, even for a language-learning platform. The technology can use voice agents to provide real-time translations and personalized tutoring, translate and simplify complex concepts in their preferred language.

Improved compliance: Save a fortune on penalties

Industries like finance, healthcare, and telecom require call recording and documentation to comply with laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), and General Data Protection Regulation (EU) (GDPR).

A provider like Plivo ensures businesses can automatically record and store calls securely. Its APIs implement custom monitoring and analytics solutions tailored to your compliance needs. So, it helps improve customer experience while ensuring your business complies with the necessary regulations.

Real-world use cases of voice intelligence

Let’s look at how businesses are putting voice intelligence to work, improving customer experiences, and solving everyday challenges.

1. Faster customer support and personalized shopping assistance  

AI-powered voice agents can handle order tracking, refunds, and cancellations without human intervention.

When a customer asks, "Where's my order?", the AI agent fetches real-time tracking updates instantly, reducing wait times and improving customer satisfaction.

With voice AI analytics, businesses can also gain customer insights and offer personalized shopping assistance. Voice agents guide customers through product selections, suggest tailored recommendations, and even complete purchases.

2. Streamline routine financial services

As per a 2024 survey by Bain & Company, financial services firms are experiencing notable productivity gains through AI adoption. For instance, voice intelligence software in financial services can offer instant account information, transaction processing, and personalized financial advice anytime, anywhere to the customers.

It can also become a financial advisor for the customer and recognize trends and patterns to suggest smart investment strategies.

3. Improve patient outcomes

Voice intelligence in healthcare helps providers deliver secure, and HIPAA-compliant interactions to ensure a smoother journey for everyone.

You can easily provide preliminary health assessments, medication reminders, and appointment scheduling with a personalized AI touch.

4. Make customers feel included

For educators and institutions, AI-powered voice solutions reduce the need for multilingual tutors, making education more scalable and cost-effective.

Even better? They can act as personalized tutors, adapting to each student’s learning style, and providing clarifications, explanations, and feedback in real time.

Take the first step toward integrating voice intelligence with Plivo-powered AI voice agents 

Integrating voice intelligence into your communication systems can feel daunting, especially with technical bottlenecks, and the risk of sounding too ‘robotic’. 

However, Plivo-powered AI voice agents make it easy. It lets you integrate any speech-to-text provider, LLM model, and text-to-speech provider of your choice, giving you the flexibility to build natural, high-quality AI voice interactions.

Plus, Plivo delivers on two key pillars of exceptional customer interactions, crystal-clear voice quality and reliability. With 99.99% uptime and high-quality 16kHz audio, it ensures reliable communication across 220+ countries and territories.

Whether you use voice agents to preserve emotions, emphasis, and accents, or to handle mid-speech interruptions, Plivo-powered AI voice agents reduce latency and provide real-time responsiveness.

Since the future of voice intelligence lies in context-aware, emotion-driven interactions, it’s time to switch to a provider that offers all that and more. Contact us to learn how thousands of businesses optimize their workflows without disrupting customer experience with Plivo.

Every day, millions of text messages flash across screens worldwide — appointment confirmations, security codes, and delivery alerts. But how do businesses deliver these messages at scale, instantly, and to any corner of the globe?

The answer lies in an SMS Application Programming Interface (API).

It lets businesses automate and integrate text messaging directly into their apps, websites, or CRM systems; no manual effort or custom-built infrastructure required. 

Need to send 10,000 shipping notifications in seconds? Done. Want to track responses or handle incoming texts automatically? The SMS API handles it all.

In this blog post, we’ll explore how SMS APIs work, why they’re revolutionizing customer communication, and how even non-technical teams can use them to save time, reduce costs, and keep customers engaged. Let’s get started.

SMS API 101

An SMS API is a powerful tool that allows businesses to send and receive SMS messages programmatically. This technology helps businesses add SMS features to their applications, improving customer communication.

What is an SMS API?

An SMS API is a software interface that enables sending and receiving text messages via an SMS gateway.

It connects traditional telecom networks with the internet, allowing developers to use web-based code to communicate directly with carrier networks. This integration makes it simple to incorporate SMS functionality into applications.

With an SMS API, developers can use standard coding methods to handle texts effortlessly. This keeps your business running 24/7, delivering alerts, updates, or info to customers at any time.

How does SMS API work?

An SMS API connects your business software (like apps or websites) to mobile phone networks. It acts like a translator and a messenger.

To use these APIs effectively, it's important to understand how they work and the basic concepts behind SMS. Let’s break it down step by step.

• Your software sends a message request: When your app or website needs to send a text (e.g., a shipping update or login code), it tells the SMS API: “Send this message to this phone number.”
• The API prepares the message: The SMS API takes your request and converts it into a format that mobile networks understand. It handles technical details like country codes, carrier rules, and message formatting.
• The message travels to the recipient: It sends the message to mobile networks, which deliver it to the recipient’s phone. If the person replies, the API sends that reply back to your software.
• Automation and scale: The API handles all the technical steps like checking for errors, confirming deliveries, and retrying failed messages. This lets you send thousands of texts at once without manual effort.

Basic SMS concepts

SMS is a foundational tool for modern communication, but using it effectively requires understanding a few key concepts:

Sender ID

This is the name or number that recipients see when they receive your message. It could be a short code (e.g., “12345”), a long code (a standard phone number), or an alphanumeric ID (e.g., “YourBiz”).

A recognizable sender ID builds trust and ensures recipients know the message is from you.

Latency

Latency refers to the delay between sending a message and its delivery. Lower latency means faster delivery.

For example, providers like Plivo optimize this by maintaining points of presence (PoPs) at major internet exchange hubs across various global regions. These PoPs ensure messages travel through Plivo’s high-speed network within each region, minimizing delays even for cross-region traffic.

This setup keeps round-trip times low, so messages arrive almost instantly.

