Cloud and telephony platform Exotel has announced a patent grant for one of its flagship products – Lead Assist. The product is a management tool for marketplaces to connect their vendors and buyers together in a seamless manner. With the aim to provide the best customer experience in the market, Exotel’s new product has made it easier for brands to connect their vendors through Exophones, in turn enabling them to stay on, without leaving the platform.
The most unique feature of this patented solution is the ability to scale using only a limited pool of virtual numbers. This has two advantages: one that the cost comes down considerably, and second that since VNs are a scarce commodity, by using a limited pool, Exotel eliminates the roadblocks in scaling.
Lead Assist allows a holistic cycle for the brand so that the customer experience remains at an all-time high. Through the product, any customer who places their order for goods or services is allocated a VN using Exotel’s allocation API. Through this VN the customer and vendor can communicate during the transaction period, without either of them revealing their personal numbers, in turn, ensuring privacy and security of both the users. Once the communication ends, the VN is deallocated from both the parties and is utilised for another transaction.
Using its Heartbeat API feature that checks the uptimes of virtual numbers, Exotel ensures that the pool of allocated virtual numbers for any business has only functional and healthy numbers.
Shivakumar Ganesan, CEO and Founder, Exotel said, “We realised that marketplaces faced a huge challenge – keeping the conversation confined to the platform, Exotel’s Lead Assist product solves this by ensuring that the conversation stays on the platform. We have already seen some great results, and by being granted a patent for this, are hopeful that this technology will help garner customer insights which will become the backbone of meaningful conversations.”
Lead Assist not just holds the entire communication on its platform, but also ensures that there is proof of the connection and conversation. This allows a simpler monetisation process for marketplaces and avoids any kind of disputes. Further, these connections also help in analysing patterns and insights into how consumers converse in marketplaces. For instance, the duration for which they stay on a single call, the number of vendors they interact with before purchasing the final service, etc.
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