Wikipro partners with Bandwidth to create more effective communications for businesses

There are lots of stories for how and why businesses are started. For Wikipro, it all started with the need to get signatures. One of the co-founders of the company, a CPA by trade, needed an easier, faster way to send documents to clients and receive signatures.

While there are numerous digital alternatives, they all rely on email, which can be caught in spam filters; even when those emails make their way to an inbox, email is only opened at a 20% rate. For important, time-sensitive documents, that just wasn’t good enough.

An all-in-one texting platform

SMS has become a de facto channel for businesses. Whether it’s sending appointment reminders, accepting payments, or providing customer service and support, more businesses, regardless of size, are turning to text messaging to communicate with their customers thanks to the faster flow of information and better engagement with customers.

The problem that businesses run into is that depending on the type of communications you want to send, you may need to leverage multiple platforms—that means more costs to manage multiple vendors, along with the time needed to do so.

“It used to be you’d just do one-way texting from a business, like sending reminders. But now you can do two-way text messaging, and that means you’re engaged with the customer; you can share documents, get signatures, or chat in real time. Our tool enables businesses to create those more effective, engaging communications.”

Sam Xia, Co-Founder, Wikipro

Wikipro’s all-in-one platform eliminates the need to manage multiple vendors for the text messaging solutions a business needs. Businesses can choose from use cases like appointment reminders, chat, e-signature, surveys, payments, and basic two-way business texting in any combination that meets their specific needs. But even as Wikipro provided their customers with a unified solution they were in need of one as well.

Looking for a comprehensive, cost-effective solution

Wikipro’s previous provider made it easy for them to quickly and easily build their business messaging solution and get it into the market. But as they prepared to actively market and scale their solution, they knew they needed a provider with a more cost-effective solution that could also help them to navigate the changing messaging landscape.

When Bandwidth reached out to Wikipro, they found that partner. Bandwidth’s focus on compliance and direct-to-carrier pricing provided the solution they needed as they looked to grow their existing market, as well as move into new ones.

Keeping compliant with changing messaging regulations

The messages Wikipro were sending were already CTIA compliant—they followed all the rules around opt-in and out, stop words, and the use of links within text messages. While that meant they weren’t having delivery issues currently, they also knew that the messaging landscape was changing. Part of the appeal of Bandwidth was a team of messaging experts and a library of resources available online.

“I read all of your blogs. I did some research, but you had how the regulation was going to change around 10DLC and being able to shift from short codes to long codes. The industry is shaking up, and everyone just wants their messages to work, so knowing about these changing regulations is important,” said Sam.

Reducing costs by removing unnecessary red tape

Wikipro’s solution enables businesses to send text messages across a variety of use cases. This includes appointment reminders commonly used by healthcare professionals across a range of practice types to ensure that patients show up for scheduled appointment reminders. With missed appointments costing providers $150B every year, these appointment reminder messages are critical.

To help Wikipro serve healthcare customers, Bandwidth provided a custom messaging solution to Wikipro, one tailored to suit their specific needs. This solution enabled providers to send timely reminders and updates that saved them money while saving Wikipro thousands of dollars and enabling them to scale.

Migration with a human touch

Making the move from their previous provider gave Wikipro another example of what makes Bandwidth different—our personal touch. While other providers, including Wikipro’s previous one, rely on businesses reading documentation and implementing changes themselves, Bandwidth combines available documentation with real human support to answer questions and solve problems in real time.

“You guys have a human touch. It’s good because sometimes you just read documents and then you may have a disconnect. You have a human touch and you could get a sense of what was going on and turn things around much quicker.”

– Sam Xia, Co-Founder, Wikipro

Bandwidth’s dedicated onboarding specialists were able to work with Wikipro to iron out any issues quickly, saving them from spending time and resources looking over documentation for answers at a critical moment.

A future with new products and new features

Partnering with a new provider wasn’t just about reducing costs in the immediate for Wikipro, it was about setting themselves up for long term success in the future. When asked about their goals for the future, Sam was excited to share.

“We definitely want to grow our customer base. We’re just now really starting to market ourselves in addition to relying on customer referrals that have gotten us to where we are now, and we have a number internally that we’re aiming for in the next five years. That means not just making our current solutions more feature rich, which we’re working on, but adding new solutions as well. We want to add AI chatbots that can answer basic questions but still have a human jump in seamlessly over SMS. Omni-channel messaging for a better, more engaging experience is something we’re looking at as part of our five year roadmap.”

As for how Bandwidth can continue to support them in these efforts:

“Keep being proactive on sharing changes in the industry. Be more proactive if you can. We want to stay ahead of the curve on these changes, and with your experts and content we’ve done that so far, so just keep sharing it.”