Messaging throughput

This is the number of messages a system can handle per second. High throughput is critical for businesses sending bulk SMS (e.g., marketing campaigns or alerts).

Reliable providers ensure their infrastructure scales seamlessly to handle spikes in demand without delays.

Delivery status

SMS APIs provide real-time updates on the delivery status of a message, indicating whether it was delivered, failed, or is pending.

For example, you might see “delivered” (success), “undelivered” (carrier issue), or “expired” (message timed out). This helps businesses confirm critical notifications (like transaction alerts) have reached customers.

Message encoding and character limits

SMS messages have specific rules for formatting and length to ensure they work across all devices and networks:

• Standard SMS: Uses Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM-7) encoding, which supports basic text (like letters, numbers, and common symbols). These messages can be up to 160 characters long.
• Unicode SMS: Supports emojis, special characters (e.g., accents, Chinese, or Arabic script), or fonts outside the GSM-7 standard. These messages are shorter and limited to 70 characters.

If a message exceeds these limits, it gets split into multiple parts (e.g., a 162-character text becomes two messages).

While most phones stitch them back together, this can increase costs.

Plivo offers an intelligent message encoding feature that automatically detects subtle Unicode characters that are often overlooked. This feature replaces these with similar GSM-encoded characters, ensuring your message is limited to 160 characters.

This eliminates the need to send multiple messages, making your communication more efficient.

Benefits of SMS API

Using an SMS API offers numerous advantages for businesses looking to enhance their communication strategies. Here are some key benefits:

Capture immediate attention

SMS APIs ensure your messages reach customers instantly, making them one of the most effective communication channels.

A survey shows that 80.5% of consumers check their text notifications within five minutes, meaning your alerts, promotions, and reminders are seen almost immediately. This rapid visibility increases engagement, response rates, and customer interactions.

Unlike emails or push notifications that may go unnoticed, SMS messages create a direct and personal connection with recipients, prompting quicker action.

Automated messaging solutions

SMS APIs let businesses automate routine messages like appointment reminders, payment alerts, and order updates. But the biggest benefit isn’t saving time, it’s making customers happier.

43% of marketers say better customer service is the biggest benefit of automation.

For example, a store could automatically send texts like “Your package is on the way!” or “Your order is ready for pickup!” after a purchase. These quick, helpful updates keep customers informed without anyone on the team having to type a single message.

Two-way conversation

SMS APIs let customers reply directly, turning texts into real conversations.

Take LAZ Parking, for example. It manages over 3,400 parking properties across 38 U.S. states. They needed a seamless way for drivers to pay for parking without downloading an app or standing in line. Here’s how they resolved this problem:

• Drivers text a unique code (posted in the parking lot) to a number leased through Plivo’s SMS API.
• They instantly receive a payment link to complete the transaction on their phones.
• If they’re stuck, replying “HELP” triggers automated support, guiding them through the process.

No maintenance worries

Cloud-based SMS APIs eliminate infrastructure headaches. Providers handle updates, scaling, and security and your team just needs to integrate the API and send messages.

No need to worry about server crashes or compatibility issues. It’s like having a dedicated IT team managing your messaging backbone 24/7.

Cost-effective strategy

Traditional marketing can get costly, and you might not even reach the right customers.

That’s why an SMS API is so useful.

It lets you send fast, affordable messages directly to thousands of people who actually want to hear from you. This makes it a simple way to grow your business and get your updates seen by the right audience.

Global reach with multilingual support

SMS APIs offer businesses the ability to connect with a global audience, transcending geographical boundaries.

Platforms like Plivo offer SMS solutions that send messages to 220+ countries and territories, with tools to adapt content to local languages, customs, and cultural preferences.

For businesses targeting international markets, this feature is crucial. It allows for consistent communication, whether you’re sending promotional offers, service updates, or support messages. Plus, by using an SMS API, companies can ensure their messages are culturally sensitive and localized.

This helps build trust with customers and increase brand loyalty across diverse demographics.

Use cases of SMS API

SMS APIs have a wide range of applications across various industries. Here are some common use cases:

Digital marketing and sales

Text message marketing is a great way for businesses to reach customers directly. It lets companies share sales updates, discounts, and important news straight to their customers’ phones.

A 2023 report on mobile users found that over half of customers (52%) prefer getting updates via text, making it a key part of any business’s marketing plan.

GoCheckin, a tool created by Fastboy Marketing, helps beauty salons send appointment reminders and special deals to their clients. They use Plivo to manage and send large numbers of texts quickly and reliably.

Using text messages instead of an app, Fastboy simplified the process for salons to connect with clients.

Notifications and alerts

Automatic updates and account alerts help keep customers in the loop and strengthen their trust in a business.

Text messages work especially well for sharing fast, dependable updates about purchases, security warnings, or changes to their accounts.

Online stores use texts to update customers at every step of the shipping process.

Take Luxer One, a company based in California that installs secure package lockers for apartments and homes as an example. They use text messages to let residents know when a package arrives.

Before switching to texts, they relied on emails — but many residents didn’t see or check their emails, causing packages to go unclaimed and frustrations to rise.

With text messages, Luxer One now ensures nearly every alert (over 99%) reaches customers, making package pickups smoother and customers happier.

Customer care

SMS APIs enhance customer care by enabling businesses to offer fast, personalized, and efficient support. Customers receive instant responses to their inquiries, leading to quicker resolutions and improved satisfaction.

For example, an e-commerce company can send immediate order confirmations, delivery updates, or troubleshooting guidance via SMS, keeping customers informed at every step.

Additionally, with conversational AI, you can provide instant help 24/7, reducing the burden on your team and allowing them to focus on more complex tasks. This streamlines support operations, strengthens customer relationships, and drives loyalty, all while offering a seamless customer experience.

Two-factor authentication (2FA)

Businesses use SMS services to send 2FA login codes for added security.

