Anyone would be hard pressed to find a consumer in this part of the world that has been able to avoid the annoying phone menu when calling a company. Sure, many of us like to opt out of the menu by pressing zero to go straight to a live agent. For some companies, however, this option is unavailable and you have no choice but to work your way through the menu to get to your ultimate destination.

Fonolo is one company that understands this frustration and that consumers put a great deal of value in eliminating it – or simply using an alternative. This company known for making it easier and less frustrating to call large companies, has announced that it is now offering a Web-based service for free to the public for beta testing. Fonolo (News - Alert) has set out to put an end to the aggravation of “press 1 for this, press 2 for that.”

By offering several innovative services to help consumers deal with large companies over the phone, Fonolo is steadily building strength in the industry. “Deep Dialing” allows a user to visually navigate a company’s phone menu on a computer or mobile device to reach any point in that menu with a simple click. Fonolo then navigates the phone menu, rings the user’s phone and connects the two parties.

While such capability is significant in the industry, it is well known that it often takes more than one call to resolve a consumer issue. This problem is solved with Fonolo’s “Intelligent Call History.” This feature keeps track of all the calls a user makes to a particular company regardless of which phone is used. Fonolo automatically organizes them along with notes and recordings.

“We are thrilled to open the doors to the general public in time for the holiday season and offer consumers a better way to reach the hundreds of companies in our database,” said Fonolo CEO Shai Berger (News - Alert). “Two of Fonolo’s most popular categories are travel and consumer electronics, so we expect a great deal of activity during the next month.”

 

Fonolo isn’t alone in its quest to pull back the curtain on evasive customer service reps.

 

As TMCnet reported, one Web site has created a database of telephone menu options to help consumers reach agents quickly.

 

Officials at ContactHelp.com say their list includes customer service and technical support contact information for more than 500 of the world’s largest companies. A visit to the site shows that the most-searched organizations are Amazon, Best Buy, Apple, AOL (News - Alert) and UPS.

 

According to Michael Goldfarb, co-creator of ContactHelp.com, what started as a simple database shared among friends has grown into a vast and valuable resource anyone can use.

Meanwhile, Fonolo says its own database of more than 300 North American companies includes airlines, car rental companies, banks, credit card companies, insurance companies and major retailers. To ensure it keeps up with constant phone menu changes, Fonolo consistently monitors these menus for updates.

During a period of roughly eight months of private beta testing, Fonolo has received numerous awards, including “Best New Product” from Emerging Communications Conference, “Judges’ Choice” from GigaOm’s Mobilize Conference and “Fierce15” from FierceVoIP.

“The overwhelming response tells me that we’re addressing a pain point felt deeply by a wide range of people,” said Berger. “We’re sure that consumers will love Fonolo.”

Fonolo is offering a solution that presents significant value to the consumer and to the company that he or she calls as it can eliminate much of the frustration that comes with working through phone menus, calling the company multiple times on the same issue and more. While still in the testing stage, it is likely to see much success, especially once it expands its database to cover more companies.