There are more than 3 billion smartphone users worldwide. In the coming years, this is expected to reach the 7 billion mark. Life without smartphones is unimaginable. The main purpose of a Smartphone is communication. In the fast digital world that we are living in today, real-time and instant chats play a crucial role in effective communication.
If you are an enterprise owner, you need to invest in subscribing to a real-time messaging API. In this article, we will be focusing on what it is and how it works.
What is a real-time messaging API?
It is a WebSocket-based API through which you can send messages as users and receive events in real-time. Sometimes, it is referred to as the RTM API. It is the basis for all chat messaging services. Oftentimes, it is used with bot user integration for creating helper bots for the workspace. You can use the HTTP-based events API for getting the events to be pushed to you. Most event types that are supported by the API are also supported by the events API.
How does it work?
In order to start an RTM session, you need to call the rtm.connect API method. Through this, the API has a message server WebSocket URL and an initial set of workspace metadata. Once you are connected to the message server, you will get a stream of events that includes the updates to the current workspace state and messages.
This way, the client has a way to maintain a synchronized copy of all workspace messages and data. So, anything that happens in an API will result in an event that is sent to all the connected clients.
What features are available with a real-time messaging API?
- Order tracking and delivery notifications – It helps your customers track their recent purchases on WhatsApp and SMS through notifications and calls. It includes call patching, sending SMS, sending notifications on WhatsApp, and voice messages.
- Customer engagement and notification – This covers crucial information like order delivery updates, flight reschedules, etc. within seconds through Voice and SMS. The cross-sell offers like travel insurance, priority seating, and meal add-ons help keep the customers engaged.
- Two-factor authentication – This helps to ensure that there aren’t any delays in initiating services by sending secure OTPs to the customers quickly. Masked numbers are used for connecting drivers and riders securely over voice.
- Lead Generation and Tracking – An SMS that has a short link can convert potential customers into high-quality leads quickly.
How to select the right real-time messaging API for your business?
- Reliable
The real-time messaging API should be able to handle your transitions in a month and offer a mission-critical level of performance and reliability. Through reliable cloud platforms and system redundancy, they should also be able to deliver SLASs with a reliability guarantee.
- Secure
The API should be secure for use. They should have strict policies and processes designed to offer enterprise-grade security needs like vulnerability testing, role-based access control, and data encryption.
- Available
The real-time messaging API should be highly available with an uptime guarantee. Also, they should offer 27×7 support and have a team of experts monitoring platform performance.
From professional to personal communication, there are more than a billion people using messaging apps every day. However, when it comes to professional communication, apps like WhatsApp, Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, and others don’t have the features needed for facilitating enterprise communication.
In an enterprise, there are multiple layers of professional interactions including inside the team, between teams, with customers and vendors; all of which take place in real-time. The requirement for handling such communication is different.
In order to meet this functional requirement, organizations either build their own API or subscribe to a corporate real-time messaging API that is readily available to them.
