The Philadelphia Police Department, one of the oldest and most forward-thinking municipal agencies in the nation, was faced with the challenge of enabling more citizens to anonymously report minor crimes and nuisance behavior using SMS messages. The goal was to free up dispatchers to focus on emergencies. The department recognized that for many people, text messages are the preferred method of communication. They wanted to make it possible for people to send anonymous tips from their cell phones to help solve crimes. However, bridging the phone and internet was a difficult task. The department also needed a solution that would allow them to respond securely to the sender in case of an emergency, while maintaining the anonymity of the caller.

PhoneUnite, a company offering hosted PBX services to small and medium-sized businesses, faced a significant challenge in finding a scalable, pay-as-you-go communications provider to support their growing business. The co-founders, Henry Weber and Bryan Heitman, initially planned to route calls to their customers' mobile phones, aligning with the BYOD (bring your own device) trend. However, they discovered that their customers also desired traditional business phones, alongside lower communication costs. The challenge was to satisfy these customer needs while also future-proofing their communications infrastructure.

QuoteWizard, a company that connects consumers with insurance agents, faced a significant challenge when their telephony provider experienced an outage that lasted for days. This outage caused their Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and lead generation infrastructure to go offline, severely impacting their operations. The reliability of their phone infrastructure was crucial for their revenue stream, as they get paid for every successful connection between a buyer and an agent. The outage not only disrupted their services but also left the team in a state of uncertainty and stress. The situation was further exacerbated when, even after 24 hours, the outage was not resolved, leaving QuoteWizard's telephony services still down.

Handy, a platform that connects individuals with pre-screened independent service professionals for household services, faced a significant challenge in efficiently connecting home and apartment dwellers with verified home service professionals. The traditional process of finding a housecleaner or handyman was often tedious and time-consuming, involving getting a list of providers from friends or online services, making phone calls, conducting reference checks, and finally scheduling an appointment. The process was not only inconvenient for customers but also for the professionals who had to advertise and market their services.

Homeyou, a marketplace for home remodeling services, was launched in 2014 with a small team of six employees and a few contractors. The primary challenge was to acquire high-quality, sales-ready leads for home improvement professionals in local markets. As the lead-generation business gained momentum, the founders found themselves overwhelmed with incoming calls. They needed a solution that could handle the increasing volume of calls and ensure a superior customer experience. The challenge was to connect quality contractors with homeowners seeking services in a quick, efficient, and secure manner.

Airbnb, a global community marketplace for booking accommodations, faced a challenge in facilitating secure, automated mobile communication between rental hosts and potential guests. The platform allows hosts to post listings of available rooms or properties, which guests can then filter and search according to their needs. However, once guests found a suitable place and communicated with the host to finalize the reservation details, the hosts had a 32-hour window to accept or decline the booking request. Often, hosts were not near their computers and couldn't respond promptly, even if they wished to confirm the booking. This delay in response time was affecting the user experience negatively, as potential guests had to wait longer to hear back on a reservation.

Arkansas Children's Hospital, one of the largest pediatric medical centers in the US, was facing a significant challenge in confirming patient appointments. The hospital was dealing with a high no-show rate, which was not only costing the hospital a substantial amount of time and money but also negatively impacting the care and recovery of the children. The hospital's legacy phone system, which was used to send out hundreds of thousands of appointment confirmation calls, was unable to handle the load and would frequently break down. This resulted in only a small percentage of patients receiving call reminders, leading to more missed appointments and further stress on the system. The hospital's search for a new solution was met with high price quotes from vendors and long waiting periods. The hospital also considered building an in-house notification system, but this would have left them with too much responsibility over the call center and taken valuable time away from other operations.

Balboa Digital, a provider of high-quality contact center solutions, was facing a significant challenge with its existing telephony provider. The VoIP office phone system was inflexible and incompatible with third-party systems, preventing integration with Balboa's agent management system. This led to inefficiencies such as idle times between calls and difficulties in transferring calls. The system also lacked necessary recording and reporting capabilities, hindering Balboa's ability to monitor and coach its agents effectively. Furthermore, the reliability of the service was a major concern, with Balboa having to resort to a secondary provider for emergencies. Traditional telecom providers were found to be too expensive for customization and did not provide all the necessary services. On the other hand, open-source solutions lacked sophisticated customer support and a global telephony footprint. Balboa needed a solution that offered flexibility, comprehensive services, customizable solutions, and excellent customer service at a competitive cost.

