With the voice usage in India being far higher than web usage, it is becoming THE touch point for any application, specially e-commerce (Read: Future Group Acquires Chaupaati Bazaar, Phone Commerce Marketplace). From movie tickets to travel tickets, local search to expert advise, every thing is more convenient for the masses in India over voice than over web. So, shouldn’t your app also have voice access? KooKoo lets you do that but without the hassle of learning new technology or managing an extra bit of infrastructure.
KooKoo is an IVRS platform that can be integrated with any existing web application with just few lines of codes. The code sits on your server like just another webpage and acts as the interface between your application and the KooKoo infrastructure.
How KooKoo Works:
1. Your customers dial the phone number you got from KooKoo.
2. KooKoo answers the call and makes an HTTP request to your application. KooKoo also send you information about the call like the caller id etc.
3. Your web application receives the information and informs KooKoo what to do through XML. Your application can inform KooKoo to Play a text message, Play an audio file, Send SMS, collect user input or record a message.
4. KooKoo performs the actions and interacts with the caller.
5. The business logic is completely handled by your code. KooKoo only takes care of the telephony part.
How KooKoo works
KooKoo is free for trial usage, otherwise the pricing starts from Rs.2000/month/port (1 port = 1 call at a time), which to me looks steep. This is a dedicated port but they do have a shared pool option which would cost about 1/4th. They also have other pricing options with payment gateway integration.
The integration is really easy and the team did build a prototype with only 60 lines of code to demo that advantage to us. Good sales pitch.
Do give KooKoo a try and give us your comments on the platform’s potential in India market.
Related Service: HP’s SiteonMobile | TringMe’s VoicePHP .
[Naman is a startup enthusiast and has worked with couple of Indian startups as Product Manager. He writes at The Inspire Blog]
Thanks for the nice review and feedback. We will certainly try to look at the pricing part and customize it for users.
Hopefully, KooKoo can be the bridge between the web and the phone in addition to providing IVR and other telephony services.
As an example you can look at http://www.kookoo.in/twittervoice which we built as a demo interface to twitter. So you can just call a number and your voice is added to your twitter feed. Talk to your followers :). We will release the source code for that in another week just to showcase how easy it is to build applications like this in KooKoo. So let the creativity fly and let more entrepreneurs get more ideas for start ups :).If you have an idea and need help, do let us know.
Cheers.
Neat Idea! All the best!
Thanks for the comment Sashi
Hi Chetan:
This is certainly very interesting. I work with a Bangalore based non-profit called the Akshara Foundation and we have been looking for a VXML based system for a while now – some details of why towards the end of this post: http://blog.klp.org.in/2010/09/introducing-karnataka-learning.html
How can I get in touch with you guys? Thanks!
Hi Gautam,
Really nice to see the kind of work that you guys are doing. I think as we get caught up in this technology world, we forget some ground realities.Its good that atleast some of us are taking care. You can mail me at chaitanya@ozonetel.com regarding anything. Let us see how we can work together.Looking forward to hear from you.
Cheers.
Thanks much Chetan. I will do that.
Very interesting idea.
BTW, we at Knowlarity, have been doing Cloud Telephony for last two years and have a robust API and platform. Happy to help you with any help you may need.
This looks good. But have to read more for details.
I have been working on Twilio and this looks similar but too expensive to be used IMO. Wish things were as simple as you pay a fixed rental for a phone number and pay according to usage. Dont know why we cant get simpler solutions here in India. Why should I think about ports and things thats not related to my business? If my app uses more, I pay more.
Obviously, the business that uses more of the application will pay more. So it makes obvious sense to give the business bandwidth they need as they use it. Why should one invest more even before they know how the traffic will be? At this time, it makes more sense to make scalability an abstract feature and have plans based on usage. This will provide more opportunities for developers.
I completely agree with you that’s the way it should be, but its feasible business model if the platform its build on offer same pricing model. Which is exactly the case with Twillio using Amazon cloud?.
In India with VoIP still not a valid option pay per use without port limitation (A port now is a physical telephony port) is not a feasible business model. To offer reliable service as of now, you minimum need your own server clusters, pool of PRI termination hardware and datacenter colocation. None of these are on demand. So what fits in best is the Tellme model, where there is pool of resources shared across multiple subscribers.
For developer anyway there is no charge. If someone is launching a service I think fixed cost of as low as Rs. 2500 for a 5 ports with pilot number is not a big expense. As business needs we add or remove ports at same or other locations on demand.
I would say fixed cost works out better when doing business planning.
As VoIP becomes legal and service provider starts offering bulk DID, we will offer same service on similar model.
We are just getting started.
Hi Deepak,
Thank you for your feedback.It is certainly a common thought process for most developers including me :).
We actually played around with a lot of options like pay by use or fixed pricing, but as Atul pointed out as in India we need physical phone connections it made much more sense for us to go the fixed rental approach.
Our main idea has been to lower the entry barrier for developers into the telephony domain and with that in mind we have priced our shared ports at Rs.2500 for 5 ports or Rs.500 per port per month. Compare that to other IVR providers like Voxeo etc they charge around Rs.12,500 for 4 ports which is around 6 times that of KooKoo and you will need to learn VXML and other technologies.
Even so, if you still think the pricing is high and you have a good idea to use KooKoo and price is stopping you from implementing the idea, please do talk to us. We will certainly try our best to see what we can do. After all, you can start paying more once you start making money of your idea :).Our main aim right now is for people to start using this and actually see how much of a value add this is as we have found it to be.
Thanks Atul and Chetan,
I do agree that there are certain bottlenecks by the physical aspect of connections.
We are planning on releasing our app in general towards end of the year and will be adding IVR option in US first. India is certainly a good market, but too many non business related barriers for initial release. Will certainly get in touch once we start on IVR end.
Will be waiting to hear from you Deepak. All the best for your app.
Good one !! All the best, I am surely reaching you guys :)
Please do. We will be waiting to hear from you :) .Also thanks for the wishes.
Interesting.
I will give it a try. :)
Hi Rajendra,
Thanks for your interest. Will wait to hear from you. You can also catch us @kookoo_ozonetel on twitter