CIOReview Names Drips the 2024 Conversations as a Service Company of the Year
CIOReview has named Drips the 2024 Conversations as a Service Company of the Year. This award reflects the and trust and reputation Drips has built among industry thought leaders like those of the CIOReview editorial board.
Read below for the full profile which accompanied the award, or visit CIOReview.com.
Humanized, Compliant Interactions as a Service
When it comes to communication, there is a clear preference for personal and direct interactions over automated or robotic messaging. Similarly, there is a shift from one-way outreach to engaging in two-way conversations.
Fully embracing this belief is Drips, a business communication leader that focuses on real, humanized interactions at scale to radically transform how businesses engage with their clients.
Through its innovative Conversations as a Service (CaaS) model, Drips provides scalable and personalized communication solutions that adapt to the dynamic business landscape. Drips has helped multiple top U.S. organizations and Fortune 500 companies build deeper and more meaningful relationships with their clients and stakeholders.
At the core of the CaaS model are three foundational pillars—"Keep It Real, Keep It Easy, Keep It Safe.” “Each pillar underpins our commitment to creating meaningful, efficient, and compliant client interactions, ensuring that businesses can engage their customers in an authentic and secure way,” says Aaron Christopher “A.C.” Evans, co-founder and CEO of Drips.
“Keep It Real” centers on humanized conversation. In a world where consumers are inundated with automated and impersonal messaging, Drips takes a different path. The company recognizes that people have become their own “spam filters,” often ignoring one-way push communications such as emails or robocalls.
Instead of pushing information at consumers, Drips begins every interaction with a question. This seemingly simple shift—from telling to asking—attracts engagement. For example, rather than sending a text saying, “You have a bill due,” Drips might ask, “When would be a good time to discuss your billing?”
This method generates a dialogue, allowing businesses to establish a solid customer rapport. And with an AI-backed platform, this can happen on a massive scale.
The second pillar, “Keep It Easy,” highlights Drips’ commitment to simplifying the complex process of managing two-way phone and SMS communications. While sending a message may seem simple, managing multi-channel, two-way conversations—especially in a compliant and effective manner—is complex. Responding to this, Drips offers clients a full-service outreach solution with a team of experts who understand the intricacies of messaging, timing, and compliance.
Drips’ team helps craft communication strategies that are tuned to maximize engagement. This hands-on approach stands in contrast to many outreach and contact center platforms that are merely tools that leave businesses handling most of the hard work. This expertise is particularly valuable for businesses that do not wish to allocate internal resources to manage large-scale communication campaigns.
Whether it’s SMS, voice, MMS, or voicemail, the company makes it easier for businesses to reach their customers. For example, Drips was able to help a major insurance company innovate beyond traditional outbound dialing.
“For one insurance carrier, Drips outperformed manual agent outreach with a 25% higher conversion rate. Drips became essential for them to reach their key audiences,” said Evans.
The third pillar, “Keep It Safe,” focuses on compliance. With constantly evolving laws such as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and guidelines from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), businesses must navigate a maze of regulations to ensure their communications are legally sound. Failing to comply can result in significant financial penalties and damage to a company’s reputation.
To that end, Drips proactively integrates compliance into its Conversations as a Service platform. This is particularly critical for industries like healthcare, insurance, financial services, and higher education, where data privacy and regulatory requirements are highly stringent.
For example, in healthcare, Drips supports compliance with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regulations and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules. When it comes to overlapping federal and state-level TCPA laws, Drips leverages compliance technology and processes to streamline compliance for its clients.
The company’s dedication to compliance is further demonstrated by its ISO 27001 and HITRUST Essentials certifications, which signify its commitment to the highest data security and privacy standards. With these accreditations in place, Drips helps clients mitigate the risks of data breaches and regulatory violations, allowing them to communicate with confidence.
Tailored Communication at Scale
Drips offers a comprehensive communication platform that can be customized to meet each client's specific needs. Through close collaboration, this platform gains a deep understanding of clients’ branding, communication style, and customer base, offering a tailored approach for every business.
Whether a healthcare provider reminds patients of upcoming appointments or a financial services firm manages billing reminders, Drips adapts its platform to the situation.
This flexibility is evidenced through several examples, such as a major property and casualty insurance company that had been following up with web quotes via manual calling. After adopting Drips’ conversational approach, the client witnessed a remarkable 23 percent increase in policy binds and a 65 percent reduction in costs.
Meanwhile, a regional health plan struggled to retain members during the Open Enrollment Period using direct mail and social media. Drips’ proactive conversations enabled an 84 percent increase in retention.
Innovating with AI and Expanding into New Services
With new rules emerging around data privacy and artificial intelligence (AI), the company is poised to expand while addressing these evolving challenges.
While much of the industry is fixated on generative AI like ChatGPT, major enterprises aren’t interested in letting AI chat directly with customers. The technology still poses too many risks. Instead, Drips will invest in practical applications of its natural language understanding (NLU) technology.
In particular, Drips is working to enable its clients to use AI to gather insights from the inbound messages that come through the platform. Some customers might mention switching to a specific competitor, or they may mention that price is an issue for them. By using AI models to recognize these insights, Drips hopes to offer enterprises a new level of customer data directly from the words of their own audience.
This has the potential to complement or replace traditional surveys and market research, while allowing for a more agile response to changing consumer trends.
As the firm continues to innovate and expand its services, its value proposition remains clear—humanized, simplified, and compliant communication. By focusing on its core pillars—Keep It Real, Keep It Easy, and Keep It Safe—Drips is helping businesses build stronger customer relationships, driving engagement, retention, and long-term success.