Fonolo is a Web service that helps consumers deal with large companies over the phone. Instead of dialing a company directly and hearing "press 1 for this and 2 for that," users may navigate a company's phone menu visually, through Fonolo’s Web or mobile interface, and then click on the point they want to reach. Shortly afterwards, their phone will ring, and when they answer, they will be connected directly to that point in the menu. Fonolo calls this process Deep Dialing, analogous to deep linking on the Web.
Behind the scenes, Fonolo has built a system that spiders phone menus the way Google spiders Web sites. Fonolo drags the phone world into the Web age by illuminating the "dark matter" hidden behind those 1-800 numbers. Fonolo makes that information indexable, linkable, bookmarkable, taggable, etc.
Technological Advantages:
- Fonolo builds and maintains an "Intelligent Call History" for each company called. This history includes notes attached to the calls, as well as full recordings. These two features empower consumers and also open the door to all the innovation, social interaction and emergent behavior that happens when a new data set is "Web-ified".
- The company has filed four international patents to make such made ground-breaking advances in speech recognition and telephony automation.
- Companies who utilize Fonolo’s white label service benefit from improved customer experience, reduced call center costs (by cutting down on misnavigated calls), better feedback (i.e. Fonolo includes a post-call feedback survey that provides real-time feedback from callers), and instant mobile interface (companies can extend the customer care experience to the mobile by leveraging their existing investment in their IVR system).
Company's biggest achievements during 2009:
- Fonolo was named one of Time Magazine’s list of “50 Best Websites 2009” in August. Since 1923 Time Magazine has been one of the most authoritative guides in what is happening in the world. With its endorsement, Fonolo’s public beta has received more consumer attention.
- In July the company added powerful new features to its already innovative service including “Quick Tones” which saves automatic numbers (ID numbers, passwords, etc.) and the ability to record a call. Fonolo also opened its hosted services to businesses that want to improve customer service with this new batch of features.