Call API: Connect External Systems for Automated Real-time Interactions

Today customers expect a real-time communication experience when they talk to brands. To meet this demand, you need to be able to fully automate and personalize messages to build engaging communication journeys with your customers through multiple touchpoints.

By using omnichannel messaging and combining the powers and strengths of different channels, you will get better campaign results, keep your customers engaged, and deliver rich customer experience.

This is why we are bringing yet another powerful solution to enable you to connect different external systems to our platform – helping you easily get data and deliver information to your customers instantly.

Our customer engagement solutions now come with new functionality – the Call API in the Flow (you can think of it as a webhook) which brings real-time interaction between an external system such as a website or a CRM and the Flow in real-time. Use it to update CRM or to steer communication steps depending on the collected data, for example, allow your customers to check their loyalty points or package delivery status.

Let’s quickly recap what exactly the Flow is, in case you still haven’t created one. Flow is a powerful and easy to use drag and drop interface, which allows you to build omnichannel two-way communication flows. It requires no coding skills – using the drag and drop functionalities, you can quickly combine channels, create conditional “if-then” scenarios, and even use a failover option to ensure message delivery.

Why should you use Flow? To save time and automate communication steps, improve customer experience, increase engagement, and track results at every step. It lets you create compelling communications to follow your customers through each step of their journey. Click the image below to see an example of a flow.

Real-time interaction between systems for efficient automation

The new Call API comes as an additional step in the Flow which allows you to get information instantly as users expect real-time experience, it helps you provide requested information automatically and quickly by connecting your external systems with the Infobip platform. Save responses to temporary custom Flow variables to personalize and steer communication in the Flow, depending on the collected data.

While creating a Flow, you can choose between different channels such as SMS, voice, email, mobile app messaging (push), or chat apps – use multiple channels for maximum engagement.

You can use Call API to only send the data (one-way) to a third-party system outside the Infobip platform or to request data (two-way) needed for your communication steps.

Let’s go through a few use cases and see how to take advantage of both options in your communications.

Inform your customers about loyalty program status

Marketing and loyalty program managers must work closely together to develop an effective program to keep their loyal customers happy and to turn them into brand advocates who gladly recommend products and services to their friends and colleagues. According to research by Nielsen, nearly 72% agree that all other factors equal, they will buy from a retailer with a loyalty program over one without.

Easily create a Flow that will allow customers to check their loyalty status (points or level), send a request to your system and get info to send a personalized message and reply with the requested information. You can also automatically send a follow-up conditional message, offering them a discount on their next purchase or emphasizing certain benefits for loyal customers depending on their loyalty program status.

Building blocks – what’s behind the conversation the customer sees? Click the image below to see:

Click the image below to see what the customers see and what is happening in the background:

Improve security – create inbound IVR Flow including PIN authorizations

Improve customer security and simplify the authorization process for your call center using an inbound IVR Flow and Call API, and then transferring the call to an agent. You can easily create an authorization step even before your customer reaches an agent, check customer’s ID (for example PIN) before speaking to an agent or getting the requested info such as account status.

Automatically update your CRM data

Call API can also help you do the simple yet useful CRM updates, such as asking customers if they recently changed their address. Call API will send information to your CRM and update customer profile automatically. Another option is to ask if they are interested in a new service or a product you offer, such as new insurance or loan options – API will allow sending and saving their response in CRM, you can then instruct your agents to call the customers interested in your service.

Allow opt-outs and stay compliant with personal data regulations

Easily update your system if a person wants to opt-out to stay compliant with personal data regulations such as GDPR. You can easily add those people to a Blacklist in our platform as well as inform your external system about opt-out’s, and have the latest info in all of your systems.

Provide the best customer experience and engage your customers using different channels in Flow

Using different communication channels and multiple steps in your automated flows, you are getting a higher chance of reaching your customers, keeping subscribers engaged, and converting your leads to clients. On top of that, now, you can connect your systems to truly automate messaging flows and use the data that doesn’t have to be stored on our platform.

Learn more about Flow or start building Flow if you are already a customer – keep your subscribers and customers engaged, boost retention and loyalty, and drive revenue with our communication solutions.