Twilio Flex is a developer-friendly service that allows businesses to integrate a fully tailored omnichannel platform into their existing software. Twilio is famously known for its comprehensive communications solutions, especially its SMS marketing services.
Twilio Flex Pros
- Twilio Flex comes with built-in, customizable inbound and outbound call and message workflows.
- The company’s drag-and-drop Studio app reduces programming time and investment.
- The vendor’s API and SDK documentation are excellent and will assist developers in creating the exact platform you want.
Twilio Flex Cons
- Building your own communications platform may be time-consuming and prohibitively expensive.
- At $150 per user per month, Twilio Flex is expensive, especially if you must add CRM and ERP user fees to gain your desired functionality.
Twilio began in 2008 as a programmable communications platform that developers could tap into to wire phone calls and text communications to mobile phone apps and CRM and ERP software.
At its core, Twilio Flex is an omnichannel communications platform that lacks many bells and whistles — existing business phone service VoIP users essentially need to build their own cloud-based call center solutions on top of it.
It’s a product that is good for companies looking for a high level of control, and for those who might want to integrate the call center software into their other business software. This is why we selected Twilio Flex as our best pick for businesses with complex communication requirements.
Why We Chose Twilio Flex for Complex Communication Needs
Most companies can also add a range of 3rd party apps to call center software in order to mold a solution that meets their specific requirements. But you might not find an app that offers the features you want, or you might not feel comfortable sharing data between call center software and third-party apps. You might also have complex communication needs that standard call center software won’t be able to handle.
Twilio Flex addresses many of these challenges. And while you can customize this call center software down to the most granular level, you can still integrate it with your customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, and other business apps. Your company overall, including administrators, agents, and supervisors, will find Twilio’s user interface very intuitive and slick. You will be able to customize the software to your exact needs and also connect to your current tech stack.
Most businesses will require developers and coders to get the most out of Twilio Flex. Imagine the platform as a blank canvas that you can paint any way you need in order to carry out omnichannel communications the way you want. That being said, you should start with a clear idea of the features you require to assist your team in developing and deploying the system fast.
Twilio Flex makes it easy for companies that need a custom call center solution; it’s the best option for businesses with more complicated communication demands.
Ease of Use
It’s a solution designed for businesses that want to build a communications stack from scratch and make it integrate with their existing business software, they said. And that’s an inherently tricky thing to do. But Twilio’s website has hundreds of useful pages of developer documentation to assist you in using the platform, and Twilio offers an expanding app marketplace to its users.
The UI/UX and functionality within Twilio Flex are intuitive. But that’s just the beginning. You will need to build tools into the system to tailor the solution, and you will probably need developers and coders to enable you to realise your dream.
Thankfully, Twilio Flex is a fantastic architecture built by engineers and coders, for engineers and coders. The developer documentation is clear and to the point. The supporting materials are intended to guide teams on the path from concept to prototype and beyond.
Twilio Flex Features
Twilio Flex begins primarily as a barebones system that you can customize with the specific call center features you need to handle your company’s complex communication needs.
1. Customizability
While Twilio Flex works out of the box, most businesses customize the platform. In addition to coding, teams can use Twilio’s Studio app to develop their customized solution.
Studio adds drag-and-drop functionality for creating workflows, starting with triggers such as “incoming call” or “incoming message.” You can then create your own interactive voice response (IVR) system to present callers with a series of options. Next, you’ll route leads to an agent based on the selected option — for example, 1 for sales, 2 for support, etc. It’s not a no-code solution, but it’s certainly low-code.
Other Studio options include the following:
- Creating two-way conversations between agents and digital channels
- Building a WhatsApp customer support menu
- Establishing conditions for forwarding calls
- Setting up an autoresponder
- Sending appointment reminders
If your company has in-house developers or access to developers, the drag-and-drop functionality will save them time when creating your ideal call center solution.
2. Omnichannel Communications
Twilio Flex’s pre-made user interface elements include the ability to communicate with customers via different channels. The Chat tab shows all current and past digital conversations with a client. If you select Info, the system will display the client’s details and order history if the program is linked to your CRM software. Every user interface element is customizable, including the presentation, layout, positioning, and content.
We were impressed by Flex Conversations, a pre-built Flex tool for two-way digital communication exchanges between agents and customers. This feature can manage text conversations, WhatsApp messages, X (formerly Twitter) conversations, chatbot conversations, and more, and route interactions to a specific team member you designate. This tool helps developers save time because they don’t have to build interfaces or workflows entirely from scratch; it’s already been done.
3. Admin Dashboard and Tools
We like that you can program new workflows, add and delete users, integrate Twilio Flex with your existing apps, or add third-party apps developed explicitly for Twilio. The platform allows you to build custom inbound call and message routing paths, assess workforce engagement, manage staffing levels, transcribe calls, analyze transcripts to reveal customer sentiment, and more. Apps for many popular functions already exist, so you won’t have to code them unless they don’t do exactly what you want.
In terms of performance and quality metrics, you can monitor average call times, average call wait times, and other data. You can also track customer retention rates, first-contact resolution rates, cost per contact, and call abandonment rates. You can program these key performance indicators (KPIs) into the software or find an app with these metrics. You can also add pre-built workflows, like the Survey Dynamic app, which lets you calculate a customer satisfaction score by getting customers to rate the quality of their interactions.
As with most other call center software platforms, supervisors can assign skills and skill levels to agents; plus, you can program the system to ensure calls get routed to the most skilled agents first. Twilio Flex also lets you track your average call transfer rate so you can see how well agents perform according to their specific skills.
Bottom Line
I recommend Twilio Flex for …
- Companies that need maximum flexibility in a communications platform.
- Organizations that need specially tailored call center software for complex communications needs.
- Software development companies that can build bespoke communication infrastructures for clients.
I don’t recommend Twilio Flex for …
- Companies with fairly standard communications requirements that can be met by other less-expensive platforms.
- Businesses that have no coders or programmers and can not afford to seek development help.
