There’s an old adage: when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Except, that is, when it isn’t.
Confused?
Well, listen in…
Imagine someone telling you that you (or your customers) can have your very own fully-integrated, cloud-powered, features-rich, super-secure communications app that connects your teams and your customers wherever they are and whenever they want.
No, not a licence to use Teams, Zoom, Webex or any of the others.
Your own app.
Bearing your own branding, customised to deliver your own functionality, and managed by your own existing IT team.
Oh, and all for roughly 10 per cent of the cost of developing one from scratch.
Sound too good to be true?
Yes – but, incredibly, it is.
Thanks to COVID (as well as the general pre-pandemic direction of travel), a mobile app is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have.
It’s the reason Teams et al’s user numbers have grown so exponentially over the past year and – thanks to the hybrid working model likely to become the new norm – why they are set for continued epic growth going forward.
They doubtless cost many tens of millions to develop, so good for them that that investment is now yielding such a return.
But the tech sector is nothing if not stacked full of innovators who make it their business to build on the genius of those who innovated before them.
Enter: the DIY comms app.
Created in 24 hours, not six months.
And all via an easy-to-use, self-service portal.
“Mobile apps, whether a UCaaS platform or an isolated VoIP solution, help companies build their brands and boost productivity while simultaneously improving the user experience for themselves and their clients,” says Rafael Torreblanca, founder of Czech-based integrated video conferencing giant Acrobits, which is pioneering this latest and most audacious of disruptions.
“We know that organisations would prefer to deploy their own app if they could. However, developing one from scratch would cost anything between $250-500,000. We can provide them with that capability for roughly 10% of that, depending on their specification.”
Acrobit’s ‘Cloud Softphone’ solution cleverly white labels a fusion of all of the rich, front end functionality you would expect of a fully-integrated, scalable and cutting-edge mobile communications app with the awesome, back end power of AWS.
Add custom branding and whatever other unique bells and whistles you want and, hey presto, you (or your customer) have got your own equivalent of Teams, or Zoom, or WebEx, or whatever.
You save hundreds of thousands on in-house developers; benefit from the ongoing technical support of AWS; and you pay only for the features you need.
“We created the solution in order to democratise the communications app,” says Torreblanca. “You don’t need your own developers or coders as we’ve done all that heavy lifting already.
“It enables an organisation to use its own in-house IT teams to create an app in 24 hours rather than six months. Having its own user interface enables the organisation to benefit from brand advantage; plus it gets to appear technologically advanced, which also delivers significant value”
“It’s white labelled so we sit in the background with AWS. Their Chime platform is obviously hugely powerful so any app hosted on it is also easily scalable.
“It’s a given that businesses need apps to stay competitive and to deliver an exceptional customer experience. Now they can deliver real, meaningful differentiation by creating their own.”
There is no question that the rise of remote working is changing pretty much every aspect of how we work; and that features-rich, mobile communication apps WILL continue to differentiate businesses going forward.
With every ability to leverage brand, functionality and culture comes an opportunity to positively influence customer perception, increase credibility and drive growth.
And who wouldn’t want THAT to be true?
