Text Messaging Featured Article

HeyWire, a provider of enterprise text messaging, announced that Avaya (News - Alert) had certified its HeyWire LiveText service for interoperability with Avaya IP Office Contact Center.

“Businesses can’t afford to overlook text messaging as a support channel,” HeyWire CEO Meredith Flynn-Ripley (News - Alert) said. “Proven interoperability with Avaya IP Office Contact Center will help us bring HeyWire two-way customer texting innovations to contact centers in small and midsize businesses, enabling a true multichannel customer experience.”

Flynn-Ripley cited a company survey that found that 50 percent of its consumers said they would rather have text conversations rather than phone conversations with customer service agents.

HeyWire LiveText lets customers reach a contact center by SMS using a toll-free phone number or an existing business number. Agents can also add SMS conversations to the consoles they’re already using.

Avaya certified the cloud-based SMS service with its IP Office 9.1 and IP Office Contact Center products.

“Consumers are increasingly demanding the convenience of text messaging when communicating with companies. The interoperability of HeyWire LiveText with Avaya IP Office Contact Center will allow our customers to quickly and easily add this emerging support channel to their contact center,” Avaya vice president of developer relations Eric Rossman (News - Alert) said.

HeyWire is already a member of Avaya’s DevConnect program as a Technology Partner. HeyWire and other companies are cooperating to build products that are interoperable with Avaya’s. HeyWire can submit products for testing by Avaya engineers to see whether they are compatible or not.

No technology product is an island. Hardware and software products have to work with what businesses have already to reduce complexity and implementation costs. Programs like DevConnect (News - Alert) give enterprise customers some assurance that the products and services they buy will work with their existing infrastructure, even as contact centers add SMS to their arsenal of communication methods. Having a seal of approval of a major vendor like Avaya can add a layer of trust to a provider.