Vonage has announced an agreement with ride-hailing app FREENOW to enhance its customer communication strategy.
“Partnering with Vonage reflects our dedication to seamless and secure communication with our customers,”
Tim Ossenfort, Vice President of Engineering at FREENOW, said.
The partnership will see the ride-hailing company leverage a set of Vonage Communications APIs to expand its communication avenues as well as secure them.
What Vonage Brings FREENOW
FREENOW, operating across 150 cities in multiple European markets, allows customers to access taxis, car-sharing services, e-scooters, e-bikes, and more through its app.
However, because it deals with financial information, like linked cards, it needs to implement additional security to ensure compliance without holding up customers.
Here is where Vonage’s API solutions come in.
Currently live in nine countries, FREENOW is leveraging Vonage’s Messages API, which includes support for RCS, WhatsApp, and SMS, along with Fraud Defender Advanced and Number Verification.
“By providing a simple and secure alternative to SMS with the added support for branding and sharing rich media like photos and videos that customers have come to expect, we’re seeing more and more demand for RCS,”
Seckin Arikan, Head of API at Vonage, said.
This tailored approach, which includes branding capabilities, is designed to simplify the customer experience and improve trust. FREENOW believes this will drive measurable outcomes such as enhanced click-through rates and optimized one-time password conversion rates.
“Vonage’s APIs provide us with the flexibility and reliability to meet the demands of millions of users across Europe, enabling us to deliver branded, interactive experiences that inspire confidence, enhance engagement, and speed up and simplify the customer experience,” Ossenfort said.
The collaboration marks an expansion of an initial partnership that saw FREENOW utilizing Vonage’s SMS and WhatsApp solutions to interact with users.
Building on this foundation, FREENOW is moving toward implementing branded messages via RCS to introduce an added layer of trust and interactivity.
“Looking ahead, we plan to incorporate Number Verification and Silent Authentication via Network APIs into our solution, further strengthening the trust and security that underpin our customer interactions,” Ossenfort concluded.
Silent Authentication expands the type of verification capabilities FREENOW is gaining through the current agreement. It further streamlines verification by removing the One-Time Password process.
It does this by automatically verifying users via their mobile network provider using data from their smartphone’s data connection, which secures and simplifies the authentication process. This is underpinned by Vonage’s network.
Vonage on a Voyage
Vonage has been integrating its APIs across industries in bids to enhance security and streamline processes.
Last month, it announced a partnership with mobile financial platform Lydia Solutions to deliver its Silent Authentication API.
Equally, it lent its communications and network APIs to SAP in a plan to bring AI-driven experiences to enterprises worldwide.