When users log in, the system texts a code to their phone to verify their identity. This method is popular because texts arrive quickly and people check them instantly.

Banks, apps, and online shops rely on SMS for this step — it’s simple for users and reduces fraud risks. Some companies pair it with backup options (like email) in case phones aren’t accessible.

Reminders

Sending appointment reminders by text is a simple way to keep customers informed and reduce missed appointments.

Once you connect an SMS service to your current setup, the system automatically sends reminders at the right time. For example, when an appointment is coming up, the service instantly delivers a text to the customer’s phone.

A dental clinic could text patients a day before their visit, helping them remember their appointments and show up on time.

Best practices for implementing SMS API

Implementing an SMS API can significantly enhance your application's communication capabilities. Here are some best practices to ensure a successful SMS API integration:

Set clear objectives

Setting clear objectives is key to successfully using an SMS API. Start by deciding what you want to achieve with your text messages. For example, you might want to keep customers informed, send alerts, or promote your products.

Also, establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure how well your SMS efforts are working and identify areas for improvement.

Prioritize business messaging guidelines

Following business messaging guidelines is crucial for staying compliant and building trust with your audience. Make sure to comply with local laws like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in the U.S. and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe.

It's essential to have a clear opt-in process, so people know they are agreeing to receive your messages.

Moreover, always identify your business in the texts you send. This helps create transparency and trust with your subscribers.

Use API personalization

71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen.

Taking advantage of the personalization features in your SMS API can greatly improve how your audience interacts with your messages. You can customize texts based on user data, preferences, or behaviors, making your messages more relevant.

For instance, if a retail store knows that a customer often buys running shoes, sending a text about a new running shoe launch or a special offer can make the message feel more relevant.

Also, consider A/B testing different personalized messages to find out which ones work best for your audience.

Avoid spamming subscribers with promotions

Sending too many irrelevant marketing messages can drive customers away. In fact, 47% of customers found such texts annoying and 28% stopped using the brand.

This shows how important it is to limit how often you send messages. Instead of just pushing promotions, focus on making each message valuable.

You can offer helpful information, special deals, or important updates. Sharing relevant content also keeps your audience engaged. On top of that, always provide an easy way for subscribers to opt out of messages. This gives them control over what they receive and helps improve their satisfaction.

Monitor and analyze

Monitoring and analyzing your SMS campaigns is important for ongoing success. Use analytics tools to track performance, including delivery rates, open rates, and engagement. 

Encouraging feedback from recipients can help you understand their preferences and improve future messages. Regularly review your SMS strategy based on the data you collect, and make adjustments to optimize your performance.

Experience the benefits of an SMS API with Plivo

When selecting an SMS API for mass communication, it’s important to choose a trusted cloud platform known for reliability, security, and ease of use. Here’s why Plivo stands out as a top choice for businesses:

• Global connectivity: It allows you to send messages to customers all over the world through a network of reliable carriers.
• Advanced features: You can manage sender IDs, use special characters for better readability, and access detailed analytics to optimize your campaigns in real time.
• Seamless integration: Plivo’s SMS API works well with popular tools like Zapier, making your workflows simpler.
• High reliability: The platform is built on a strong infrastructure capable of handling large message volumes. With fault-tolerant systems and high availability, it guarantees a 99.99% uptime for all global connections.
• Competitive pricing: You only pay for what you use. Plivo offers volume discounts for regular usage, helping you save more as your messaging needs grow.
• 24/7 customer support: Plivo provides various support plans to fit any organization's needs, from a free basic plan to a premium plan with 24/7 support.

Ready to streamline your communication? Contact us today to learn how Plivo can elevate your business messaging!

We use our voice to search, command, and communicate with our devices every day. But how do they actually understand us?

The answer lies in voice recognition technology. This powerful tool allows us to interact with machines using our voices, making our lives easier and more convenient.

In fact, 61% of Americans now use voice search on their smartphones, showcasing its growing importance.

But what is voice recognition?

This blog post answers exactly that. Let’s explore how it's changing the way we interact with the world around us.

What is voice recognition?

Simply put, voice recognition refers to technology that converts spoken words into actions or text. It’s designed to handle everything from simple commands to complex instructions.

These systems often have a console or web-based interface where users can log in, give voice commands, and perform tasks without needing to type.

Take airports, banks, and hospitals, for example. Many rely on voice recognition for robotic assistance to improve operations. Popular voice assistants like Siri, Cortana, Alexa, and Google Home are further proof of how integrated this technology has become in everyday life.

How does voice recognition work?

Voice recognition works by capturing the sounds we make and translating them into a digital format that computers can understand.

Think of it like this: as you speak, a microphone picks up your voice and passes it through an analog-to-digital converter. This process turns the audio into digital signals, which are then analyzed for key features like vocabulary, phonetics, and syllables.

The system stores these features in its memory and continuously makes them available for comparison when you speak.

The system relies on a large digital database stored in your computer’s RAM, which helps speed up the process. When you speak, the system matches your words with those stored in the database and quickly displays them as text on the screen.

Core components and key technologies

To further understand how voice recognition works, it’s important to break down the core technologies and components that make it possible.

Listed below are the key components that convert spoken language into text or actions for accurate, natural interactions:

Automatic speech recognition (ASR)

ASR is the backbone of voice recognition. It captures and converts spoken language into text by analyzing audio wave patterns and matching them to phonetic components in a database.

Plivo’s ASR further simplifies building voice applications. It offers real-time transcription and acts on partial results as the customer speaks. Additionally, it supports 27 languages and improves accuracy with speech hints for unusual words.

Plivo also provides prebuilt models for quick setup and a profanity filter to keep transcriptions clean. It can detect both speech and keypad inputs at the same time.

