I was accepted to the Fonolo closed beta recently. During the time I was writing this post, it appears Fonolo has opened up its doors to sign up, without invitation, so head on over and give it a try. You might be wondering what the heck is Fonolo? Well to put it simply, it saves you from having to navigate large company’s phone menu systems, and allows you to directly go to your destination. The sign up form was relatively simple, asked for a few basic fields such as first/last name, password, and then one or more phone numbers that your calls can be directed to. After the account is created you can log in from the homepage if not already logged in.

Review

When I first saw the homepage (couple months back when I signed up for the beta), it felt very “Skypey”. There’s nothing wrong with that, they have adopted the Web 2.0 design technique. There is some ajax splashed in the main page but not much, which I appreciate because some newer websites give you the bells and whistles overkill and they just try too hard. This isn’t the case here. The only moving part of the homepage is when you either click “Log In” or “Reset it”. I found this out because the first time I tried to login I saw that it said “Username” and my usual choice of marf had failed. So I quickly realized that the username actually meant the e-mail that you signed up with. So it was slightly misleading, but this is beta so hopefully they either support a username in addition to the e-mail you sign up with, or make it clear that it is an e-mail, because even the best of us forget sometimes.

Once logged in you’re greeted by a home screen, with easy access tabs along the top as well as a list of some common businesses and a news feed of your recent account activity. The only thing that appears out of place in the home screen is the “How to use it in four steps”. There is nothing wrong with the information this mini slide show offers, in fact it is great. The problem is it’s color scheme doesn’t match the other colors on the homepage, therefore it is kind of an eyesore. Not to mention the rotation from Slide 1, to Slide 2, to Slide 3, seem to have slightly different heights, and so you can see the numbers and top borderline shift from picture to picture. A simple fix is all it needs and then the main page will appear that extra bit polished.

Now I’m not going to go through every tab in detail and show pictures, but I will try to mention them. The My Account tab has the typical profile fields to edit, even the time zone (allowing the History to log the correct time the call took place). The one disabled field is your username (aka your e-mail).

The Help tab has your typical list of Frequently Asked Questions with the nice Web 2.0 (hide/show) slide revealing and hiding the answer to each question. Basic but effective.

The Feedback is your run of the mill html <textarea>. It is very generic (no topic or category selection) and I assume it will get a face lift before it is released publicly.

Finally the Invite your friends tab. I need not explain this further.

The Service:

Now lets get to the actual core of the Fonolo services. Every tab page has a left navigation menu which has three primary links ‘Home’, ‘Directory’, ‘My Companies’.

I selected Best Buy (Canada) and was presented with a ‘Common Actions’ section. It had a few buttons, of which the primary one was to Expand the whole menu. I click the button and it expanded a HUGE menu. Each node in the menu list has the description of commentary as well as option to expand (if it was long commentary). Additionally there is a Call Here for each menu node where I can only assume it does just that. So I find the menu option “Store hours/directions/phone numbers” and click “Call Here”. A nice little ajax window pops up, where you can select the current phone number you’d like it to call you at from a dropdown list.

After it starts calling you are brought back to the web page with a little status dialog that shows you the status of the call (and when it will phone you).

After this, its pretty straightforward, it will call your phone once it has reach the destination. It will continue to say call in progress where you can proceed to hang up via the web interface or your phone. After the call has been placed you can see it in your ‘My Account’ page under the recent activity. All in all it works just as expected.

Interview

I contacted Fonolo by e-mail and was lucky enough to have Shai Berger (the co-founder and CEO) respond. He was extremely helpful and not to mention offered to answer any questions I had. So this got me thinking about a few questions I have as a Fonolo user, and potential Premium Service client in the future. I fired the questions off to Shai and got answers back shortly after. Continue reading for the mini Q&A session.

Marf - So Fonolo is a great idea, however large businesses can often add or change their IVR options. In these cases, how long could it take Fonolo to update their mappings? I ask this because an incorrect mapping could have users end up at a destination that they didn’t select.

Shai - We regularly validate every tree in our database. (Most trees get re-validated every day.)

Shai - When you click to start a deep dial, we call the company and actually listen to the audio as we navigate, comparing it to our database. i.e. every call re-validates that particular path through a tree. (A nice consequence of this is that the more people use Fonolo the more synchronized our database becomes.)

Read more here: http://www.shaiberger.com/?p=71

Marf - In the case of an incorrect mapping, will the user be able to “Report a Mapping Error” therefore flagging it to be fixed or re-spidered more quickly?

Shai -Yes. I discuss that in the same blog post referenced above.

Marf - The Intelligent Call History Recordings (and future transcripts) sounds like a great feature, however is there an option to turn it off for a certain call or delete a phone calls recording and transcript history? The reason I ask is because sometimes we make call to a Bank, or to a business where we purchase something then we might have to give a lot of personal information (Credit Card #, name, address, maybe even SIN or SSN), and all of this information could be saved in the Recordings and potential Transcript feature.

Shai - Yes. You turn can recording off and on for each call. You can also pause recording during a call if you are about to give some sensitive info. Note that call recording isn’t enabled in the private beta at the moment.

Marf - In continuation of my previous question, there is a potential that some of our personal information could be stored, what measures has Fonolo taken to ensure the privacy and peace of mind for their users?

Shai - We take privacy of our users very seriously. We store and protect the recordings, phone numbers, call history, and all other user information according to strict industry standards. Our privacy policy is here:
http://fonolo.com/privacy

Marf - One of the more annoying parts of calling large companies phones is the customer service “please hold for the next available representative”. Does fonolo have plans in the future to wait on hold, and when your call is connected to a representative it then transfers the call to you? If not, then I recommend putting this on the list of “Future Improvements”.

Shai - Yes. But I can’t comment further at this time.

Marf - Does Fonolo plan on having a Premium service offered to users in the future? If so, what extra perks could a premium user be looking at?

Shai - Yes, there will be a premium level of service in the future, but we haven’t settled on the specifics yet. There will always a free level of service as well.

Marf - Shai, Thanks for your assistance and answering the questions.

Shai - My pleasure.

Conclusion

One initial thought came to mind is “How often do I place calls to these IVR menu systems?”. Of course this service isn’t crucial if you only call them once a month, but heck, it’s free, and if it can save you some time navigating convoluted menu systems then it’s at least worth a try.

Overall the Fonolo is a great innovative Web 2.0 service. There are hundred of sites that are simply reinventing the wheel but Fonolo is truly unique. If they release a stable service with a comprehensive directory of mapped menu systems, then I imagine it will become very popular.