Introduction

In today’s digital-first world, effective communication is the backbone of any successful business. TextSpot is making waves in the realm of mass A2P (application-to-person) 10DLC text messaging, helping small to medium-sized businesses streamline their communications with intuitive software. I sat down with Lance Beaudry, CEO, and Karlo Zadro, CTO of TextSpot, to discuss how their platform is transforming customer engagement, the challenges they've faced with past API providers, and their experiences working with Telgorithm to enhance their 10DLC service offering.

Lauren:

Please introduce yourselves and tell us a little about TextSpot.

Lance:

I’m Lance, CEO, and Co-founder of TextSpot. At TextSpot, we provide mass text messaging software for SMBs. We like to think of ours as being so simple that your mom could use it, but with features robust enough to make your boss happy. Our platform makes it incredibly easy for businesses to send bulk texts while maintaining professionalism and efficiency.

We work with clients across many industries from Chick-fil-A franchises to universities like Princeton and the University of Kentucky. Many of our customers use TextSpot to send text reminders, mass employee communications, and promotional messages to their customers.

Karlo:

I’m the CTO and Co-founder. My focus is on making sure the technology behind our platform is solid and scalable so our customers can trust that their messages will be delivered on time, every time.

Lauren:

Prior to working with Telgorithm, you were working with Twilio. What was your experience there?

Karlo:

One of our biggest pain points was around deliverability. Initially we were sending unregistered text messages. Initially, this worked well, but as the SMS ecosystem evolved, we began running into serious deliverability issues. We were on Twilio and it became clear that we needed to adopt 10DLC to ensure better message deliverability. Unfortunately, once we did this we weren’t getting insight into when or why a message went undelivered.Twilio support wasn't great about getting us those answers. When we did get answers, they weren't super timely and weren't really detailed enough for us to know how to prevent those issues from reoccurring.

Lance:

With Twilio we were submitting Campaigns and were experiencing a 7-8 week approval time. Many times our Campaigns were rejected and we didn’t get any insight into why they were rejected and how to fix them. One of the biggest frustrations was we didn't have a point of contact that was a champion of our success at Twilio. There was no one that was on our side to help us navigate all these changes.

When we were with Twilio, we weren't even aware of The Campaign Registry (TCR) and the fact that we should register and go through them and submit campaigns. With Twilio’s model, we didn’t have to do that which gave us less control, less visibility made the entire process way more opaque.

Lauren:

How did this affect your customers?

Karlo:

Our customers don't understand the intricacies of everything that goes into sending 10DLC SMS, and they shouldn’t have to, it should just work. They were coming to us saying, ‘Hey, I sent a message. It was supposed to get delivered at 10 am. Only 5 of my 100 messages got delivered. What’s going on?’

There was a lot of frustration because we didn't have the information to help get their problems solved. We ended up with a lot of upset customers and needed a Twilio alternative.

Lauren:

We often hear that software providers have concerns about migrating from one SMS API provider to another because it may cause business disruptions. What was your migration experience?

Karlo:

Technically, we had two concerns. Initially, we were concerned about how hard it would be to transition our entire platform from Twilio to Telgorithm. We had essentially built our platform on Twilio, with integrations to their APIs as well as webhooks and other systems. So the first concern we had was how difficult it would be to update our systems within our app to use the Telgorithm APIs instead of the Twilio APIs. Telgorithm has documentation on how to transition from Twilio and this was very helpful. The Telgorithm APIs are really well documented, and since they are built on the open API spec they are really easy to use. We generated a library based off of the online documentation. In practice it was super easy to switch over using the Telgorithm API.

Our second concern was how we were going to port over the hundreds of live phone numbers we had with Twilio. And, we didn't really understand the details of porting numbers between API providers so that also concerned us. The Telgorithm support team was really instrumental in helping us understand the porting process. They helped us put together the documents that we needed to submit to Twilio and also helped us structure all of the phone number reports to ensure that we didn't have any downtime.

Lance:

Karlo gave you the technical hesitations on migrating to Telgorithm. From a business perspective, one of my concerns with switching was size and experience. Initially, we thought, ‘How could a company the size of Telgorithm possibly be better than such a large well known company as Twilio?’

Once we met the Telgorithm team we realized they knew more about 10DLC than Twilio, and more importantly they could deliver on the promise of better customer support than what we were getting from Twilio. In this case, size doesn’t matter. It’s the level of support and transparency that matters.

Lauren:

That’s a good segue into support. Can you talk a bit about the support you get from Telgorithm?

Lance:

One of the biggest frustrations at Twilio was not having a point of contact who could help us navigate the changes in industry regulations. When we switched to Telgorithm, we saw an immediate improvement in communication and support. Telgorithm’s support has been outstanding. They’re in the trenches with us, and it feels like they’re part of our team. That’s something we didn’t get with Twilio.

Karlo:

Here’s a story that illustrates the support and partnership we get from Telgorithm. We had a customer come to us on a Friday with an urgent need to send tens of thousands of messages for a conference that started on Sunday. We reached out to Telgorithm, and within 15 minutes, the Campaign was approved. From Sunday to Tuesday, our customer sent 70,000 to 80,000 messages. That kind of turnaround time was crucial for us. It helped us prove to one of our big customers that they could trust us with any SMS situation.

Honestly, the Telgorithm onboarding process was fantastic. We really wanted to find a partner that we could stay with for the long term and that could help us grow. Telgorithm assigned an account rep who walked us through the API differences. He also educated us from a business perspective on the 10DLC ecosystem as a whole.

Lance:

Another key benefit is that we now have a much deeper understanding of the SMS ecosystem. Telgorithm has given us the knowledge we need to manage the 10DLC process more effectively, which has reduced customer churn and frustration.

Lauren:

Before we wrap up, how would you describe the Telgorithm to a colleague?

Lance:

I’d say Telgorithm is like having a partner who knows more about the 10DLC ecosystem than you ever could. They handle the complicated stuff, so we can focus on running our business. They’re the experts, and we trust them to keep things running smoothly. I would describe them as a friend that knows much more than you – and is fighting on your behalf.

Karlo:

Yeah, I’d add that they allow us to focus on what we do best while they manage the intricacies of 10DLC. In all of our communications, Telgorithm is very straightforward. When we talk to the Telgorithm team, I've never had to worry that they weren’t being honest with us or that I wasn't getting the full picture. It’s a no-nonsense partnership, and that’s been invaluable to us.