Natural language processing (NLP)

Once speech has been transcribed, NLP interprets the meaning behind the words. It helps the system understand context, grammar, and intent, ensuring accurate responses even when dealing with complex language.

Text-to-speech (TTS)

TTS converts text into spoken language, enabling systems to respond with natural, human-like voices. This makes voice assistants more engaging and easier to interact with.

Acoustic modeling

Acoustic modeling focuses on the sound of speech, capturing how different phonemes are produced in various environments. It ensures the system can accurately interpret speech, even in noisy or challenging conditions.

Language modeling

Language modeling predicts the most likely word sequences based on context, improving accuracy and reducing ambiguity. This way, the system can choose the right words, especially when multiple options are possible.

Applications of voice recognition

Voice recognition isn’t just for personal use. It’s also changing the way businesses work. As the technology keeps improving, it's having a big impact in many areas, including:

Personal assistants and smart devices

Personal assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are voice-activated tools that help with everyday tasks. You can ask them to answer questions, control your home, set reminders, and more — just by speaking.

For instance, when an individual asked Google Assistant about the weather in New York City, it provided a detailed forecast for the day.

Enterprises

Voice technology is changing the way businesses operate. 

Take customer support, for example. Interactive voice response (IVR), when used with voice recognition systems, can help route calls to the right departments, saving time and reducing the need for human intervention.

Plivo makes this even better with its Smart IVR. It uses artificial intelligence (AI), contextual awareness, and data to create more personalized caller experiences.

Plus, the system upgrades your traditional IVR with AI voice agents and advanced audio streaming. This leads to faster interactions, less agent burnout, and happier customers while improving operational efficiency.

What's more, voice recognition can easily integrate with customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms. This makes it simpler for teams to stay on top of tasks without switching between multiple systems.

Specialized industries

When a customer calls you, they want to feel heard and appreciated. A voice assistant makes this possible. It focuses on the customer, improving their experience and bringing benefits to your business.

Here are a few examples of different industries to show how it works:

E-commerce

61% of consumers prefer fast replies from AI over waiting for a human representative. This highlights the need for quick and 24/7 customer support. Unlike human agents, voice assistants never clock out.

For example, in an e-commerce setting, a voice assistant can instantly respond to queries like “Where’s my order?” or “What’s your return policy?” without placing the customer on hold.

It can also guide users through troubleshooting steps or help them modify an order, all through simple voice interactions.

AI’s constant availability reduces waiting times and keeps customers happy. At the same time, it frees up human agents to focus on more complex issues.

Healthcare

About 50% of Americans don’t follow their prescriptions as advised. This issue leads to 125,000 preventable deaths, 33% to 69% of hospitalizations, and half of all treatment failures in the U.S.

Voice assistants help address this problem. Patients, especially older adults, can use these tools to set reminders for taking medications on time. This simple solution ensures they don’t miss doses.

AI-powered voice assistants also make healthcare more accessible. Patients can book doctor appointments just by speaking to a voice assistant.

                                                                                                                                     Source

They can even upload medical reports without visiting a clinic or dealing with complicated forms. This makes it easier to share information with doctors, get accurate advice, and lower the chances of readmission.

Education

Voice assistants take language learning beyond traditional classrooms with real-time translations and interactive lessons. They help users practice pronunciation, engage in conversations, and learn vocabulary in a natural setting.

For example, you can ask Google Assistant “How do I ask for directions in Spanish?”

Upon understanding your query, it’ll share translations and contextual usage tips, creating a personalized learning experience anywhere, anytime.

Banking

In banking and finance, voice assistants automate routine tasks, saving time for both customers and employees. They provide instant updates on account balances, process transactions, and even offer tailored financial advice.

For instance, a banking app with voice integration might allow users to say, “Locate a nearby ATM,” or “Block my card.”

Customers are also better equipped to manage their finances without reading confusing menus or visiting a physical branch.

Benefits of voice recognition

Voice recognition technology has evolved rapidly, offering businesses new ways to operate efficiently and connect with customers. Here are some of the key benefits:

Accessibility

Voice recognition makes technology more inclusive. For individuals with disabilities, it provides a way to interact with devices without relying on touch or sight.

Someone with limited mobility may use voice commands to control smart home devices or write messages hands-free. Additionally, speaking is often faster than typing. This allows users to input information more effectively.

Productivity and efficiency

The average employee spends around 60% of their time on “work about work.” This includes tasks like searching for files, managing emails, attending unnecessary meetings, and following up with colleagues. Voice recognition can help reduce this wasted time by automating routine tasks.

For example, employees can use voice commands to quickly pull up documents, schedule meetings, or send follow-ups without interrupting their workflow.

Cutting down on administrative tasks provides employees with more time to focus on meaningful, skill-based work that drives growth.

Security

Voice recognition provides an added layer of security and customization. With voice biometrics, businesses can securely verify users, reducing the risk of fraud. For instance, financial institutions can use voice authentication to confirm customer identities over the phone.

Even better, personalized voice commands let businesses tailor services, such as allowing frequent customers to reorder with a simple command, enhancing convenience and loyalty.

Better customer experience

Voice recognition simplifies how customers interact with businesses.

Automated voice systems can answer questions like, “What’s the status of my order?” or “Can I update my address?” This saves customers time and makes the process more convenient.

Meanwhile, human agents are free to handle more complicated requests, improving overall service quality.

Challenges and ethical considerations

Voice recognition technology offers exciting possibilities, but it comes with challenges and ethical issues that businesses must address. Some of these are:

Accuracy concerns

“Sorry, can you say that again?”

You’ve probably heard this from your voice assistant more times than you’d like. Or worse, it just goes silent after failing to understand you.

Voice recognition has been around since the 1950s, but one issue has stuck with it over the years — accuracy.

It’s no surprise that 73% of businesses cite poor accuracy as the main reason they avoid using voice technology. This challenge has pushed companies to focus on improving AI algorithms that can better process and understand voice inputs.

