API vendors show how to build web-calling features
Phone numbers are proving to be versatile tools. These days, phone numbers go beyond traditional voice calls and provide detailed information about callers. How people use phone numbers and place calls has also changed dramatically.
Web calling, click-to-chat and click-to-video tools on websites have greatly expanded how companies and customers interact. These web-based communications are largely fueled by APIs and WebRTC.
Cloud-based communication APIs provide the building blocks to initiate web calling and other browser-based communications. This technology has emerged within unified communications in the past year with the help of certain API vendors.
Genband's Kandy, for instance, offers tools to embed communications into websites and mobile devices. Through Kandy's web portal, users can create buttons on their websites to enable web calling and other browser-based communications. Kandy's visual attendant allows businesses to create different communication options for customers, said Carlos Aragon, director of Kandy UC solutions marketing at Genband, based in Plano, Texas.
"If you are able to copy and paste code into a website, if you're able to embed a YouTube video into a blog, you can use our tool to build the APIs into your website," Aragon said. "It's very simple."
Communications API poster child Twilio offers a web-calling feature in which many companies are starting to build contact centers, said Al Cook, director of product at Twilio, based in San Francisco. Contact-center agents and customers can make and take calls from within their browsers. When customers call, the system finds the appropriate, available agent, and the caller's information appears on the agent interface, providing contextual communication.
In the video above, see how API vendors Genband, Twilio and Vonage are helping businesses build web-based communications.