Sulekha Uses User Virtual Number (UVN) to Improve Customer Experience & To Safeguard Customer Privacy

The Problem

Some customers got calls from service partners even after their requirement was fulfilled. During their customer interactions, Sulekha learned that sometimes, customers’ phone numbers were passed on to other 3rd party service providers as well.

Solving the Problem of Spam

Sulekha wanted a way to solve this problem of spam calls. The one way to do this is to connect customers and service providers without revealing either party’s phone number.

What is User Virtual Number (UVN) and how does it work?

To keep the conversations secure between the parties involved, Sulekha adopted Exotel’s User Virtual Number (UVN) technology. UVN is the technology that assigns dynamic virtual numbers to users just for the duration of engagement. The USP of this technology is that this assignment can happen on the fly. Here’s how it works:

1. When a customer raises a service request, they are assigned a dynamic virtual number.

2. During the course of the interaction, the service provider can get in touch with the customer only via this number.

3. After the interaction ends, the virtual number will no longer connect to the customer.

4. If a service provider tries to reach a customer via an expired virtual number, they will get an error message.

Advantages of Using Dynamic Virtual Numbers or User Virtual Numbers

There are 2 primary advantages to using this technology:

1. No spam calls or breach of privacy for the customer – This works on the same principle as number masking. Since the service provider doesn’t find out the user’s phone number, there can be no breach of privacy. The experience of the customers while using the platform, improves tremendously.

2. A better understanding of the customer experience for the brand – In this case, Sulekha was able to understand the customer experience much better through detailed call analytics. Since calls were diverted through a virtual number, they were able to track statistics such as response rates, response time, request resolution times etc. With these numbers, they were able to tweak their processes to ensure their customers had a seamless process from logging a service request to getting it done.