Data privacy

Many people are unsure about trusting voice technology with sensitive tasks, like handling personal information or payments. They want to control their data and understand how others use it.

A report from PwC shows that lack of trust is one of the top reasons people avoid voice technology. While over half of users make small purchases through voice assistants, they rarely use it for anything more significant. These concerns make it harder for businesses to adopt speech recognition.

If users don’t feel secure, they may hesitate to use the technology.

User bias

Bias in training datasets can lead to unfair outcomes, such as systems that work better for certain groups of people than others.

To build trust, businesses need to be clear about how they use voice recognition. 

This includes being upfront about data collection and obtaining user permissions in an honest way. Transparency and fairness should always be priorities when adopting this technology.

Future trends in voice recognition

Voice recognition technology has made huge strides over the years. From the early days when systems could only recognize a few numbers to today's more advanced solutions, it has become a key part of many industries.

But as impressive as the progress has been, there's still a lot to look forward to. Here are some of the exciting advancements to expect in the near future:

Improved accuracy and understanding

Voice recognition systems are already quite good, but they still have room for improvement. The technology struggles with accents, complex sentences, or words that sound the same but mean different things.

In the future, we can expect these systems to get much better at understanding different ways people speak. With the help of AI and deep learning, voice recognition will be able to pick up on speech patterns, understand different pronunciations, and even recognize emotions in voice.

Better context awareness

In the next decade, voice assistants are likely to become better at understanding the context of a conversation. This means that if you're talking about a movie, your assistant might suggest similar movies or showtimes nearby, even if you don’t ask.

Improved privacy and security

As voice recognition becomes more common, keeping our data safe will become even more important. Future voice systems will likely use advanced biometric features, which means they can not only understand what you’re saying but also recognize who’s speaking.

This could lead to a more secure way of protecting your data.

Universal accessibility

Voice recognition is already helping people with disabilities, but there’s even more to come. As the technology grows, we’ll see devices that can translate sign language into spoken words or read printed text aloud with more natural-sounding voices.

Individuals with mobility issues will also benefit from better voice-activated controls, allowing them to manage their environment without needing to use their hands.

Experience the power of voice recognition with Plivo

Plivo-powered AI Voice Agents are changing how businesses work. These voice assistants can handle tasks like setting appointments, sending reminders, and offering personalized advice, all using your preferred knowledge base.

With AI shopping assistance, you can boost sales, and with real-time translations, you can break down language barriers in education. Plus, your customer support can run smoothly 24/7 with no issues.

For customers, this means they can get things done easily with just a voice command. They can check their order status, update accounts, or solve problems without even touching a screen.

Once they share their information, the system keeps it safe and uses it across different support channels, so they don’t have to repeat themselves. Plivo makes communication easier by letting customers speak in their language and getting answers instantly, anytime.

Contact us today to see how Plivo can improve your business and customer experience.

The American Journal of Managed Care states that clinic wait times affect overall patient satisfaction and influence perceptions of healthcare providers. In 2023 alone, over 382 million health records were compromised — 1.2 times the U.S. population.

For healthcare providers, the message is clear: effective communication and tight compliance are key. Communication gaps can result in missed appointments, no-shows, data breaches, and delayed patient care.

That’s where healthcare interactive voice response (IVR) systems come in. They streamline patient workflows and help you focus solely on providing quality patient care.

But how do you know if your facility will benefit from IVR?

In this blog post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about healthcare IVR and its benefits so that you can discern whether it’s the right fit for your facility.

What is IVR in healthcare?

IVR in healthcare automates communication between providers and patients. Through an IVR, patients can navigate options, schedule appointments, and even get answers to common questions, without needing to talk to a live agent.

Simply put, an IVR for hospitals is a virtual receptionist that works 24/7 without getting overwhelmed.

What may happen when a healthcare facility doesn’t use an IVR system? Well, consider these:

• Legal penalties and data breaches can cost your facility millions annually.
• Your staff may get overwhelmed by calls, becoming more likely to make mistakes. This also leads to frustrated patients and increased liability.
• Repetitive, time-consuming tasks like scheduling appointments and sending patient reminders drain morale, causing high turnover rates and additional hiring costs.
• Long wait times and poor communication drive patients away, damaging your facility’s reputation and revenue.

Healthcare IVR systems simplify workflows, reduce such errors, and improve patient experience by streamlining communication.

Benefits of using IVR in Healthcare

All patient and provider workflows can work without an IVR, but they significantly become more efficient with one in place. Plus, IVR benefits in healthcare extend beyond patients, they’re just as valuable for healthcare providers.

Let’s understand the benefits of healthcare IVR solutions for your facility.

For patients

24/7 accessibility to information and services

The last thing any healthcare facility wants is for patients to feel stranded during emergencies or delayed care. IVR ensures that doesn’t happen. 

With automated, pre-recorded responses, patients can get their queries resolved and schedule appointments, even outside facility hours.

Patients don't need to wait long to connect to a nurse or admin staff for simple, non-urgent tasks. For instance, they can access critical information like clinic hours, lab results, or prescription refills, whenever they need it.

When patients feel heard, it automatically decreases the number of no-shows or patients going to other, more accessible facilities.

Faster appointment booking and issue resolution

When patients are able to book appointments at their convenience without waiting for clinic hours, their trust in the healthcare provider increases. In addition, it reduces frustration from limited clinic hours or long hold times on the phone, leading to higher satisfaction.

If the requested time slot isn't available or the patient needs to cancel their appointment, the IVR can offer alternatives and cancel the appointment by prompting patients to enter the reason.

The added benefit is that it frees up your administrative staff to focus on patient care.

Improved privacy during sensitive communications

Patients can securely input sensitive information like their date of birth, medical conditions, insurance details, etc. with voice prompts. It makes patients feel safer than sharing such information in an environment with a staff with the possibility of someone overhearing it or misusing it.

