Why Startup Developers Integrate with RingCentral
Modern applications typically require one or more integrations with third-party services to become attractive as a solution for potential customers.
Today’s startups are challenged with deciding which service(s) to integrate to add high value for as many of their customers as possible. The right decision is not always obvious. Many variables must be evaluated before startups can confidently invest their teams’ precious time capital.
The wrong decision can be catastrophic for agile startups in the form of:
- Lost Product Development Momentum
- Declining Customer Acquisition
- Declining Customer Retention
- Wasted Financial Resources
- Frustrated Product Engineers
Startup CEOs, CTOs, Product Managers, and Engineers evaluating cloud communication service providers with whom they should integrate have important questions, which need answers...
- Who are the cloud communication providers best suited to achieve my product’s needs?
- Which provider offers API(s), SDK(s), good documentation, dedicated developer support, or a complete product coupled with a robust Platform?
- Why is one cloud communication provider better to integrate with than another?
- Who has the largest customer base to help me attract new business?
- What features separate the grain from the chaff in terms of cloud communication providers whom I am able to develop an integration?
- Why have other startups have chosen RingCentral when considering cloud communication providers to integrate into their products and services?
I had the opportunity to speak with Dan Foody, the CEO of Cloze, about why he chose for RingCentral for the Cloze application integration, which might help answer the above questions. (View the Cloze integration in the RingCentral App Gallery)
Developer Showcase — Dan Foody (Cloze.com)
What is Cloze? How long have you been in business?
The core focus of Cloze is more of a relationship management application. We have taken a different approach by making Cloze less like a CRM and more like a personal assistant. The application simplifies maintaining high-quality relationships with their customers with a zero data entry (automated data capture) system, providing a single view of all meetings, notes, events, etc. for each company or deal you are working on. The reason our customers choose Cloze is it helps ensure you bring your relationship to the next level. We have been in business a little over a year. The adoption trend for new customers has been to discover us via mobile app stores and once they discover the power of our application, our customers expand their usage from there.
Why did you (being the CEO of Cloze) decide to develop your integration with RingCentral?
It was a business decision fueled by customer demand first. When people think about their business communications, voice and phone are a critical component of that. The number-one request we received from our customer base was to integrate with RingCentral. This allows our customers to have a more comprehensive view of their business communications as it relates to their customers.
Describe your use case for developing the integration with RingCentral, please.
Cloze provides a unified view of the customers across multiple channels. Bringing phone into that is what a lot of customers wanted. Most CRMs offer manual ways to log emails and phone calls — but a key reason customers choose Cloze is to automate out all the manual data entry. While getting rid of data entry for email is easier, getting phone call information is much trickier and not at all “off-the-shelf.”
You said phone / voice communications were a primary use-case, but has Cloze included SMS, fax, etc?
Voice and SMS were the biggest asks from our customers, but we also hook into fax and voicemail transcriptions offered by RingCentral to create a comprehensive view.
What were the best parts of your experience developing with the RingCentral Connect Platform? Worst parts?
There were several factors we evaluated when we were originally considering which cloud communication provider to initially integrate, but RingCentral stood out for a few simple reasons:
- RingCentral had a platform
- The RingCentral API is well documented
- The SDKs were available and work well
- Having a sandbox to test against worked well
- Every experience with developer support was helpful in unblocking our development
Not many other cloud communication providers offered such a complete developer platform. This made it easy to build, and helped us create a straightforward integration. Most platforms do not provide that quality of documentation and user experience [for developers].
What tech stack do you have in production for Cloze?
- AWS, large set of instances across three different availability zones
- Node.js, Cassandra (plus others)
- Large, distributed environment on server-side
- JavaScript, RingCentral JavaScript SDK, HTML[5], and others tools, frameworks, and libraries depending upon if you’re talking about the mobile native or other platforms
Did you experience issues while implementing the RingCentral JavaScript SDK?
The RingCentral JavaScript SDK is well suited for client-side work, but took us a little extra effort to integrate on the server-side. Analyzing the Call History wasn’t well documented with use on the back-end. We were able to bypass the SDK when we needed (for instance, streaming of voice mails from the server). The documentation is largely around the API, which made this easy to accomplish. In other cases, we had to look through the SDK to understand how it worked to figure out the right way to use it, and the SDK is lightly documented…so sometimes you have to figure things out. There were some “gotchas” on the APIs, which made things a little difficult when dealing with implementing them for use with large-scale, distributed environments.
Who were the customers driving your decision to integrate with RingCentral and what was their reception once you released the integration?
People from all walks (individuals, SMB, and large orgs). In terms of once we delivered, it was really well-received. It is magical when people can see the complete view of communication with customers that creates an “aha” moment. We had a number of customers who switched from a different phone/voice provider to RingCentral due to this integration. We found that when people connect their RingCentral phone accounts to be included in their Cloze accounts, they are much more likely to convert to being a subscriber than not. Having the RingCentral integration available made it easy for us as an organization to increase conversions and revenue.
Dan, thanks for taking out time to speak with me today. You’ve been a great sport, I know you’re super-busy. Before we finish up, is there anything you would like to add to our conversation?
Yes. When you think of competing cloud communication providers such as Twilio, developers need to think about the big differences, which RingCentral brings to the table for developers and their customers. Integrating with Twilio means you are building EVERYTHING from scratch, versus going with RingCentral…you have a complete phone and communication solution that doesn’t skimp on the API. You usually have one or the other, but RingCentral has built a complete platform and a rich strong, complete solution for developers.
