Twilio Flex: Your QuickStart Options

You’ve chosen Twilio Flex, the world’s most flexible contact centre platform. You’ve established a Flex instance and are met with a blank canvas; the possibilities are endless, so what now? It can be daunting.

Twilio makes building simple, but does still require the building of most functionality.

One option is to build everything from scratch. This can be done in-house or with the help of a Twilio build partner. This approach can be time consuming and burn through budget that could be better spent on developing game-changing functionality that will differentiate you in your marketplace.

The fast routes to Flex

“By taking off-the-shelf building blocks wherever possible, you can put all of your energy toward your unique areas of differentiation,” writes Jeff Lawson, Twilio CEO in Ask Your Developer.

To this end, Twilio build partners have launched 'quickstart' options designed to help organisations get their Flex contact centre ups and running quickly. The intention being to provide core functionality or ‘building blocks’ that can be pieced together, so that organisations do not have to reinvent the wheel over and over again.

Organisations can use these building blocks to improve their existing contact centres (without needing to rip and replace) or as the foundations of a complete contact centre reimagining.

Two primary approaches have emerged:

1. Subscription-based third-party platforms
   Some companies have developed platforms that sit on top of Twilio. Organisations add a plug-in and gain access to a marketplace of functionality. From there they can add elements as needed.
   
   The approach makes adding features very easy but requires an ongoing subscription. The trade-off for ease-of-use is that the organisations do not own the underlying code but are instead reliant upon a third-party provider for ongoing services.
   
2. Pay-per-plugin and own the code
   Other providers have developed libraries of plugins (including buildNow from Zing), which can be purchased by the plugin. Once the code is handed over to the client, it is theirs to use and build upon as they wish. This means organisations retain control and ownership
   

Our quickstarter is called buildNow and is a plug-and-play service that quickly gets Twilio Flex contact centres up and running. Users pick the functionality they need from an extensive library of Flex plug-ins and we install and shape the customised contact centre before handing over with ongoing support options.

The full list of features and functionality plug-ins can be accessed via the buildNow product page.

Over the years, we have built a lot of Flex contact centres and, because a lot of the functionality is the same, we decided to standardise those parts. The creation of buildNow has been a two-year labour of love led by our Head of Product, Paul Johnson. The result is fast, cost-effective Flex launches for our clients, making it all totally worthwhile.

Points of differentiation

buildNow offers the following...

• Control - You own the code. Always.
• Cost efficiency - Priced per plug-in. Prices start from £500 per plugin, whereas some partners require minimum investments of “...as little as $40,000”.
• A large plug-in library - Some providers are launching with few plugins and limited functionality. With buildNow, new plug-ins are constantly being added.
• Confidence - Forged over 100+ Flex builds, our plug-ins are tried and tested.
• Complete Flex UI 2.0 compatibility - You can even use buildNow to simplify your upgrade.

To find out more about buildNow (and download the complete list of plug-ins), please visit the product page here, and do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions about Flex quickstarter options.