Fonolo has a unique mission in life. The company helps consumers deal with large companies over the phone. And, no, they don’t act as an agent on your behalf when you’re going up against Acme Giant Enterprise’s customer service department.
Fonolo’s “Deep Dialing” feature allows users to skip those frustrating, tough to navigate phone menus and get right where they want to go. With Fonolo’s Deep Dialing, 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, regardless of which phone is used, and automatically organizes them along with notes and recordings.
Fonolo CEO Shai Berger, took some time to answer a few questions about Fonolo, and shared his outlook for 2009.
GG: When you look back on 2008, was it a good year for your company?
SB: 2008 was a fantastic year for Fonolo. We unveiled our product in March at the Emerging Communication Conference and won "Best New Product." We started a private beta program that rapidly became oversubscribed and was very effective in helping us tune the product design. We unveiled our iPhone application at GigaOm's Mobilize conference and won the "Judge's Prize." We also were named to FierceVoIP's "Fierce15." On top of that, we received media coverage from BBC, CBC, ABC News and dozens of blogs. Finally, we switched to public beta just before the end of the year. Based on the tremendous attention from the press and the praise from the industry, it seems clear that we've built something very special at Fonolo.
GG: What was your firm’s biggest achievement last year?
SB: Our biggest achievement was scaling up our IVR-mapping system to cover more than 300 companies. Now anyone can visit Fonolo.com, search through the phone menu of those companies and "deep dial" directly to any point in their menu.
GG: What can we expect to see from your company for the next 12 months?
SB: We will unveil the next set of features in Fonolo, further serving our mission of making it easier for consumers to deal with large companies over the phone.
GG: Do you think a new administration in Washington will be good for the communications industry? If so, how? If not, why not?
SB: The wireless spectrum should be treated as a shared resource that should be used for the common good. The FCC has a tough job maintaining this principle, while standing up to industry lobbies that have (as they should) the sole motive of profit. So I believe their recent decisions in connection with network neutrality and regarding the use of white-space bands shows that they are thinking on the right track.
The big question will be who Obama appoints as chairman. His appointments to the FCC transition team have won strong approval from the Internet community, so I am optimistic.
GG: In your view, please describe the future of the IP Communications industry?
SB: The big trend I see is that, as consumers, we are breaking out of the constraints set up by phone companies and taking control of our own telephone experience. Thinking back 50 years, it’s hard to imagine that we once leased our handsets from the phone company and our only choice was the color black.
Unlocked phones and phone number portability got this trend started by making it easy to switch carriers. The primary motivation behind switching (and also behind mobile VoIP) is cost reduction. This will continue to be a motivator, of course, but in the last two years, things have gotten much more interesting.
GrandCentral (now owned by Google) is a great example. It lets you take control of your call routing by setting up rules based on who is calling and the time of day. Skydeck lets you take control of your call records by pulling them off your carrier’s Web interface and presenting them in a more flexible and informative way. Several companies, like Phonetag or GotVoice, let you take control of your voicemail experience.
My company, Fonolo, lets you to take control of your calls to large companies, by allowing you to “Deep Dial” into their phone menus, and automatically building an intelligent call history, along with recordings, for those calls.
What all these examples have in common is that they empower the consumer and that they are built outside of the phone company.
GG: How do the current market conditions affect your potential customers? Do you think they will hold off on purchasing new solutions or do you think the economic conditions will spur them to make purchases that will allow them to be more competitive?
SB: It will be interesting to watch consumer spending on communication services and see how “recession proof” it is. There is a strong feeling that people have developed such a dependence on their cell phones that they will cut anywhere else before they cut there. This recession is the first opportunity we have to actually test that.
GG: If you had to make one bold prediction for 2009, what would it be?
SB: By the end of 2009, every wireless carrier in the U.S. will offer flat-rate data package.
Greg Galitzine is editorial director for TMC’s IP Communications suite of products, including IoTevolutionworld.com. To read more of Greg’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for IoTevolutionworld here.Edited by
Greg Galitzine