Box, a fast-growing technology company, is a digital content management and collaboration platform trusted by businesses of all sizes, including 52% of Fortune 500 companies. The company is entrusted with the secure storage of critical information and data in the cloud. However, with a diverse range of people needing access to these files - including customers, partners, vendors, contractors, and employees - Box faced the challenge of ensuring the security of its customers' data as it moved between Box and various other systems. The company needed a reliable and scalable solution to keep these accounts secure, especially as customers increasingly wanted to access their information from a variety of devices.

Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), one of the world's largest independent Coca-Cola bottlers, faced a significant challenge in coordinating repairs for over 600,000 coolers and vending machines across eight countries in Europe. The company's primary concern was to provide top-notch service to its customers, which included restaurants, cafes, supermarkets, and newsstands. However, the existing field service management application had limitations. When high-volume customers required immediate assistance, field service agents often struggled to quickly contact technicians in the field. The system lacked efficiency, and the team identified a need for a more streamlined process that would allow agents to communicate with technicians more effectively.

DriveNow, a joint venture between BMW and Sixt, provides carsharing services in various European and North American cities. The company faced a significant challenge in ensuring a quick and reliable car rental registration and reservation process for its customers. The process involved sending SMS notifications at two key stages - user registration and car reservation. However, DriveNow was experiencing issues with the reliability of these SMS notifications. Many customers reported that text messages were either delayed or failed to arrive altogether. This led to an increase in phone calls to the DriveNow call center, resulting in frustrated customers and increased operational costs. Additionally, DriveNow needed a solution that could adapt to different cities and territories as the company planned to expand its services.

StubHub, an eBay company and the world's largest ticket marketplace, was facing a significant challenge in streamlining transactions between ticket buyers and sellers. The process required a final confirmation of ticket availability from the sellers, which often resulted in delays. In cases where sellers were unable to confirm ticket availability, StubHub had to resort to manually calling sellers for transactions to proceed. This was a cumbersome and tedious process, as described by John Whelan, Director of Customer Service at StubHub. The challenge was to ensure seamless customer transactions and the ability to close the sale before the tickets expired. The manual process of calling sellers was laborious and inefficient, especially for sellers who were away from an internet connection.

Intuit, a leading provider of business and financial management solutions, faced a significant challenge in protecting small businesses that use its online payroll service from online security threats. As a payroll provider, Intuit stores sensitive information for its small business customers. The company was keen on staying ahead of online fraud and wanted to implement an additional layer of security to safeguard their customers' sensitive data. The challenge was to find a solution that would not only provide robust security but also ensure minimal inconvenience to legitimate customers. The solution also needed to be cost-effective and efficient to implement.

JustPark, the world's largest online parking marketplace, was facing a significant challenge in connecting drivers with parking space owners quickly and efficiently. The company initially used an enquiry model to facilitate this connection, but this process was slow and relied heavily on owners being online and checking their inbox regularly. The company tried using a leading SMS provider to speed up communications, but found that the service lacked essential features such as debugging software and reporting tools. The company was in need of a more developer-friendly integration, with full international coverage, excellent customer service, and a robust developer community.

Kitestring, a personal safety SMS app, was faced with the challenge of creating a reliable way to ensure people arrive at their intended destinations safely. The idea was conceived by Stephan Boyer, a grad student at MIT, who wanted to ensure his girlfriend's safety while she walked home through a risky neighborhood in San Francisco. Boyer aimed to build an app that would allow her to set the duration for her walk home and check in via SMS once she was home. The challenge was not just to ensure timely and reliable message delivery, but also to scale the service to the masses. The app needed to be reliable, scalable, and easy to use for anyone, regardless of whether they owned a smartphone or not.

Salesforce, one of the largest American cloud computing companies specializing in customer relationship management software, faced a significant challenge during their annual event, Dreamforce, in 2009. The event, which hosted over 19,000 attendees at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, included an 'Appy Awards' ceremony where Salesforce.com annually recognizes the best apps of the year. A few weeks before the event, Salesforce decided to add an 'audience choice' category to the awards ceremony. However, the short notice left little time to set up a conventional voting process that would have required lengthy and detailed planning with carriers and long-term commitments. Salesforce needed a solution that could be developed quickly and integrated into their existing workflow, allowing for real-time tallying of results.