Hacker News Reader

Comment by ycombonator | Hacker News Reader

I still don’t understand the value in this. How is this different from Apple Facebook Zendesk et al. contact platforms which provide certain level of anonymity to the customer ? Also is this a matter of simple Twilio to Slack hook integration ?

View on HN

This assumes you want to build a personal relationship with your customer. Think high value customers. You would want to provide a concierge like service in that case vs making it anonymous and distant

It's a Twilio/Slack integration, but it's actually a fair amount of work to get the nuance right. We handle calls, text campaigns, etc. We're also looking into a web based shared inbox for teams not in Slack

Have you taken a look at SignalWire instead of Twilio? Syntax-compatible XML, less price gouging so might be able to help offset some of the costs to make these products even more affordably awesome.

Hi Startledmarmot, I happened to notice this post. I’m Travis Stoliker and I’m a VP at Signalwire. I don’t want to interrupt the thread but I wanted to give you my direct email so you can get a hold of me anytime. Travis.stoliker@signalwire.com. Thanks for the shout out on here. If you need any credit to try out our service if you haven’t already done so, just shoot me an email! If anyone else would like some credit just let me know. Take care.

Hi Parthi, It sounds like a helpful product you've built here. I think you're right that it works best for early startups that want to have a direct relationship with their early clients but find it impossible to manage as it scales. I just wanted to reach out since we came up in this thread. If you'd like to consider using our product at Signalwire, we'd be happy to help you switch over and test out our services. Feel free to email me directly if you're at all interested. We can help you with switching over and it's extremely easy to do. travis.stoliker@signalwire.com

The channel is the value. It's simple and every mobile phone has SMS. No need to keep a browser window open during a chat with support, nor is there a chance you'll miss a chat alert only to discover that the agent, after having waited x minutes, has disconnected, forcing you to start all over.

This is precisely where the value is. More companies are allowing to "move" your online chat session to Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and SMS.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com