Twilio

General usage

Modern consumers want to interact with applications when and how it suits them. That has necessitated an omnichannel approach to user communication. Twilio provides the building blocks to integrate multiple communication channels into applications, supporting a myriad of use cases.

Channels include:

Messaging (SMS, WhatsApp, and Chat), Voice, Video, and Email.

Use cases include:

Notifications (e.g. order confirmations and shipping status), multi-party conversations (e.g. customer service chatbots), real-time video applications (e.g. video conferencing or video chat for health services, recruitment and education apps), marketing campaigns, user verification (e.g. one-time passwords for logins), and cloud-based customer service centers.

Why is Twilio so popular among high-profile applications as well as startups?

• It’s cost-effective and scalable. You only pay for what you use and volume discounts are available for fast-growing companies.
• It supports multi-channel messaging. Users can effortlessly move from SMS to chat to WhatsApp to voice. All messaging includes media support for gifs, static images and audio files, while chatbots can utilise online/offline status, push notifications, message history, and deferred messaging.
• It offers worldwide connectivity, with messaging services available in more than 180 countries.
• It enables flexible integration of communication tools into any stage of the user journey.
• You can automate messaging functions such as user verification and marketing campaigns. These can then be monitored using its web service APIs.
• Twilio is extremely reliable and deliverable. Aside from a 99.99% API uptime, it uses Phone Number Lookup, intelligent route selection, and message status tracking (pending, sent, delivered, failed or undelivered) to achieve close to 100% delivery rates. Details are given when messages fail or are undelivered, which makes it easier to fix issues.

Popularity

According to Stackshare, Twilio, founded in 2008, is by far the most popular voice and text solution.

Marketplace benefits

Keeping customers updated about the status of their transactions makes for a more engaging user experience. CobbleWeb has used Twilio to build SMS and WhatsApp messaging systems that do exactly that for our clients. Parking space booking platform, MobyPark, for instance, uses Twilio to send SMSes that remind car owners that their bookings are about to expire. We’ve also used Twilio-powered SMSes to verify the mobile numbers added to user profiles.

Airbnb used Twilio to drive better response times to booking requests. If a host hasn’t replied to a request within 32 hours, an automated SMS message with the details is sent to the host’s phone. The host can then text back to confirm or decline the request. Adding a mobile follow-up has increased the number of successful bookings.