Calling a company? Here’s how to avoid automated menu hell

In this “5 Questions” feature at Sync, we speak with Shai Berger, CEO and co-founder of Fonolo.

Sync: What is the Fonolo service, exactly?

Berger: Fonolo makes it less frustrating to call large companies. Consumers can use our free service from the web or from our new iPhone app. Fonolo lets them skip the phone menu and connect directly to the point they need. Fonolo also offers call recording and intelligent call history features. For companies, we have a product that lets add this same “Deep Dialing” approach to their own website or mobile application.

Sync: If it’s free, what’s the business model?

Berger: We offer the consumer service for free as a way to teach people about our enterprise product. If your company has a call center, we’d love to set up a free trial for you. Learn more here.
 
Sync: How did you come up with the name? What does it mean?

Berger: We wanted something that sounded like a friendly way to make phone calls. By the way, it is pronounced”PHONE-oh-low” (with the accent on the first syllable).

Sync: What’s the advantage of the iPhone app?

Berger: Mobile access was the most popular request from people that used the Fonolo service. By having Fonolo on your mobile device, Deep Dialing becomes simpler because you don’t have to go to our website to start the call. The process of starting a call with Fonolo on the iPhone is very similar to the “native” way of starting a call, so it feels very natural.

Sync:  Have you averaged how much time a product like this saves?

Berger:  The answer that question, the starting point is: “How much time is spent talking to agents?” It is actually impossible to answer that because, unlike web traffic, there is no way to independently count the calls to a given phone number. Industry analyst ContactBabel recently estimated the number at 260 billion minutes, in North America alone. If so this accounts for close to 8% of all talk time by a typical North American consumer!  Given the staggeringly large amount of time, money and energy spent on these calls, improvements to their efficiency – even small ones – have the potential to deliver very significant impact.