jonathan kressaty

I've known about Twilio for awhile - I actually build 90% of the app I'm about to demonstrate here about 4 months ago, but after seeing the contest they were running this week, I decided I'd give it some quick polish and make it useful. Essentially what I've created is a custom PBX for Ripstyles. It's simple, clean, but directs people to the correct phone number and will give them order status over the phone by simply typing in an order number.

Please keep in mind that since I haven't had a chance to fully test this, it is not yet implemented into the Ripstyles phone system. You'll still get a legit, live human being when you call us :-)

Call 1.866.960.9433 - you'll get a "Thanks for calling Ripstyles" message. It'll give you some options to choose by pressing a number on your phone keypad. 1, 3, and 4 will take you to sales, support, and the operator respectively (though for now the demo just tells you where you would be connected to and hangs up on you). Option 2 is cool - it asks you for your 7 digit order number and then will tell you the status and some info about that status, followed by an option to talk to the operator.

Try it: dial 1.866.960.9433, press 2 at the prompt, and then enter 1001588 as your order number.

Cool huh? Twilio queries my web application that is used to administer the entire Ripstyles system, grabs an order status via your order number, and reads the status along with a description. No personal data is given out, so there's not a security issue there. This system is also tied to a test database, so don't get too inquisitive kids!

Option 5 is also neat, and makes use of some of Twilio's really super duper cool features - it lets you leave a message, then enters into my database all of the info about your call and queries Twilio for a transcription of the audio. Cool huh? After you leave a message, I get an email with the phone number and transcription, and can log into my system and see all the call information (see pic to left).

I can also see debug database info on that call just in case it looks like something went wrong. Transcriptions sometimes come back wonky, but they're more of a convenience in order to get an idea of what a customer would like before we call them back.

An automated system like this will be new for Ripstyles; we've always answered the phone with a human, so moving to something that is computer controlled will be a little strange. However, Twilio has made it so that there is a level of control that not only allows us to get great data at every stage, but also get our customers to a human as soon as possible while alleviating some of our call load.