Twilio Video EOL

[JDHigginbotham]

Last week, Twilio wrote a letter to their company. (from SEC filing)

One way or another, trends among the underlying tech suppliers for SaaS come into play for this community.

Live Video

With a small footnote in this letter, Twilio confirmed End of Life (EOL) of their Programmable Video offering. For some, this wont be missed. For others, this a seismic shift for core products built around 1:1, group, or large broadcast video.

If you use live video chat through a software platform at your dealership, that platform may now have some decisions to make.

If you have any sort of live video use case you plan to embed in your app in the future, it will not happen on Twilio.

No, Vonage did not get the nod for Twilio's migration guide on video. It shouldn't. Vonage Video API (formerly Tokbox Opentok) is one the of most mature and innovative WebRTC offerings on the market. Strategically, it likely wouldn't be smart for Twilio to send customers to a leading competitor that can also go head-to-head on their focus in SMS/Voice.

Call to Action

What is the sentiment here related using live video in Automotive? (example 1:1 video chat)

Does a 33% workforce reduction in a "year of many changes" raise another conversation about business continuity?

 

[Todd Thompson]

Seen a number of one to one video solutions for the car biz. Primarily they all failed. Twilio crapping out on yet another offering (previously it was sim card/iot ) was disappointing to read. They are trying to focus on actually making money now so can see a couple more shifts take place. Also laid off a number of people which makes their support etc. little shaky

I did develop with live video in mind our sales app tool, but we never launched that part of it.

Their suggested supplier was a bit of a joke when I read it. Agree with you there.

I think the overall issue with live video is it hasn't really been implemented very well yet. The flow of introducing a live video into a communication hasn't been thought out very well from what I've seen and what I would be doing.

 

[JDHigginbotham]

Seen a number of one to one video solutions for the car biz. Primarily they all failed. Twilio crapping out on yet another offering (previously it was sim card/iot ) was disappointing to read.

I have had first hand experience selling a failed 1:1 video chat in Auto.

A ton of support for Video surged during COVID, but wasn't fully committed. Both on the underlying tech and end product.

My take on why the video chat I could have sold didn't take off?..It didn't really work. I wouldn't demo it live. I didn't push it as a result.

They are trying to focus on actually making money now so can see a couple more shifts take place. Also laid off a number of people which makes their support etc. little shaky

Auto, specifically, has been slow to adopt a multi-vendor strategy when it comes to Communication APIs.

It is important to know you have options and that a "rip and replace" isn't required to leverage them.

I did develop with live video in mind our sales app tool, but we never launched that part of it.

What was it missing?

Their suggested supplier was a bit of a joke when I read it. Agree with you there.

I think the overall issue with live video is it hasn't really been implemented very well yet. The flow of introducing a live video into a communication hasn't been thought out very well from what I've seen and what I would be doing.

This has caused a lot of conversation. Pick a name brand that people know, offload a product you're not focused on, let Zoom figure it out.

It's very possible that companies default to Zoom Video SDK either from apathy or panic. First glance, they are coming up short on 100% feature parity. Furthermore, an absence of thought in the potential of a Video use case from a more capable supplier could be a missed opportunity.


@Todd Thomspon Very interested in hearing what this group thinks is the ideal flow to introduce Video in the journey. Also, what parts of the implementation in the past fell short?

 

[JDHigginbotham]

I hope I'm not putting @EfrainAE too much on the spot, but has ActivEngage seen success with their VideoAssist product?

Are there dealers in here using it today?

 

[CasonDrake]

I have had first hand experience selling a failed 1:1 video chat in Auto.

A ton of support for Video surged during COVID, but wasn't fully committed. Both on the underlying tech and end product.

My take on why the video chat I could have sold didn't take off?..It didn't really work. I wouldn't demo it live. I didn't push it as a result.



Auto, specifically, has been slow to adopt a multi-vendor strategy when it comes to Communication APIs.

It is important to know you have options and that a "rip and replace" isn't required to leverage them.



What was it missing?



This has caused a lot of conversation. Pick a name brand that people know, offload a product you're not focused on, let Zoom figure it out.

It's very possible that companies default to Zoom Video SDK either from apathy or panic. First glance, they are coming up short on 100% feature parity. Furthermore, an absence of thought in the potential of a Video use case from a more capable supplier could be a missed opportunity.


@Todd Thomspon Very interested in hearing what this group thinks is the ideal flow to introduce Video in the journey. Also, what parts of the implementation in the past fell short?


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Any update?

