The Drop is our monthly update that highlights new features and recent enhancements we’ve made to the platform, so you can easily stay informed on what’s new in Smooch. Here’s what we launched in April.

It’s been a very satisfying month for Smooch: launching a new channel integration -Twitter DM, improvements to our API libraries targeted towards large organizations, and a lot of new code. Like much of the work we are accomplishing right now, our focus remains on helping companies scale their messaging efforts more efficiently, and more comfortably.

What’s new 🎉

Twitter DM

Twitter has recently announced a lot of exciting new updates to its API. We’ve worked directly with the social network to integrate Twitter direct messages into Smooch. As a result, Twitter DM is now available as a customer channel in our platform.

People around the world take to Twitter to engage with companies for customer service as they appreciate the fast-paced nature of the platform. It’s not all talk: in a recent survey, 77% of Twitter users said they were more likely to recommend a company following a personalized interaction like a Direct Message.

This new messaging channel is very robust and works with most of Smooch’s features, like images, emojis, GIFs and quick replies , allowing you to build a deeper connections to your customers through personal interactions with them.

API Libraries

We want Smooch to be accessible to as many developers and organizations across the globe as possible and that means growing our API libraries. We launched new API Libraries for Ruby, Python, and Java and plan on adding more languages in the future. We built those based on our Swagger API specification, now available as a Github repo which you can follow to be notified on future updates we make to the API.

Message modifier delegate methods for iOS & Android SDKs

We added new hooks to both our iOS and Android SDKs to let you modify messages sent by users as well as filter and modify them before they are displayed. These new delegate methods can enable a variety of advanced use cases, for example: build end-to-end encryption yourself, add context to messages via the metadata field, interpret messages as out-of-band commands, and more.

Developer resources, use cases and sample code 🗃

As we build on our product, we naturally come up with valuable use cases along the way. Rather than keep them in our head, we made it a habit to start building them out to help you do the same. Here are the links to some of the use cases and code samples we developed over the last few weeks:

• API Quickstart: A code sample repo and step-by-step guide to making your first API calls using Smooch. This is the quickest way to kick the tires and get your project off the ground.
• Sample helpdesk implementation: For software makers wanting to create a conversational product, we’ve built a simple multi-channel helpdesk called SmoochDesk entirely powered by the Smooch platform. Use it to visualize end-to-end customers interactions or leverage the code as a reference to help you build your own proof-of-concept.
• Sentiment analysis: Detect the sentiment of a user message using Google Cloud NLP. This is a great tool for customer service and can help disarm situations quicker by using the right tone immediately.
• Message translation: Translate user messages in a language your agents understand. Use it to help agents understand the issue and provide adequate support.
• Data dashboard: Using Chart.io, this piece of code will allow you to forward your webhook events and use them to build charts about your usage of the Smooch API. Use it to assess basic employee performance, or even create more complicated ROI calculations.

Sneak peek 👀

We’ve seen Smooch usage grow tremendously in recent months and many of you are managing huge numbers of Smooch apps for your customers. That’s why we’re working on a dashboard update that makes it a breeze to handle hundreds of accounts at a time. Stay tuned!

Happy messaging!