The Evolution of Conversational Commerce: Authvia's Journey with Twilio

In the rapidly evolving landscape of digital commerce, Authvia stands out as a pioneer, transforming the way merchants engage and transact with customers through messaging channels. Founded with the vision to streamline payment processes through conversation, Authvia has become a conversational commerce platform powering thousands of merchants across North America to conduct seamless transactions via SMS.

The Challenge: Bridging Communication and Commerce

Authvia identified a gap in the market where traditional methods of customer outreach—phone calls, emails, and paper—were failing to capture attention and drive engagement.  Outbound calls were largely ignored, with a dismal 1.8 percent acceptance rate, while emails often ended up in spam folders, and paper mail was disregarded as inconvenient and environmentally unfriendly. This presented a critical problem for businesses aiming to engage with their customers and drive commerce and more importantly, payments. The solution needed to be immediate, direct, and accessible and SMS became the ideal channel to reach customers quickly and efficiently.

By integrating SMS into their communication strategy, Authvia was able to capitalize on its high open rates, which often exceed 98 percent, and its immediacy, with 90 percent of messages read within three minutes of receipt. This approach allows Authvia to cut through the clutter of traditional outreach methods and streamline the digital payment process.

Authvia's use of SMS facilitates a two-way communication stream, enabling customers to engage in a dialogue with businesses, ask questions, and receive instant support. This level of interaction fostered a more personalized customer experience, which is crucial for building trust and loyalty in today's market.

The Solution: A Platform for Instantaneous Transactions

Authvia's platform is designed to be a global solution, with a current focus on the US and Canada. It caters to a diverse range of customers, from small businesses to large enterprises, offering a rich and functional platform that works out of the box. The platform excels in areas such as invoicing and billing, delivery services, and call center operations, removing the friction of PCI compliance and providing a streamlined process for consumers to make payments and receive receipts without cumbersome web experiences or IVR systems.

The Results: Dramatic Improvements in Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction

By integrating with Twilio, Authvia has seen remarkable improvements in engagement, customer satisfaction, and Net Promoter Scores (NPS). For instance, field services that typically waited over 30 days for invoice payments found that 30% of their customers would pay within the first two hours when offered a text-to-pay option. This shift not only enhances the customer experience but also significantly reduces Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), a critical metric for business cash flow. In short, Authvia enables your business to Get Paid Faster!

Customer Success Story: Vespa Brooklyn

Vespa Brooklyn, a Vespa dealership located in New York, faced a challenge in two main areas: streamlining the service experience while enabling the service personnel to engage with customers in-store -and- creating an efficient sales process that allows salespeople to focus on engaged customers and close deals faster. Leveraging the Authvia platform, Vespa Brooklyn was able to complete service transactions virtually, enabling customers to bypass the line when picking up their bikes, saving time for the customer as well as the service person. And, by enabling early sales conversations as well as purchase deposits to happen via text/SMS, sales people can engage customers in our out of the showroom and close deals faster. 

Authvia and Twilio: A Partnership Driving Innovation

Authvia's partnership with Twilio has been instrumental in its success. Twilio's CPaaS offerings have provided the foundation for Authvia to build and scale its conversational commerce engine. As Twilio continues to innovate and expand its services, Authvia is perfectly positioned to leverage these advancements and deliver even more value to merchants and consumers alike.

Authvia's journey with Twilio exemplifies the transformative power of conversational commerce. By leveraging Twilio's robust CPaaS offerings, Authvia has crafted a platform that not only meets the current demands of merchants and consumers but also anticipates the future of seamless transactions. As we look towards the future of commerce, many analysts expect Conversational Commerce volume to increase by 200%+ by 2028. If your business has not yet enabled this critical capability, talk to your Twilio rep today! 

Co-Authored with Chris Brunner, CEO & Founder of Authvia