Plivo

Plivo is a cloud communication platform offering integrated voice and SMS capabilities for applications. Built for business communications, the company's platform is intended to help simplify the complexity of telephony for businesses through an infrastructure as a service. Plivo has relationships with over 1600 local carrier networks in 195 countries to offer users reliability in their services. The company has had customers including IBM, Mercado Libre, Deckers Brands, Zomato, Ninja Van, Wolers Kluwer, Splunk, Nutanix, Arizona State University, LogMeIn, Zynga, Practo, Gojek, Accenture, Greyhound, and Wix.com.

Plivo was established in September 2012 by Venky Balasubramanian and Michael Ricordeau. It started as an open-source telephone project. Venky and Michael connected on Github while they both were looking for a communications platform to add voice and SMS functions to their own applications. Plivo participated in the S12 cohort of Y Combinator, an American seed accelerator.

In July 2012, Plivo launched its API platform for voice and SMS applications. The company also launched a new SDK, which allows developers to connect their WebRTC apps to stand SIP lines. Users can call regular phone lines using their browsers over WebRTC. Plivo’s SDK also enables developers to integrate WebRTC into existing calling solutions for call centers and enterprises. This also works the other way around, which makes it possible for users to call WebRTC users using their regular SIP-based numbers.

In August 2018, Plivo announced the launch of PHLO, a drag-and-drop-based workflow builder, which it claimed would make it possible to create working communication functionalities in minutes.

Plivo's SMS API offers a platform for the programmatic sending and receiving of text messages. This includes two-factor authentication, alerts and notifications, SMS marketing, SMS survey, SMS autoresponder, and appointment reminders for users. The SMS API offers users local phone numbers, alphanumeric sender ID, toll-free numbers, and short codes that can send a high throughput and large volumes of SMS messages.

Plivo's MMS API is a multimedia messaging service that allows users to send and receive MMS messages, image files, emojis, audio, and video for a multimedia experience. And the MMS API resizes images to ensure the best delivery across networks and offers multimedia storage for inbound and outbound messages. The MMS API queues and retries concurrent messaging requests to comply with carrier regulations and for increased deliverability.

The Voice API platform allows users to integrate voice calling into applications and can be used to make, receive, and control calls programmatically. The features of the Voice API include conference calls, voice alerts, voice surveys, voicemail, scalable cloud IVR to route calls, and call forwarding. The Voice API can be used to connect and control calls to any type of device, including phones, SIP devices, mobile apps, or regular browsers.

SIP Trunking offers global connectivity and unlimited concurrent calls with pay-as-you-go pricing. This offers VoIP infrastructure capable of being connected or integrated into a platform. Calls are terminated through local carriers to give users low post-dial delay, with PoPs located in six regions across five continents to ensure low latency and high voice quality, and it offers a redundant infrastructure to increase and ensure uptime.

Plivo's Number Lookup API is capable of providing users with information to determine the carrier, number type, format, and country for any phone number programmatically. This includes determining a country a number belongs to, to increase customer experience; identifying landline, mobile, and toll-free numbers and choosing the channel to engage with customers; and offering users the capability to identify carrier network for improved routing, reduced fraud, and personalized customer experiences.

Contacto is Plivo's cloud contact center platform, using Plivo's cloud communications platform and providing a single place to manage customer interactions. The platform includes chat, voice, messaging, and social interactions integrated into the platform and it is capable of being integrated into tools enterprises and organizations already use. The platform offers users a chance to offer contextualized and personalized support, and virtual agents provide service at all times.

The platform is built to provide customer service agents with a unified customer view, intuitive workflows, and coaching features to help them better answer more customer questions with less navigating. And it offers supervisors and managers real-time performance and data-driven insights to improve customer interactions and better personalize coaching and support for agents.