Vonage Launches Proactive Connect

Vonage, a cloud communications provider, has launched Proactive Connect to deliver customized, large scale, omnichannel campaigns and bulk messages, including two-way interactions, from a single marketing automation platform.

Vonage Proactive Connect lets companies initiate large scale, external conversations across any channel via Vonage APIs for Voice, SMS, and Messaging including MMS, WhatsApp, Viber, and Facebook Messenger. Available as an API and dashboard, Proactive Connect lets companies create these connections for mission-critical customer communications, such as alerts on service outages and notifications/confirmations for appointments.

Proactive Connect also lets customers receive answers to urgent questions and live support by messaging with intelligent bots, sales reps, or support agents directly..

"With the ability to configure every aspect of a customer campaign, Vonage Proactive Connect is changing the way businesses engage with customers," said Colin Brown, vice president of product at Vonage, in a statement. "By delivering the tools needed to personalize engagement at scale, Proactive Connect is helping Vonage customers exceed business results by making connections with their own customers that resonate and build brand loyalty."

Vonage Proactive Connect uses automated conversational workflows, including the following:

• AI-Enabled solutions to manage bulk synchronous or asynchronous inbound and outbound interactions across multiple channels and route inbound responses to an AI-enabled virtual assistant or live contact center agents.
• Omnichannel campaigns, to send bulk messages across voice and messaging channels from one platform.
• Personalization, to customize messages, offers, and responses or send personalized content across channels using dynamic fields, such as proactive alerts for communicating service-impacting issues.
• Two-way interactions across multiple channels.
• Low-code dashboard for citizen developers.
• Ability to rapidly scale personalized conversations and experiences.

Vonage Proactive Connect also integrates with Vonage Communications Platform (VCP), a combination of unified communications, contact center, communications APIs and conversational commerce solution, and with low-code/no-code solution Vonage AI Studio to enable smart customer conversations in multiple languages, incorporating natrural language understanding and machine learning capabilities.

Proactive Connect is also a component of the new Vonage AI Acceleration Suite to simplify and democratize app development.

Integrating Vonage Communications APIs for voice, video, SMS and messaging, the AI Acceleration Suite allows businesses to deploy rich, omnichannel customer journeys that use AI and customer data to incorporate intelligence and automation into their customer experience applications.

In addition to Proactive Connect, the Vonage AI Acceleration Suite includes the following:

• AI Studio, a low-code/no-code solution that enables smart customer conversations in multiple languages, incorporating natural-language understanding (NLU) and machine learning (ML) capabilities using AI.
• Meetings API, which delivers global, customizable video conferencing capabilities, including screen share, whiteboarding, chat, reactions, recording, and more in a low-code/no-code solution.

"To meet evolving customer needs and demand for better ways to connect across channels of choice, enterprises today are looking for solutions that speed and simplify the development of intelligent, AI-powered customer experience applications," said Savinay Berry, executive vice president of product and engineering at Vonage, in a statement. "Vonage AI Acceleration Suite enables businesses to create better outcomes and enhance productivity with AI processing and programmable solutions that are essential for developers and non-developers alike to meet this growing demand for simpler and faster methods of application development to create a better overall customer journey."