Vonage (Nasdaq: VG), a global leader in cloud communications helping businesses accelerate their digital transformation, has been chosen by Thinca, provider of cloud-based CTI solution, KAIKURA, to enhance its CRM solution and meet its customers’ desire for omnichannel communications. Based in Japan, Thinca’s customers include small, medium and large enterprises in real estate, car dealers, restaurants and professional services, including legal firms and clinics.
“Business communication needs are constantly evolving and that has only accelerated more so since the start of the pandemic. Our customers rely on us for seamless and effective tools to improve work processes, enhance customer experience and stay connected with their stakeholders through omnichannel communications,” said Takahiro Ejiri, CEO of Thinca. “The Vonage Communications Platform enables Thinca to meet multiple communications needs, from enhancing our SMS function and enabling customers to send messages locally and abroad in a timely and secure manner, to integrating video into our KAIKURA tool quickly and easily.” said Takahiro Ejiri, CEO of Thinca.
Vonage Communications Platform APIs allow developers to easily enhance and build intelligent, intuitive customer experiences directly into their existing applications, systems and workflows, enabling communications across any channel and on any device. Thinca is leveraging the Vonage SMS API to make it easier for Thinca’s users to send messages to their customers, globally. Embedded within KAIKURA, Thinca’s communication management tool, the Vonage SMS API delivers timely automated messages for promotion notifications, reminders and even appointment bookings and restaurant reservations.
With the Vonage Video API, Thinca has also added a new video call function called KAIKURA FaceTalk, allowing screen sharing, recording and central call history management. This is especially valuable for customers to facilitate virtual business negotiations and conduct equipment checks and repairs remotely as Covid-19 travel restrictions and social distancing measures continue to make it challenging for businesses to conduct in-person meetings or technical inspections.
Covid-19 has reshaped business-customer communications. Vonage’s 2020 Global Customer Engagement Report, which surveyed 5,000 consumers across 14 countries on how the pandemic impacted their communication with businesses, found that two-thirds of consumers used video more in August than they had in January, before the pandemic. The pandemic also made customer engagement rise across sectors. In Asia, customer engagement with retail and ecommerce providers saw the highest increase (54.5 percent) followed by logistics (44.9 percent), education (44.7 percent), media and entertainment (41.6 percent), healthcare (32.1 percent) and financial services (28.4 percent) sectors respectively.
“We are seeing a permanent shift in the way that businesses communicate and operate – a transformation that has been accelerated by the pandemic. Traditional methods are no longer effective in meeting customer engagement needs,” said Sunny Rao, Vonage Senior Vice President, API Global Sales. ”Vonage understands this, and through the Vonage Communications Platform we are empowering our customers to do what’s next and stay ahead. We are proud to support Thinca in offering next generation omnichannel communications to its customers through our programmable API solutions.”
With an ever-growing network of more than one million registered developers, the Vonage Communications Platform is accelerating the way the world connects by making it easy for businesses to use APIs to disrupt their industries, and enable the type of business continuity, remote work, and remote delivery of services that is so essential in today’s environment. Through its partners, Vonage’s platform is at the center of many notable transformational projects in the APAC region, and a de facto for startups.
