How a B2C Twillio Programmable Chat App Boosts Business Communication?

by Micheal John Technical Writer

As an enterprise what is your major concern? Most of you would answer, extending immediate support to the customers. How many of you try to break down this issue, and figure out what can be truly done?

Chat support is one of the ways of extending immediate support. However, the need for a human resource to attend to the needs of the customer causes delay in the communication, and makes way for another business.

Mr. Mykonos was one such business facing an issue of attending to the customer’s immediate needs, and required a business app that would help boost communication.

The solution offered is an excellent example of how enterprise mobile application for communication can be designed, and what things need to be considered before streamlining an application.

Need for chat app

There was no immediate contact between the employees of the enterprise and the customers. So, when a customer wanted to raise a question, they had to either send an email or call the support team, and wait for some time before they got some answers.

Second, there was no possibility of a real-time conversation. For every response, the customer could have a question, which needs to be answered. This was not possible on the email, and phone conversations could be long, and painful.

There was a need for something real-time and less time consuming for both the support team and the customers. The chat app was pronounced as a solution as it would be real-time, immediate and offer resolutions to every matter.

Why Twillio Programmable Chat?

Instead of building the chat application from the scratch, the chat application was built using Twillio’s programmable chat SDK.

In case of the entire solution, you had to struggle through every aspect of design and development, and the time-to-market increased. In case of Twillio SDK, you can readily add the available chat features and customize it to meet your requirements. You can even scale your business app hassle-free.

The chat SDK has the APIs and the features that you need for the business logic.

All you need to do is choose the client-side programming language. Accordingly, you will get the SDKs and the installation links. Once done, you are ready to start coding your app to meet your business and marketing strategies and goals.

The Solution

The solution was devised using the cloud-based Ruby on Rails framework with Postgre for the backend. The mobile solution was devised using the native iOS and Android operating systems. The Twillio SDK was integrated along with REST API for the mobile solutions. The solution also consisted of the typing indicators, reachability indicators and role-based allocation for ease of use.

The reason for the solution was to develop backend and frontend system separately, and ensure that backend is an integral aspect of the chat application, as the entire communication is dependent on the smoothness of the backend.

The development was not as easy as it was planned to be, as there were a few challenges the team faced, owing to the different factors involved.

·         Documentation is not available for Rails 5, and being a relatively new platform, the syntax and other aspects of the framework were still unknown.

·         Twillio documentation keeps evolving, and it is always a challenge to process with integration while you are working with a new and evolved version of Twillio. It takes time to understand the Twillio documentation, and you need to consider that time when you are planning for the integration.

 

Things to consider when planning business chat apps

·         The purpose of the chat application is very important. In this case, the purpose was clear that they wanted a real-time application that could connect and communicate with their customers. They also wanted to accelerate the time-to-market. That led to Twillio integration for the chat app development

·         What is the budget of your development? In case of Twillio app integration, you don’t spend a lot on the development. You can work on budget and get a smooth and well-defined chat application for your business. The budget of your app and related concerns help you realize the path for building your chat app

 

·         Finally, how do you want to proceed with the chat app development? Do you want to go in-house or do you want to outsource the development of the application? In-house vs outsourcing will determine the exact nature of app development and the strategies involved.

 

Conclusion

The Twillio programmable chat application has helped the business increase their conversions, and improve their profitability. The immediate contact with the customers has helped the company keep up with the changing customer requirements and offer them with the right kind of solutions.

Seashore Partners has been offering capable business and commercial Mobile App Development Services to meet your business and marketing goals. Connect with us via email or phone and our team will help you convert the idea into a probable solution.

 

This Article is Originally Published at Seashore Partners Official Blog

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Created on Oct 2nd 2018 08:50. Viewed 339 times.

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