FONOLO ANNOUNCES INNOVATIVE SERVICES TO EASE CALLER FRUSTRATION WHEN DEALING WITH LARGE COMPANIES

‘Deep Dialing’ and ‘Intelligent Call History’ Will Save Callers Time and Aggravation; Press 1 to Say Good-bye to Phone Menus Forever

MOUNTAIN VIEW–Calif., March 13, 2008—Fonolo today previewed ground-breaking services that make it faster and less frustrating to call large companies. For anyone tired of navigating lengthy phone menus—“Press 1 for service, press 2 for sales...”—Fonolo’s “Deep Dialing” feature will be a welcome relief. In addition, Fonolo’s “Intelligent Call History” feature automatically maintains a history of calls made to each company, along with notes and recordings, for easy reference.

Company co-founder and CEO Shai Berger announced and demonstrated Fonolo (Pr.: PHONE-uh-low) at the eComm2008 conference under way this week at the Computer History Museum here. Fonolo, formerly FōnCloud, also announced a private beta program today and forecasted a commercial launch later this year.

Fonolo’s “Deep Dialing” feature enables a caller to skip time-consuming touch-tone and IVR-driven menus and connect directly to a point inside a phone menu to reach the person or department he needs.

The process is simple. A user starts by finding the company he needs on the Fonolo Web site, then visually scans through the phone menu and clicks on the appropriate point. Fonolo will then dial the company, navigate the phone system and call the user’s phone. When the user answers, he will be connected to the desired point in the menu. Furthermore, the user can bookmark this point inside the menu so that in the future, it is only a click away. With Fonolo, users can navigate the call-path options visually, on a computer or mobile device, then click to be connected directly, rather than plodding through the menus step-by-step.

“No one should ever have to navigate a phone menu twice again,” Berger said. “We’re building Deep Dialing to respond to the growing frustration of navigating increasingly complex phone menus. 

“Everyone hates hearing the same questions and dialing the same option keys when they call airlines, banks, utilities, insurance companies, and the like. It’s a universal complaint,” he said.  “We know Fonolo will be useful to everyone who hates to waste their time and valuable cell phone minutes.”

Fonolo’s “Intelligent Call History” revolutionizes call recording and logging by:

• Automatically organizing all of a user’s calls to a given company, regardless of which phone was used to make the call.
• Storing call recordings that users can review at any time, play back to the company or forward by e-mail. (Call transcription will be offered later as a premium service.)
• Allowing users to write text notes during a call and store them along with the history; those notes can be searched and reviewed later.

“Our goal with Fonolo is to empower the user,” Berger said. “Consumers have been getting the short end of the stick for too long. Deep Dialing, combined with ‘Intelligent Call History’ and some exciting features that we will be announcing soon, all serve to shift the balance of power back to our side. We like to think of the service as a consumer equalizer.”

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About Fonolo

Fonolo is a service that helps consumers deal with large companies over the phone. Fonolo’s Deep Dialing feature allows you to skip the dreaded phone menus (a/k/a “IVR systems”) and get right to the point.  With Fonolo, users can navigate the call path options visually, on a computer or mobile device, then click to be connected directly, rather than plodding through the menus step-by-step. Fonolo’s Intelligent Call History feature tracks all the calls a user makes to a particular company, no matter which phone he uses, and automatically organizes them along with notes and recordings.

Fonolo has developed proprietary technology that automatically “spiders” IVR systems, thus building and maintaining a database of the numbers that consumers typically call. This “map of phonespace,” a dataset that has never been built before, powers Deep Dialing and Fonolo’s other innovative features.

Fonolo is designed for anyone who has been frustrated dealing with large companies over the phone. In particular, it appeals to people who hate wasting time—and cell phone minutes—with automated phone systems, and to people who want a better way to keep track of their call history. 

Fonolo is privately held and based in Toronto. The service is currently in closed beta.

Contact:
Sue Huss, for Fonolo
sue.huss@comunicano.com
+1 619-379-4396