Customer engagement platform
Digital-first, omnichannel platform built for enterprises
Digital-first, omnichannel platform built for enterprises
Agent efficiency, automation, and operational insights
Self-service support, education, and collaboration
Content management, publishing, and governance
Create a space for customers to get answers, connect with peers, and share new ideas
Connect with customers on SMS, Messenger, WhatsApp, & more
Chat with customers in real-time or anytime on your website
Start the conversation with automation, increase agent efficiency, triage, & more
Protect your brand & drive loyalty across social media and review site
Orchestrate social campaigns that drive business results
Understand social trends from customers, the market, and competitors
Find, curate, and share the best social media content
Deflect inquiries to messaging channels and self-service communities
Automate conversations with our intuitive drag-and-drop platform
Supercharge agents with AI tools & intuitive workflows
Build brand awareness with a user-generated knowledge hub
Drive higher conversion rates and more revenue
Secure solutions to keep customer information safe
Cutting-edge tech to innovate and inform your customers
Deep insights to keep a pulse on customer demands
Real-time capabilities to stay connected with consumers
An integrated platform to nurture the customer journey
Our in-house experts in social media and community management for Khoros customers
More than onboarding and implementation, this is where our partnership begins
Increase satisfaction and improve product adoption with complimentary training.
CX Confessions, the definitive podcast for digital CX leaders
Guides, tipsheets, ebooks, on-demand webinars, & more
Integrations to connect with your customers, wherever they are
Technical overviews and links to developer documentation
Join us for webinars and in-person events
Insights, tips, news, and more from our team to yours
Case studies with successful customers to see how they did it
Connect with 70K+ customer engagement professionals
A customer experience podcast with Khoros Customers
Check out our social content and follow us on every major platform
20+ years experience, built from Spredfast and Lithium
Meet the team that leads the team
Press releases and other announcements
Data integrations for better customer experience
We’re hiring — come build the future of customer experience
Need anything? We’re here for you
Our commitment to do more and do better
Digital-first, omnichannel platform built for enterprises
Agent efficiency, automation, and operational insights
Self-service support, education, and collaboration
Content management, publishing, and governance
Create a space for customers to get answers, connect with peers, and share new ideas
Connect with customers on SMS, Messenger, WhatsApp, & more
Chat with customers in real-time or anytime on your website
Start the conversation with automation, increase agent efficiency, triage, & more
Protect your brand & drive loyalty across social media and review site
Orchestrate social campaigns that drive business results
Understand social trends from customers, the market, and competitors
Find, curate, and share the best social media content
Deflect inquiries to messaging channels and self-service communities
Automate conversations with our intuitive drag-and-drop platform
Supercharge agents with AI tools & intuitive workflows
Build brand awareness with a user-generated knowledge hub
Drive higher conversion rates and more revenue
Secure solutions to keep customer information safe
Cutting-edge tech to innovate and inform your customers
Deep insights to keep a pulse on customer demands
Real-time capabilities to stay connected with consumers
An integrated platform to nurture the customer journey
Our in-house experts in social media and community management for Khoros customers
More than onboarding and implementation, this is where our partnership begins
Increase satisfaction and improve product adoption with complimentary training.
CX Confessions, the definitive podcast for digital CX leaders
Guides, tipsheets, ebooks, on-demand webinars, & more
Integrations to connect with your customers, wherever they are
Technical overviews and links to developer documentation
Join us for webinars and in-person events
Insights, tips, news, and more from our team to yours
Case studies with successful customers to see how they did it
Connect with 70K+ customer engagement professionals
A customer experience podcast with Khoros Customers
Check out our social content and follow us on every major platform
20+ years experience, built from Spredfast and Lithium
Meet the team that leads the team
Press releases and other announcements
Data integrations for better customer experience
We’re hiring — come build the future of customer experience
Need anything? We’re here for you
Our commitment to do more and do better
Editor's note: This blog post was originally written on the Flow.ai website. Flow.ai was acquired by Khoros in 2021 to advance Khoros' conversational AI and machine learning (ML) capabilities and data science expertise. This blog post has been adapted to be on the Khoros blog.
