Coud communications service provider Vonage today launched its Conversation API, the newest addition to the Vonage API Platform. The Conversation API enables developers to create customized, real-time conversations that maintain context across multiple channels, including messaging and voice.
Retaining context of interactions by connecting various communications channels, even custom or homegrown applications, at every customer touchpoint, Vonage's Conversation API empowers businesses to seamlessly follow the customer through their preferred mode of communication. From authentication via SMS to customer support via messaging, voice or video, all context is retained within a single thread.
"Brands are increasingly competing on customer experience, and those that resonate the most with today's customer are those that meet them where they are and where they feel the most comfortable, whether that's messaging, voice, video or social," said Roland Selmer, a vice president of product management at Vonage, in a statement. "The addition of Conversation API to our already-extensive portfolio of APIs empowers brands to bring customer interactions together on one platform, seamlessly moving with the customer across channels, keeping track of every conversation without losing the context of the interaction, and helping them to differentiate their business in a competitive marketplace."
"The Vonage Conversation API is a timely and important product that will help enterprises simplify and enable innovative digital interactions with their customers," said Courtney Munroe, group vice president for telecom and communications platform-as-a-service research at IDC, in a statement. "The Vonage Conversation API will take the complexity out of contextual omnichannel communications, while enabling a personalized and streamlined customer engagement process."
"In addition to enabling developers to quickly implement a multichannel-ready solution to easily reach users on the channel they prefer while preserving that native experience, the Conversation API also eliminates the need to employ multiple vendors and the development time needed to manage them," Selmer added.
Vonage also today launched Vonage Meetings, which brings video collaboration to Vonage Business Cloud (VBC).
Fully integrated with VBC, Vonage Meetings leverages APIs via the Vonage API Platform to enable collaboration via voice, messaging, SMS, team messaging, social, email, and now video within one interface and on a single stack.
"We continue to innovate on our One Vonage vision, building out the capabilities of Vonage Business Cloud to connect more people in more places via the channels that work best for them and let them switch seamlessly without losing flow," said Ron Maayan, a vice president of product management at Vonage, in a statement. "With Vonage Meetings, we are leveraging an integrated user experience with our rich set of communications APIs to create unique next-gen solutions for our customers, helping them to create great employee and customer experiences by leveraging voice, messaging and, now, video."
Vonage Meetings can be used to enhance customer engagement and internal collaboration, for online video training and recruiting, and for screen sharing.
Key features of Vonage Meetings include the following:
- One-click option to arrange groups from Google Calendar, VBC, or start an instant meeting from a VBC contact list;
- Ability to enable a guest option to join a video call via a browser;
- A user interface with built-in chat, screen sharing, and the ability to record meetings;
- Cross-channel collaboration across all voice, messaging, SMS, team messaging, social, email, and video within a single interface on one stack.
- Meetings history, allowing visibility into all past meetings, call logs, chats, links shared, and attendees.
Vonage Meetings is currently in beta and will be generally available December.
Vonage also today launched the Vonage App Center built on a flexible microservices architecture that allows partners to deploy business apps from directly within Vonage Business Cloud.
The Vonage App Center includes dozens of applications, add-on features, and deep productivity tool integrations.
"A dynamic ecosystem of CRM and business applications that integrate seamlessly with Vonage Business Cloud, we built the Vonage App Center on an infrastructure that allows partners to easily create and distribute business apps to our customer base, with the ability to integrate tools directly into their VBC account and applications," said Jay Patel, chief product officer at Vonage, in a statement. "It drives even greater customization, efficiency, and value into our product offering and creates a more meaningful and personalized customer experience. We believe the more customized your communications experience is, the more productive you and your company will be."
As a part of the App Center launch, Vonage has welcomed tools built by partners such as payment solution provider Authvia and small business CRM tool Salesforce Essentials to the Vonage App Center. These solutions join a growing list of business applications and CRM tools already available on the Vonage App Center, including Google G-Suite, Unytalk, Krisp, and Office 365.
"Customer relationship management is at the heart of effective communications," said Brooke Gardner, head of partnerships for Salesforce Essentials, in a statement. "By offering Salesforce Essentials through the Vonage App Center, we are extending the power of customer and employee communications to businesses around the world."
"We are proud to offer our email, web, and text-based invoicing solutions to Vonage customers as part of the Vonage App Center," said Chris Brunner, CEO of Authvia, in a statement. "These integrated solutions enable conversational commerce by accelerating payments and streamlining accounts receivable processes."
Vonage App Center allows users to log into their accounts, browse a host of apps, and request a free trial within the VBC platform.
"By providing this online marketplace to our end users, we are putting the tools to unlock the full power of VBC directly in their hands," Patel added. "We know that every employee has unique needs. Vonage App Center makes it easier for end users to choose the technology they need, when they need it."