Google has launched a cloud based contact center software which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the customer experience and provide real-time insights for agents. Announced in July 2018, this product adds three core AI functionalities to the contact center software tool belt with its Dialogflow feature: virtual agents, AI assistance for human agents, and contact center analytics. Google’s product streamlines inbound and outbound communications by…
N/A
Twilio
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
Twilio offers a CPaaS and CCaaS solution, with the combination of its programmable Voice, Video, and Messaging APIs, as well as the Twilio Flex cloud contact center. Additional capabilities include Twilio's Elastic SIP Trunking, as well as API for WhatsApp.
$0
per min per participant
Pricing
Google Cloud Contact Center AI
Twilio
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Programmable Video
$0.0015
per min per participant
WhatsApp Business API
$0.0042
Per WhatsApp Template message sent
WhatsApp Business API
$0.005
Per WhatsApp session message
Elastic SIP Trunking
$0.007
Per min for termination
Programmable Messaging
$0.0075
per message sent or received
Programmable Voice
$0.0085
per minute to receive a call
Programmable Voice
$0.013
per min to make a call
Elastic SIP Trunking
$0.045
Per min for origination
Twilio Conversations
$0.05
per active user per month
Twilio Authy
$0.09
per authentication
Programmable Wireless
$0.1
per MB
Twilio Flex (Contact Center)
$1
per active user hour (5000 hours free)
Programmable Wireless
$2.00
per SIM card
Twilio SendGrid Email API
$14.95
per month up to 100k emails. (Up to 40k emails free for 30 days)
Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns
$15
per month for 5,000 contacts and 15,000 emails. Your first 2,000 contacts are free
Twilio Flex (Contact Center)
$150
per named user per month (5000 hours free)
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google Cloud Contact Center AI
Twilio
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
—
1. Pay-as-you-go pricing: Simple usage-based pricing means you don’t get locked into big contracts.
2. Volume discounts: Discounts trigger as your usage grows, so you always get a fair price.
3. Start building today with free trial credit and full API access.
Well suited for sites where the product is hardware because with those if there are any questions then the site could help eliminate having to contact the company directly and waiting for answers days later. This would be suited for products as the answer could be given and the more complex questions would be directed to the company.
I found Twilio to be excellent and very easy to use for a programmer in all aspects related to voice, SMS, and other features utilizing their API. I found the node client to be excellent and helpful. We previously used the Apex client for Salesforce before it was discontinued. Although we try not to use Twilio from Apex anymore, using that client was easier than implementing our own.
Google Cloud Contact Center AI is based on the same foundation infrastructure and services as Google Assistant, therefore, it is robust and flexible. The APIs are very well built and documented as well. Any newbie can start using the service with a very little learning curve.
Seamless integrations are also a great add-on. Google makes sure that Contact Center AI service integrates well with leading customer service platforms which helps any user to use only the required functionalities from Contact Center AI and meanwhile use any other primary platform.
Robust documentation which is always alive and is updated within no time is of great help! Google makes sure its end customers know what to do where and when in clear plain text and any issues/ bugs are also documented.
Segment’s email identifier is case-sensitive, which is ridiculous because emails themselves are not case-sensitive. This means that if I send a capitalized email address in an identify call, it will create a duplicate user rather than matching it with the lowercase email. I think this is a technical oversight that should be corrected.
I’d like to see more information about the eventual transition of existing Frontline customers to Twilio Flex
I’d like to see some integrations between Twilio Studio and OpenAI or another open source LLM to provide automated responses, if this hasn’t been done already
I would like to be able to drag and move the actual lines connecting the steps in Twilio Studio, sometimes mine can get pretty messy
I think a Bug Report form would be beneficial for developers
We are happy with the implementation and functionality of the software and associated systems. In general, unless something better can replace this system we intend on continuing. We think the ease of systems implementation and integration adds value and substantiates the use and excellent functionality of the product and associated services.
Unless we can get this handled quickly -- less than 1 week -- we will likely switch to another provider who, in my opinion, we'll have to spend close to $3,000 in development time to build a new integration for texting. Our clients need texting and I feel Twilio has failed us miserably.
Generally intuitive and easy to learn. I would like more guides but the learning curve is rather quick and makes the software rather an easy study for the average user. Generally, the support and functionality of the software make for a generally good outcome and easy implementation of the software and user experience.
Twilio has well documented APIs and examples. There are several tutorials, videos and Q&As regarding their services. So, usability is very good. I must say that advanced knowledge of telephony, API/Programming and error-handling is essential to make good use of Twilio. It's not just plug-and-play unless you are integrated with a system that has all of the programming built for it.
Twilio executes what it is designed to do: send SMS messages at scale while providing very good deliverability. I believe that Twilio is very good at what we use for adding SMS messages to our comms strategy. We can see those messages get opened and replied to, which is exactly what we are looking to achieve.
I have not had to communicate with Twilio support in the last 3 years but my past experience with them has been very positive. They replied to my previous requests promptly and kept me well informed to resolve my inquiries. With their documentation that's available, I hardly imagine why anyone would need to contact support since it's all there in a concise and easy to understand format. It would probably take you longer to type out a support ticket than to just open their doc websites.
Only IBM Watson Assistant has been the one we have used in the company, in fact, it was the first to use it because currently in the market there are not many options to use, and if there are they are not receiving enough publicity, so we have limited ourselves to google cloud contact center AI.
We evaluated many fundraising-based text-to-give programs and found the subscriptions prohibitively expensive for our small scale and uncertain first few years of development. While we may be willing to invest that kind of money after discovering how things work, we're happy with Twilio now and have no desire to start over.