For added protection, IVR systems can also authenticate callers with secure methods like PINs, passwords, or date of birth before granting access to personal health information (PHI) so that only authorized individuals can access sensitive data.

Providers like Plivo go a step further by offering compliance with national and global privacy and security regulations including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the second of three System and Organization Controls (SOC 2), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), and General Data Protection Regulation (EU) (GDPR). This reassures patients their data is safe with your facility.

For providers

Increased security and compliance

Along with safeguarding patient trust, IVR systems also shield healthcare facilities from costly lawsuits and fines due to data breaches.

HIPAA violations can cost up to $50,000 per incident, with a maximum annual penalty of $1.5 million for repeated violations. Hence, having HIPAA-compliant IVR systems becomes key. They securely handle patient information, whether collecting payment details or routing sensitive calls, and minimize the risk of data breaches.

Moreover, during IVR feedback collection, patients can use harsh language to express their frustration. However, Plivo’s automatic speech recognition (ASR) feature uses a profanity filter to ensure the transcription excludes offensive terms. This helps maintain a professional and neutral tone in records and protects your staff from unnecessary negativity.

Reduced errors in patient interactions

More than 200,000 annual patient deaths in the United States occur due to preventable medical errors. While these include severe surgical mistakes, they also often stem from errors like miscommunication, double booking, or delays in follow-up care.

With automated patient communication, IVR eliminates such issues.

It takes care of missed or delayed follow-ups with specialists, incorrect patient records due to manual errors, overlooked warning signs due to gaps in follow-up care, etc. Automating such critical communication touchpoints reduces recurring errors and medical errors.

Reduced staff workload and operational costs

No-shows hit where it hurts: revenue. While cancellation fees might offset some of the losses, they don’t eliminate the financial strain on your facility.

IVR appointment booking, patient reminders via IVR, and confirmations can reduce no-show rates by up to 30% in outpatient clinics.

For busy clinics, this means significant cost savings annually. Plus, fewer calls about basic tasks like appointment scheduling or follow-up reminders mean less workload for staff, reducing burnout and improving productivity.

Improved patient satisfaction scores

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) provides a standardized way to access the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) score. It helps hospitals and governing bodies evaluate patient satisfaction through quantitative measurement.

How do IVR systems help?

Well, they improve these scores by automating patient satisfaction surveys. Patients can easily share feedback about their experience, from communication and staff responsiveness to wait times. This data helps hospitals or clinics identify and address problem areas.

As per the program, facilities with higher HCAHPS scores earn higher reimbursements. So happier patients can directly boost your facility’s bottom line.

Real-life Use Cases of IVR in Healthcare

From scheduling appointments to getting patients’ prescriptions, IVR for hospitals can make many workflows efficient. Let’s look at how you can benefit from implementing IVR systems in your facility with the highlighted use cases.

Preliminary health assessments

A healthcare provider needs to assess the health of each patient before consulting them or referring them to a specialist. Doing so in person can be inefficient, with nurses potentially asking inconsistent questions or overlooking crucial information, increasing the risk of errors.

IVR systems support preliminary health assessments with voice or keypad prompts to collect necessary information from patients before speaking to their healthcare provider. This saves time when dealing with urgent cases.

For instance, if you use Plivo-powered AI voice agents, it can identify high-priority cases immediately based on patient responses. The system can route the call to a nurse or schedule an immediate appointment.

Multilingual support

With over 49.6 million people in the U.S. speaking a language other than English, language barriers quickly become a hindrance to providing quality care.

To make healthcare more accessible, healthcare providers use IVR systems with multilingual support. When calling a provider, patients can select their language using a keypad or voice command. This reduces miscommunication and missed appointments due to patients being unable to navigate the system in their preferred language.

Appointment booking

It now takes an average of 26 days to schedule a new patient physician appointment in 15 of the largest cities in the United States. Naturally, a busy clinic receiving over 100 appointment requests a day will struggle to manage scheduling.

You can implement an appointment scheduling IVR script to take care of the scheduling workflow:

• The IVR greets the caller and asks them to select a service or department.
• The patient inputs their preferred date and time (via text or speaking it aloud).
• The system checks the clinic's scheduling system in real-time and confirms the slot, or offers alternative slots.
• Finally, the IVR sends confirmation through the patient's provided contact details.

Patient medication reminders and lab results

Typically, nurses or administrative staff manually sift through patients' medical files to identify who needs medication reminders and who has pending lab results. They spend hours attempting to reach patients and document the responses received.

However, an IVR menu automatically identifies patients requiring medication and those with new lab results. It also places calls at pre-scheduled times and confirms whether patients have taken medications or if they have any issues to report.

Healthcare providers now only have to review the flagged cases that require urgent attention.

It’s also convenient to automate post-care calls and messages or direct incoming callers to the provider via IVR menus.

Pro Tip: Opt for an IVR provider that supports both dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) and voice input for greater accessibility and ease of use.

Prescription refill requests

Patients can call anytime for prescription refill requests. Here’s what the process would look like:

• Patients call the clinic or pharmacy and input their prescription details via keypad or voice.
• The system automatically routes the request to the appropriate pharmacy or alerts the doctor for approval.
• Once approved, the patient receives a notification via text or email with the refill status and pick-up details.

Billing and payment-related inquiries

Map out the flow focusing on common billing-related inquiries and admin tasks like:

• Checking account balance
• Making a payment
• Insurance-related questions or coverage verification
• Check claim status
• Get financial assistance
• Receive personalized support in cases of disputes

If the query requires further assistance, like disputing a charge, the IVR routes the call to the billing department. Automating routine billing inquiries enables administrative staff to focus on resolving complex issues, while patients gain 24/7 access and faster resolution.

For more comprehensive guidance on implementing IVR solutions, go through this guide.

