How APIs Can Reduce Business Costs
An application programming interface (API) provides shortcuts without cutting corners. Communications APIs take that idea and apply it to some of the costliest, most technologically demanding features a company could implement.
By this logic alone, it's easy to understand why businesses undergoing digital evolution would turn to this technology for help skipping the queue. And that's before considering the trove of research supporting its ability to kickstart business growth. A 2021 study by digital economists at Chapman and Boston universities suggested businesses that recognize the benefits of APIs and adopt the technology may grow up to 38% faster than nonadopters, for one eye-opening take.
Every use case is different, so read on to learn about how a switch to communications APIs can boost your organization.
Vonage Voice API: A Multifunction Powerhouse
What It Is
In a word, Vonage's Voice API is multifaceted. It includes the ability to make digital voice calls (and embeds that capability into applications your company builds), but it also packs powerful conversational artificial intelligence (AI), turnkey contact center functionality, and numerous other valuable features.
How It Can Help You Save Money
Let's start with process automation. With Voice APIs, it’s easy to build the capabilities to process payment-card-industry-compliant payments, confirm shipments, and perform other rote tasks with conversational bots — and that means being able to put human agents on other, more contextually appropriate tasks. In a retail or hospitality contact center, that can mean drastic per-call savings and the sort of operational efficiencies that add up to savings on the other end: fewer people waiting on hold, more people available to handle larger problems, etc.
A voice API's centralization also means less need for employee specialization. Because the technology enables you to embed true multichannel communication into any app you choose, employees spend less time needing to work in a single channel, a big savings that multiplies with every rep you add to your workforce.
Integrating WebRTC/In-App Voice technology with the Voice API can also provide potential capital expenditure savings. Because calls can be placed via a web browser, companies spend less on buying, maintaining, and updating cumbersome purpose-built hardware when they go for a flexible alternative, saving even more in the long run. With WebRTC/In-App Voice functionality, your business can usually save money relative to a traditional phone system that involves carriers and the PSTN (public switched telephone network).
Visit Vonage Voice API Infographic
Vonage Video Express: Build Custom Video Experiences Faster
What It Is
Vonage Video Express makes it easy to build a custom real-time video experience within any web or mobile web application. Built on top of our mature Vonage Video API, Express was designed explicitly to simplify all aspects of working with an API solution, while leveraging the scale, features, and performance of the underlying product. It helps you bypass the costly, resource-intensive aspects of setting up video services by reducing complexity, especially for multi-participant video calls, and making it possible for non-experts to integrate a custom solution.
How It Can Help You Save Money
Even enterprise-level companies might struggle to create a flexible two-way video experience from the ground up, let alone scale it to multiple active participants. The immense difficulty and technical complexity are indeed why companies seek the benefits of APIs to begin with.
If video is even a minor part of your digital evolution or transformation plans, it'll probably be a massive upgrade wherever you ultimately implement it. Frequent examples of this include secure video calling within a proprietary company collaboration app or adding a telehealth option to a list of modernizing healthcare services. Taking that point further, there's a chance that implementing video represents a point of difference for your organization. Whether you're attempting to beat a competitor to market or outdo their speed with quality, there's likely some sense of urgency.
Because Vonage Video Express was designed explicitly to eliminate repetitive commands and reduce the complexity in the code overall, customers can significantly reduce the amount of time required to implement cutting-edge video functionality into existing apps and websites. And with the impressively diverse number of ways our platform can provide reliable high-quality video support and integration services, that's very good news for any business making video part of its future.
Vonage Verify API: Taking a Bite Out of Authentication
What It Is
Like the other items on this list, Verify API is one name for a lot of high-utility features. Instead of directly enabling communication, Verify leans on a number of Vonage's strengths — including operating communications networks, transmitting secure messages, and integrating with popular platforms — to give businesses an easier path to two-factor authentication, commonly known as 2FA.
How It Can Help You Save Money
Simply put, 2FA is a complex technical task requiring the person providing the service to hold multiple areas of expertise. Consider the moving parts for a "simple" 2FA transaction:
A user must login to a secure website that is protected against various types of attack.
Upon successful login, the site must transmit a secure message across a second channel, such as SMS or voice call.
When the user receives the message, they must enter the code — delivered over an entirely different communications network — into the site they initially logged in from.
It sounds straightforward, but the number of things going on in the backend is mind boggling. In that regard, Verify API saves businesses money by relieving them of the rigors of developing their own complex authentication system. It also allows them to integrate their authentication efforts via popular messaging channels like WhatsApp and opens organizations to new revenue streams by allowing them to authenticate users from all around the world.
In a more direct sense, Verify API also helps businesses save by cutting down on successful instances of fraud and by helping customers sidestep spam and other bothersome technical side effects.
Conclusion
The better the APIs at your business's disposal are, the better the savings. Leading API suites create multiple opportunities for their users to cut back and avoid unnecessary costs:
Direct savings from reduced capital expenditures, lower maintenance, and reduced reliance on costly legacy programs and hardware
Indirect savings from the procedural, operational, and experience-based benefits your organization realizes over time as it gels with the technologies it's implemented
In both cases, there's a lot of money to be saved. And now that you've gotten a high-level overview, it's time to schedule a demo and see what our APIs can do to help you save.