Transfer and deflect phone calls to WhatsApp using Twilio
Deflecting calls to messaging can decrease the load on your customer service department and at the same time improve your customer satisfaction rates.
In this tutorial we’ll walk you through setting up phone deflection to WhatsApp using Twilio and Flow.ai.
In this use case we will configure a phone number that has an IVR. The IVR will offer a customer the choice to use WhatsApp instead of waiting on the phone for a customer service agent.
So the customer flow looks like:
To make this work you’ll need a couple of things:
Note: This article demonstrates WhatsApp and does not explain how to enroll a WhatsApp Business Account. Also note that this same use case would work with for example SMS, MessageMedia or a customer service solution like Khoros
It all starts with a phone number: you’ll need to buy one or add an existing number to Twilio. This can be, but does not have to be the same phone number you use for WhatsApp.
For using an existing phone number that is not connected to Twilio you’ll have 3 options:
Note: Need help with this? No worries, please contact Twilio support or Flow.ai support.
Twilio offers unused phone numbers for different countries. Most of them you can easily buy within the Twilio console. Make sure the phone number you purchase supports voice! If you have any questions regarding the availability in your region, please contact Twilio support.
DEFLECT_CALL
async payload => {
<i>// CHANGE THE ID WITH YOUR OWN TEMPLATE ID</i>
return await toolbelt.whatsapp.send360Template({
id: 'YOUR UNIQUE ID'
})
}
When we are able to receive inbound calls with Twilio, you can configure the Twilio Voice API. Flow.ai provides a built-in Twilio Voice integration that allows you to create an intelligent IVR system, but you can also create the setup using the Twilio Voice API or Twilio Studio.
Setting up the IVR using Twilio studio requires a Flow.ai REST API integration. We basically configure the IVR within Twilio and when a user presses 1 we execute a piece of code that will send the WhatsApp templated message.
const request = require("then-request"); <i>//6.0.2</i>
<i>// READ MORE INSTRUCTIONS HERE:</i>
<i>// https://flow.ai/docs/api-docs/#rest-api-broadcast</i>
const apiEndpoint = 'https://api.flow.ai/rest/v1/broadcast/instant';
<i>// REPLACE THE FOLLOWING CONFIGURATION</i>
const channelName = 'whatsapp360';
const eventName = 'DEFLECT_CALL';
const channelExternalId = '+1234567890'; <i>// Your WhatsApp phone number</i>
const apiToken = '' <i>// The API token from the Flow.ai REST API</i>
exports.handler = function(context, event, callback) {
var phoneNumber = event.phonenumber.trim().replace('+','');
var body = {
audience: [{
name: 'Anonymous',
phoneNumber,
profile: {
}
}],
channel: {
channelName,
externalId: channelExternalId
},
payload: {
type: 'event',
eventName: eventName
}
};
var options = {
headers:{
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
'Authorization': apiToken
},
body: JSON.stringify(body)
};
request('POST', apiEndpoint, options).done(function(res) {
callback(null, "OK");
});
};
async payload => {
try {
<i>// READ MORE INSTRUCTIONS HERE:</i>
<i>// https://flow.ai/docs/api-docs/#rest-api-broadcast</i>
const apiEndpoint = 'https://api.flow.ai/rest/v1/broadcast/instant';
<i>// REPLACE THE FOLLOWING CONFIGURATION</i>
const channelName = 'whatsapp360';
const eventName = 'DEFLECT_CALL';
const channelExternalId = '+1234567890'; <i>// Your WhatsApp phone number</i>
const apiToken = '' <i>// The API token from the Flow.ai REST API</i>
await request({
method: 'POST',
url: apiEndpoint,
headers:{
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
'Authorization': apiToken
},
body: {
audience: [{
name: 'Anonymous',
phoneNumber,
profile: {
}
}],
channel: {
channelName,
externalId: channelExternalId
},
payload: {
type: 'event',
eventName: eventName
}
}
})
} catch(err) {
console.error('An error making a request', err)
}
}
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