Textel’s cloud-based business texting platform is now a Premium App on the Genesys® AppFoundry. The app is available for Genesys Cloud™, one of the leading public cloud contact center platforms.
We sit down with Paul Jones, Senior Director of Channel Development, to learn more about the app and how it helps Genesys Cloud customers be more effective.
Genesys Cloud and AppFoundry
Textel: What is Genesys® Cloud and the Genesys® AppFoundry?
Paul Jones: Genesys Cloud is a public cloud-based contact center as a service (aka CCaaS) platform. As a CCaaS it helps organizations provide better experiences to their customers and employees.
The Genesys® AppFoundry is their marketplace focused on customer experience solutions. The AppFoundry allows Genesys customers from all market segments to discover and rapidly deploy a broad range of solutions that make it easier to interact with consumers, engage employees and optimize their workforce.
Textel: What does it mean to be a Premium App on the AppFoundry?
Paul Jones: Beyond the benefits of the integration, there are several benefits to being a Premium App, but the primary benefit to Genesys customers is their Textel subscription is on their Genesys invoice. That means there are fewer invoices scattered around for simpler vendor management.
Textel: Which Genesys Cloud customers can use Textel’s integration?
Paul Jones: It’s available for all Genesys Cloud customers on the Cloud 2 or Cloud 3 tier. That means Cloud 2 customers who normally wouldn’t have access to texting can now do it and Cloud 3 customers get a ton of additional texting enhancements. This also means users with a Business user license can send and receive text messages.
How Textel’s Integration Works
Textel: Let’s talk about the integration. What does it do specifically?
Paul Jones: The integration works seamlessly within Genesys Cloud by text-enabling a contact center’s pre-existing business numbers. When a customer texts the pre-existing business number, it’s automatically routed to an available SMS-proficient agent who can then text right back. Teams can also send outbound texts on an ad hoc basis or using event-based triggers in the Genesys platform.
Textel: Where do agents see the incoming and outgoing texts?
Paul Jones: The agents see all text communications in the Genesys Customer Experience Platform’s chat window so they can manage it all in the application they’re already using. This also includes any historical text messages if the customer texted them before.
Textel: Does that includes MMS text messaging?
Paul Jones: Yes. Customers and agents can send and receive anything from emojis and pictures to even things like gifs, calendar invites, and documents. It’s a great way of exchanging a lot of information in a short amount of time.
Textel: Which is huge for contact centers overwhelmed with phone calls.
Paul Jones: Exactly. When you have 90% of customers wanting an immediate response to a customer service question, voice calls won’t cut it. Textel’s integration with Genesys Cloud lets agents handle multiple text conversations simultaneously which means customers get answers instantly.
Why Texting Is Important for Contact Centers
Textel: Should contact centers include texting?
Paul Jones: To be honest, they can’t afford not to. Contact centers are already finding additional channels to connect to their customers like social media, but they have to incorporate texting if they’re going to complete their omnichannel strategy.
Textel: What are contact centers getting with the Textel integration that isn’t available by supporting social media channels.
Paul Jones: I wouldn’t say we compete with social media channels. People communicate in different ways and contact centers need to support those ways as best they can. That said, our texting integration does have benefits to both agents and customers that social media and apps lack. Texting requires no app to download or new system to learn. Customers don’t have to open an app to talk or receive messages from an agent.
Textel: And that’s just one app you’re talking about.
Paul Jones: Imagine being a customer navigating over a dozen apps with a dozen workflows. Same thing with social media – you could be talking to several companies but on a handful of different social apps. We don’t want contact center agents managing a dozen different apps to do their job (hence Textel’s integration with Genesys), so why should we force customers to do that?
Textel: And texting solves that.
Paul Jones: It does. 77% of consumers said they use texting more than other messaging tools. It makes sense for contact centers to support the way most customers communicate. Because texting is more intuitive, agents will see a better response rate.
Learn More about Textel’s Genesys Cloud Integration
Textel: Where can they learn more about the integration?
Paul Jones: Genesys users can check us out on our Premium AppFoundry listing. I’m also more than happy to field any question people might have. They can email me at [email protected] or call/text me at 844-483-9835.
Textel: Thanks for your time, Paul.
To learn more, visit www.textel.net.