Integrate Plivo’s VoIP into your communication system to build a smart IVR

A system that streamlines everything from basic tasks like scheduling appointments to more complex needs, such as language support and speech recognition, can really help your facility run more efficiently. However, digitizing workflows should never mean compromising patient data security.

Plivo is one such provider. It offers sophisticated speed recognition across 27 languages and their regional variants for natural conversational flows without conventional keypad inputs.

In case you want just a basic text-based system, it lets you create a multi-level IVR. You can even use Plivo's ready-to-use templates for different levels of patient interactions.

Additionally, Plivo’s voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solution redacts patient messages to ensure sensitive information stays secure.

As noted by the Director of Enterprise Data, Women’s Health Clinic: 

Plivo also provides custom hint word optimization to better recognize proper nouns, homophones, and industry-specific terms. So implementing healthcare industry jargon like “referral”, “medication dosage”, etc. in the IVR system results in more accurate conversations.

Whether you're new to IVR or looking to upgrade your existing system, Plivo makes it easy to integrate advanced communication features into your healthcare workflows. Contact us to get started.

Verification is more crucial than ever, as almost 90% of businesses experience revenue losses up to 9% due to fraud, and consumers face a staggering $10 billion in losses.

For organizations expanding their digital presence, this alarming statistic underscores a crucial reality: safeguarding customer data is no longer optional—it's essential.

One of the most effective ways businesses can protect their users and themselves is through mobile phone verification. This simple yet powerful process ensures that only authorized individuals can access sensitive systems, preventing fraud, securing transactions, and building customer trust.

In this blog, we’ll explore the mechanics of mobile verification, its benefits, and why it’s an indispensable tool for modern businesses looking to thrive in an increasingly digitized and vulnerable world.

What exactly is mobile phone verification?

Mobile phone verification is the process of validating the authenticity of a user by confirming their ownership of a provided mobile phone number. This method stands out from other forms of verification, such as email or social media logins, due to its combination of higher security and global accessibility. Unlike email verification, which can be compromised through phishing or social logins that require specific platforms, mobile verification leverages the ubiquity of mobile phones to offer a robust and straightforward solution.

At its core, mobile verification works by sending a one-time passcode (OTP) to the user via SMS or voice call. The user enters this code to complete actions such as signing up for an account, resetting a password, or authorizing a transaction. This ensures that only individuals with access to the verified phone number can proceed, adding an essential layer of protection.

To cater to diverse security needs and user preferences, businesses can choose from various phone verification techniques. Each method offers unique advantages, enabling organizations to balance security, user experience, and operational goals. Let’s explore some of the most common approaches:

1. One-time passcodes (OTPs)

One-time passcodes (OTPs) are one of the most widely adopted methods for verifying mobile numbers. Their popularity stems from their simplicity, speed, and effectiveness in ensuring secure user authentication. Here’s how the process works:

• A user initiates an action, such as registration, login, or transaction.
• The system generates a unique, time-sensitive code and sends it to the user via SMS, voice call, or messaging platforms like WhatsApp.
• The user inputs the code to validate their identity and complete the action.

Why time-sensitivity matters: OTPs typically expire within a few minutes, adding a layer of security by limiting the window for potential misuse. Even if intercepted, an expired OTP is useless to attackers, making it a reliable option for quick, one-time validations.

2. SIM-based verification

SIM-based verification validates a user’s phone number by directly authenticating the SIM card associated with that number. Unlike OTPs, which rely on messages sent over the network, SIM-based verification works at the carrier level, making it inherently more secure and resistant to spoofing.

How it works:

• The system interacts with mobile carriers to authenticate the SIM card associated with a specific phone number.
• This method ensures that only the person in possession of the authorized SIM card can complete the verification process.

Why it’s effective:
SIM-based verification is highly reliable for high-security environments, such as financial institutions and government services. Leveraging carrier-level authentication significantly reduces the risk of phishing attacks or message interception.

3. Silent authentication

Silent authentication verifies a user’s phone number in the background, eliminating the need for manual input of codes. By leveraging carrier-level data or background API calls, it offers a frictionless user experience while maintaining robust security.

How it works:

1. The system detects and verifies the user’s phone number in the background, often through the mobile carrier or pre-installed apps on the device.
2. The user’s number is matched to the registered account without requiring them to enter a one-time passcode (OTP) manually.
3. This method ensures real-time verification with minimal user effort, enhancing convenience and reducing friction.

Key advantages:

• Frictionless experience: Users are verified seamlessly without needing to perform extra steps, which is especially valuable for apps prioritizing speed and convenience.
• Real-time validation: Ensures immediate verification, making it ideal for time-sensitive processes like transactions or app onboarding.
• Reduced errors: Eliminates the possibility of users mistyping codes, improving accuracy and reducing support queries.

4. Risk assessments and ongoing verification

Phone verification is not a one-time action but an evolving process that ensures continuous security throughout the customer lifecycle. Businesses can leverage phone number data and advanced analytics to proactively detect risks and mitigate fraud.

How it works:

1. Monitoring changes in phone status:
   Businesses can track when a number is ported, deactivated, or flagged for fraudulent activity. For instance, a newly ported number might indicate potential SIM swap fraud, prompting additional verification steps.
2. Fraud detection through behavioural analysis:
   By analyzing phone activity patterns, such as unusual login attempts or changes in geographic location, businesses can identify suspicious behaviour and take preventive action.
3. Lifecycle risk evaluation:
   Periodic re-verification of phone numbers ensures account integrity, especially during critical stages like account recovery, payment updates, or high-value transactions.

Why is mobile phone verification essential for businesses?