 

[Todd Thompson]

Circling back to this, some of the key points of failure I found among various offerings was:
1) Phone tech at the time (ie: iPhone didnt support any codec outside of its own h.264. Later I believe they finally supported VP8 in webRTC)
2) no one avail to take the video call (sales or service)
3) appt setting for a video call wasnt well supported by customers or sales team
4) Seemed to a customer a lot more 'intrusive' (even if you can keep your camera off)

Ourselves as a group have embraced video extremely well on a 1:1, record and send to customer (said before we do roughly 700,000 or so videos this year for sure)

I think there is a spot for 1:many (set demo/walkaround times possibly, kind of like "DealerTV")

But the biggest use I see for us ties into the fact we are sending so much video already.

When the customer first goes to view the video, we trigger a message to our sales/finance rep "Customer XYZ is now viewing your video, do you have time to chat if they like?"

If rep replies back to system 'Yes', then we know our rep is avail/ready to take the call.

At the end of the video we show a prompt to the customer (since the rep replied 'Yes', if 'No' or simply no response from the rep we just don't show the prompt): "Would you like to chat with your sales rep?". We give them a couple choices "Text Chat", "Video Chat" or "Phone".
They make their choice and off they go.

Also through our sales app, the rep can send a PURL to a video chat room to a customer at any time to video chat. Sends that customer a specific url to a video room where they can chat with their rep

 

[Carsten]

I like how you have it setup that if the sales rep isn't available that you don't offer that option.

 

[Todd Thompson]

I like how you have it setup that if the sales rep isn't available that you don't offer that option.

Thanks. I went to use some Porsche version the OEM was trying to roll out and noticed no one ever was taking the call. Super disappointing. So confirming it will be answered first seemed like a better route.

 

[JDHigginbotham]

Thanks. I went to use some Porsche version the OEM was trying to roll out and noticed no one ever was taking the call. Super disappointing. So confirming it will be answered first seemed like a better route.

Almost like the contact center rep that calls you back at an unknown time and ends up leaving a voicemail

Circling back to this, some of the key points of failure I found among various offerings was:
1) Phone tech at the time (ie: iPhone didnt support any codec outside of its own h.264. Later I believe they finally supported VP8 in webRTC)
2) no one avail to take the video call (sales or service)
3) appt setting for a video call wasnt well supported by customers or sales team
4) Seemed to a customer a lot more 'intrusive' (even if you can keep your camera off)

Ourselves as a group have embraced video extremely well on a 1:1, record and send to customer (said before we do roughly 700,000 or so videos this year for sure)

I think there is a spot for 1:many (set demo/walkaround times possibly, kind of like "DealerTV")

But the biggest use I see for us ties into the fact we are sending so much video already.

When the customer first goes to view the video, we trigger a message to our sales/finance rep "Customer XYZ is now viewing your video, do you have time to chat if they like?"

If rep replies back to system 'Yes', then we know our rep is avail/ready to take the call.

At the end of the video we show a prompt to the customer (since the rep replied 'Yes', if 'No' or simply no response from the rep we just don't show the prompt): "Would you like to chat with your sales rep?". We give them a couple choices "Text Chat", "Video Chat" or "Phone".
They make their choice and off they go.

Also through our sales app, the rep can send a PURL to a video chat room to a customer at any time to video chat. Sends that customer a specific url to a video room where they can chat with their rep

The flow you built here to move from async to live is great. Herding cats to be ready for a live call, but not forcing it.

Also, giving the customer options for a preferred channel after confirming interest in speaking is strong.

I have questions!

1) Do you have an idea of how often each channel is selected?

2) How often does the customer say "yes" to talking?

3) If the customer says "no", is there a CTA to confirm the work or set a time to talk?

4) Was appt setting not supported well because it still required manual intervention to set the appt?

 

[Todd Thompson]

Almost like the contact center rep that calls you back at an unknown time and ends up leaving a voicemail



The flow you built here to move from async to live is great. Herding cats to be ready for a live call, but not forcing it.

Also, giving the customer options for a preferred channel after confirming interest in speaking is strong.

I have questions!

1) Do you have an idea of how often each channel is selected?

2) How often does the customer say "yes" to talking?

3) If the customer says "no", is there a CTA to confirm the work or set a time to talk?

4) Was appt setting not supported well because it still required manual intervention to set the appt?

Hi, sorry just logged on today for first time in awhile.

We do store the choice the customer makes when deciding to contact and find text, then phone, then video. Also dependent on time of day. Regular business hours the amount of phone goes up, guessing they are thinking they can get a quick question answered.

About 12% choose to contact at the prompt in sales. Well worth the effort.

CTA... no we don't. But does make you think maybe we should. With service, the option to confirm work is always there. There is a follow up for declines that happen within the store. When a 'no' to upsell occurs from the video, we push notifications into the DMS to related advisor, service manager and videographer as well as fixed op if there is one for that store. They then have their own in-store process to try and steer that to a 'yes'.

Appt setting was largely being 'mishandled' from the sales app. There are a couple situations it works well. I'm actually in NFLD at the moment doing some training with stores to get them on it more effectively... good times