Xoom reassures people about their financial transactions

By enabling real-time transaction notifications of money transfers via Twilio SMS, Xoom stays true to its commitment to being open, transparent, and customer-friendly.

Sending funds anywhere and everywhere—fast

An online international money transfer service, Xoom offers a secure, fast, and inexpensive way to send money from the US to friends and family in 33 countries. Xoom customers can send money online via any computer, tablet, or phone with a credit card, debit card, or bank account. Xoom’s money transfer service is easy for customers and also for the end recipients of transactions, who don’t need a bank account or internet connection to receive the money. Money can be made available through a bank deposit, home delivery, or be picked up at a bank or retail location.

Show me the money: Real-time transaction notifications

Many times when someone sends money to loved ones these funds are vital, often used to pay bills, get school materials, or cover day-to-day essentials like buying food. People want the peace of mind of knowing that their loved ones have received the money.

Previously, Xoom provided customers with the ability to receive transfer updates via email. However, many times these emails were overlooked in someone’s already congested inbox, creating much anxiety or frustration for both sending and receiving parties. Frustrated customers would then call the 24/7 phone support line, only to realize that the funds had already been received. Given that 98% of text messages are read within the first 5 minutes, according to Forrester Research, Xoom sought to add SMS account alerts to provide real-time status notifications to customers.

Xoom has several channels that allow customers to get status updates on their money transfers, such as phone, email notifications, and in-portal information, but many of them chose real-time text messages, powered by Twilio SMS, as their preferred alert channel. Customers can opt-in to receive an SMS account alert when the funds are deposited, picked up, or delivered.

Xoom also enables those receiving funds to get real-time SMS updates. If the customer wants “Mom” to be notified when the money is available for pick-up, he simply opts her in to receive SMS alerts by entering his mother’s mobile number after creating the money transfer. Now, instead of having to wait for the person sending the money to provide a status update (which is made more challenging if the parties are many time zones apart), recipients get accurate, real-time SMS alerts in their preferred language.

In addition to SMS account notifications, Xoom improved login security by adding Twilio Two-Factor Authentication. When working with sensitive financial information, passwords alone are not enough. Two-Factor Authentication adds a layer of security to ensure that only the right person accesses the account.

Twilio SMS is on the money

SMS updates for money transfers have proven to be a very successful feature for Xoom. “Based on adoption, we see that real-time SMS notifications are an extremely valuable feature for our customers,” said Haas. “This way, any customer that might have otherwise contacted our support team now has a more convenient way of getting updates.”

“Every incremental thing we can do to make our customers’ experience more delightful helps keep our customers happy and loyal,” said Haas. “Using Twilio SMS to provide real-time alert notifications is one example of that and one of the many ways that our customers can see that we’re thinking a step ahead to make things easier for them.”

As an added bonus, Haas and his Xoom team implemented Twilio without any snags or delays. “It was incredibly easy to evaluate Twilio and get up and running on it,” he added.