As digital interactions grow, businesses must prioritize security to protect their users and maintain trust. Mobile verification addresses key challenges, offering benefits that go beyond basic protection. Here’s why it’s indispensable:

1. Prevent fraud and malicious activities
   Fraud affects nearly 90% of businesses, leading to significant revenue losses. Mobile verification helps block fake registrations, prevent account takeovers, and authenticate high-value transactions. For example, a financial institution can use SMS-based OTPs to confirm withdrawals, safeguarding users from unauthorized access.
2. Build trust and loyalty
   Customers are more likely to engage with platforms that prioritize their security. Mobile verification shows your commitment to protecting sensitive data fostering trust and long-term loyalty. Businesses in e-commerce, for instance, can use phone verification during checkout to reassure users their transactions are secure.
3. Simplify regulatory compliance
   Industries like healthcare and finance must adhere to strict identity verification regulations, such as GDPR or HIPAA. Mobile verification ensures compliance with minimal effort, streamlining processes like patient onboarding or payment authentication.
4. Enhance data quality and accuracy
   Verifying phone numbers ensures you’re communicating with real, reachable users. This improves the effectiveness of SMS notifications, marketing campaigns, and customer support efforts. For instance, a logistics company can reduce failed delivery updates by ensuring that only verified numbers are used.
5. Reduce costs and manual intervention
   Automated phone verification minimizes the need for manual checks, saving time and operational costs. Businesses with large user bases, such as subscription platforms, benefit from the efficiency and scalability of automated solutions.

Where does mobile phone verification add value to the customer lifecycle?

Mobile phone verification is a versatile tool that enhances security and streamlines interactions across every stage of the customer journey. Here’s how it adds value:

• Seamless account creation
  During registration, phone verification ensures that only genuine users can create accounts. By blocking bots and fake profiles, businesses can maintain a secure platform. 
• Secure profile updates
  Sensitive updates, such as changing payment details or linked email addresses, require additional security layers. Phone verification prevents unauthorized changes and reassures users that their information is protected. 
• Simplified password resets
  Losing access to an account can be stressful, but phone verification simplifies the recovery process. Users receive OTPs to reset their passwords securely, ensuring only authorized individuals can regain access. 
• Transaction authentication
  High-value transactions demand robust security. Mobile verification adds an extra layer of protection, reducing the risk of fraud. 
• Boosting re-engagement efforts
  Dormant accounts can be reactivated securely using mobile verification. Before resuming activity, users verify their phone numbers, ensuring they are legitimate account holders. 
• Personalized onboarding journeys
  Phone verification can help tailor the onboarding process to individual users, providing a secure and personalized experience. 
• Real-time fraud alerts
  Businesses can leverage phone verification to alert users of suspicious activities, such as login attempts from unrecognized devices or locations. This proactive approach enhances trust and user confidence.

What are the limitations of mobile phone verification, and how can you address them?

While mobile phone verification offers robust security, it comes with challenges that businesses must address to ensure reliability and user trust. Let’s explore the common limitations and practical solutions:

1. SIM-swap fraud
   Cybercriminals can exploit vulnerabilities by transferring a user’s phone number to another SIM card, bypassing phone-based authentication.
   Solution:
   
   • Combine phone verification with additional security measures like device fingerprinting or behavioural analytics to detect anomalies.
   • Use adaptive multi-factor authentication (AMFA) to trigger additional checks for suspicious activities, such as logins from unknown devices or locations.
2. Message delivery issues
   Poor network connectivity, carrier restrictions, or outdated contact information can result in failed OTP deliveries, disrupting the user experience.
   Solution:
   
   • Partner with a platform like Plivo, which ensures high delivery rates through intelligent routing and fallback mechanisms (e.g., switching from SMS to voice for failed OTPs).
   • Regularly verify and update user contact information to minimize delivery errors.
3. Time-sensitive OTPs
   OTPs are often time-limited, meaning delays in delivery or user action can prevent successful verification.
   Solution:
   
   • Optimize OTP expiration windows to accommodate potential delays while maintaining security.
   • Leverage Plivo’s real-time delivery tracking tools to identify and address bottlenecks quickly.
4. Privacy concerns
   Some users may hesitate to share their phone numbers due to fears of spam or misuse.
   Solution:
   
   • Implement clear and transparent privacy policies that outline how phone numbers are stored, used, and protected.
   • Assure users of data encryption and compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA to build trust.
5. Regulatory compliance challenges
   Operating across multiple regions may expose businesses to varying compliance requirements, such as TCPA in the US or GDPR in the EU.
   Solution:
   
   • Choose a platform with built-in compliance features to ensure adherence to local regulations. For example, Plivo supports global compliance through localized number formatting and privacy-first practices.
6. Accessibility in remote areas
   In regions with poor network infrastructure, OTP delivery via SMS or voice may face delays or failures.
   Solution:
   
   • Use fallback options like email-based verification or app-based authenticators in areas where SMS delivery is unreliable.
   • Test your solution in target regions to ensure robust coverage.

By proactively addressing these challenges, businesses can maximize the effectiveness of mobile phone verification while delivering a seamless user experience.

How can businesses implement phone verification effectively?

To successfully implement mobile verification, businesses need a solution that is both reliable and scalable. Platforms like Plivo’s SMS API offer a seamless way to integrate verification processes into your applications. Here’s how Plivo makes it effortless:

• Global Reach: Send OTPs via SMS or voice calls across 220+ countries, ensuring your users can be verified no matter where they are.
• Intelligent Routing: Plivo’s advanced routing algorithms ensure optimal message delivery every time.
• Compliance & Privacy: Built-in features to meet regulatory requirements and protect sensitive user data.

Whether it’s securing user accounts, authenticating transactions, or sending critical alerts and notifications, Plivo’s SMS API provides all the tools to scale your verification efforts. Additionally, with support for multiple character sets, including emojis and non-Latin languages, you can engage users securely and reliably across the globe.

Take the next step toward secure and seamless user verification. Explore how Plivo’s SMS API can enhance your platform’s security and user engagement strategies. Get started today!