Vonage Announces Next-Generation Messaging Solution

Vonage today announced that its Nexmo API platform has launched a next-generation messaging solution comprised of two new APIs—the Messages API and the Dispatch API. The APIs, which are currently in beta, together aim to empower organizations to provide an enhanced customer experience via messaging apps.

The Messages API enables organizations to engage with customers via channels such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Viber, as well as through SMS and MMS. It features the ability to send messages that include images, audio, video, files, and location, and has single-event callbacks that provide details such as time stamp, message status, and error message. It also includes direct connections to carriers and Vonage’s adaptive routing technology with an eye on optimizing SMS delivery.

“Chat apps are growing significantly…we see a big trend for brands wanting to engage their customers in the channels that they increasingly prefer, and oftentimes that’s more than SMS—it’s WhatsApp, it’s Facebook Messenger, it’s Viber, depending on the region of the world,” says Francisco Kattan, head of platform marketing for Nexmo at Vonage. “The Messages API enables brands to engage their customers in the channel they prefer with a single API. Rather than having to integrate separately with each of these channels, with a single API you can integrate your application—your mobile app, your website, or your CRM desktop—to all of them.”

The Dispatch API allows organizations to deliver messages via a customized flow with automatic fallback to alternative channels if the initial message fails to reach the recipient within a specified time frame. In other words, an unread or undelivered message, as based on time and/or message status, will automatically fall back to another channel, with an eye on ensuring that the customer receives it. The API allows organizations to implement a custom social messaging strategy with a single API call.

“With Dispatch what we’ve done is enable brands to deliver time-sensitive messages across multiple channels with a single API call using customized flows,” Kattan says.

“What we’re offering with both the Messages and the Dispatch APIs are a much broader reach because brands can now reach their customers in the channel they prefer, a richer experience because these chat apps often are richer in terms of the user experience for the consumer, and lower cost because oftentimes it’s less expensive to deliver a message via one of the chat apps than via SMS,” he adds.