Speed Kills - Quick Voice Solutions For Developers

Over the last year and a half at Ifbyphone, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to hundreds of developers.  In most cases, the business has asked them to add voice to a particular business process.

“Can we automate calling people to (remind them of an appointment, offer a special deal to customers, notify them of an event, etc, etc, etc)” or “can we let people call in to check on (order status, delivery dates, etc)?”  

Many times they find us after a quick Google search.  They all have the same goal: to finish and move on to the next project.  Unless you are a VXML developer, when you are trying to automate phone calls, you do not want to learn a new language just for the one project.  You want something simple, but at the same time, it needs to be powerful enough to deliver all the functionality you require.

One of the great things about Ifbyphone is that we help you deliver results fast. What we do is allow you to develop an automated call using our GUI, but control the business logic on your side, in whatever language you want to use.

Let’s use a specific example.  You want someone to be able to call in and activate a coupon at a retail store.  Through our GUI, you tell us what you want to ask, and what kind of data we should expect.  In this case it might be the code on the coupon, the amount of the coupon and a PIN for the cashier who is requesting the activation.  

We can ping your web server with the answers to those questions.  Your page responds with a few lines of XML, and we tell the cashier that the code has been accepted.  Simple.  The only code you have to write is validating the data that we gathered for you.  

You don’t have to code anything for the questions – that is all handled via a GUI.  You don’t have to learn any new language or standards, you use whatever language you already know.  
On top of this, we offer excellent customer support.  So if you do have questions on how to get something done, we are here to help.  

So if you are a developer looking to automate phone calls, or a business manager considering a project, make sure you consider speed of development as part of your cost.