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May 15, 2007

Bringo: Phone Tree Killer. This Is A Genuinely Useful Service

Michael Arrington

41 comments »

Bringo solves one of the most frustrating problems that we encounter daily: phone trees. Call a customer service phone number and end up in automated operator hell.

I’ve memorized the keys you have to hit for United Airlines to get to an operator as fast as possible. With other companies I just keep saying “operator” while hitting # over and over again. Sometimes it works. With Bringo, none of that matters any more. You don’t even need to dial your phone. Just find the company you want to talk to in their directory, type in your phone number, and a couple of minutes later Bringo calls you and connects you to an operator at that company. I tried it with Air Canada and it worked absolutely perfectly.

They need to create a stripped down mobile version of this as quickly as possible.

Thanks for the tip Narendra (Biz Stone also mentioned them recently).

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 1:13 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Free Dating Site

    May 15th, 2007 at 1:14 pm

    Now this is what I call innovation.

  2. Steve Shapiro

    May 15th, 2007 at 1:20 pm

    What they really need to do is add the NYS DMV to their list ASAP!

    Steve

  3. RyanBarrett

    May 15th, 2007 at 1:25 pm

    Oh this is great… because I am SO SICK of talking to “Julie” at Airtran. I want to smash her robot voice.

  4. loud

    May 15th, 2007 at 1:27 pm

    You’ve seen gethuman.com, right? Also a great resource with a huge list of companies.

  5. DinoHorse

    May 15th, 2007 at 1:46 pm

    Interesting…. but I guess the database has to grow, specially for those Online Retailers where it is so hard to find the phone number…

  6. walter

    May 15th, 2007 at 1:48 pm

    that is pretty cool

  7. Kewtr

    May 15th, 2007 at 1:52 pm

    With the API you could just interface Twitter to this, it would need a little intelligence to make sure the name you use is the company you want, but it would be pretty trivial.

    So if they don’t do it, it can be done anyway.

  8. Alex

    May 15th, 2007 at 1:56 pm

    This has great potential.

    Management if you are reading comments/feedback (which I’m certain you are)- and need cash, seek money from someone like Founders Fund or First Round Capital…… DO NOT go with VC’s unless it’s Sequoia and his name is Dave M.

  9. Eric Willis

    May 15th, 2007 at 2:13 pm

    Ok. Now this is very useful.

  10. Christian

    May 15th, 2007 at 2:23 pm

    Sounds good!

  11. frank

    May 15th, 2007 at 2:54 pm

    Is this a business?

    I like the idea but it is going to break every time someone changes their IVR system? Is the technology more sophisticated than the phone equivalent of screen scraping under the hood? Is it advertising supported or do I get charged at a premium rate on the phone call?

    Lots of questions

  12. Cvos SEO

    May 15th, 2007 at 2:59 pm

    Amazing. They have Ebay, Yahoo and Google (only adwords unfortunately). This must have human resource managers trembling with fears of expanding call centers.

  13. DotPoet

    May 15th, 2007 at 3:01 pm

    Just when I’ve become
    Madder than a dingo
    Along comes relief
    In the form of Bringo

    No more hold tape
    Of elevator retreads
    Why wait 30 mins
    Before discussing my meds

    No, I do not work there
    Not pimpin my VC dime
    I sing the song of Bringo
    Because it gives me back my time.

  14. al

    May 15th, 2007 at 3:03 pm

    if you could upload and share your own key presses that circumvent the ivr menu then this could really be a fantastic service.

  15. Irene

    May 15th, 2007 at 3:12 pm

    This is very innovative and goes a step beyond gethuman.com, though it doesn’t have as many phone numbers. Would be nicer if they have a search function.

  16. Chuck

    May 15th, 2007 at 3:12 pm

    Now this is absolute gold! Worth it!

  17. MJ

    May 15th, 2007 at 3:16 pm

    Amazing innovative idea.T
    his is really going to be helpful and save money for lot for people who often need to call customer service.
    I am sure this service attacks the phone service providers revenue.

  18. Ted Goas

    May 15th, 2007 at 3:17 pm

    Great resource! I can’t wait until the get some more ISPs in there. Checked out GetHuman.com too, looks like another great resource. Not very pretty, but a lot of numbers and grading system.

  19. Monty

    May 15th, 2007 at 3:45 pm

    Just canceled my Vonage account with this. perfect!

  20. Steve S

    May 15th, 2007 at 3:54 pm

    It’s so rare that you actually find something that actually solves a problem in Web 2.0. Great work to the creators of this.

    Steve,
    Howtosplitanatom.com

  21. Jackson

    May 15th, 2007 at 7:29 pm

    I like how TC is starting to qualify posts with “Genuinely Useful” - as most services covered here are quite the opposite.

  22. Michael K

    May 15th, 2007 at 7:33 pm

    So, this is pretty much the 1800-Free-411 model.

    411 calls used to have a dollar cost. Attempting to reach a human being through most phone trees also had a cost - endless frustration and wasted time.

    In exchange for eliminating that cost, Bringo can play an ad before you connecting you. They can even target this ad according to the company you are currently dialing as well as your history of calls through the system. They could even require you to say “Connect” before they transfer you - a voice sample through which they can determine your gender for future advertising.

    This is great.

  23. Ramon

    May 16th, 2007 at 4:05 am

    So…what happens to my phone number once I enter it in this innocent looking field and hit submit?

  24. pallet jack

    May 16th, 2007 at 7:48 am

    Great innovation …

    - rb

  25. Mike

    May 16th, 2007 at 9:14 am

    @Cvos SEO: Google/Yahoo will probably acquire this company and remove itself from the listing, ha.

  26. netmuse

    May 16th, 2007 at 9:47 am

    LOL #2!!! ROFL!

  27. Andrea

    May 16th, 2007 at 10:27 am

    wow…this will make life so much more productive.

  28. Michael

    May 16th, 2007 at 10:27 am

    How are they going to make money? Sell your phone numbers?

    If they make money by offering an ad when you pick up the phone isn’t that also considered a waste of time?

  29. Cvos SEO

    May 16th, 2007 at 11:54 am

    How are they going to make money? Sell your phone numbers?
    Michael, I was wondering the exact same thing while i was viewing the screen that said “verifying your phone number”.

    Bringo will have a huge list of active phone numbers they can legally market and broker.

  30. Fidel Guajardo

    May 16th, 2007 at 12:35 pm

    About a year ago ABC News gave a story about a guy who started an IVR Cheatsheet that lists the buttons to press on your phone to get thru to a real human for many companies. The original list is at: http://www.paulenglish.com/ivr/ and has become so popular that there is a new site for it at: http://gethuman.com/

  31. Adi R

    May 16th, 2007 at 12:37 pm

    This is a ridiculous idea!
    The whole reason those companies have robots/menus is to make sure you are routed to the correct department. What are the chances that a person you hit via this Bringo will know what to tell you or where to route your call? A lot of bigger companies don’t just have single call center any more.

    Sounds like big companies should rebel against this idea, or, alternatively, adopt it by changing their greeting to:
    “Please listen to the menu if you would like to get routed to the proper department, or if you prefer to talk to a person right away, click 0 ”

    A lot of companies do this already, in fact.

    The only other advantage I can think of is maybe not having to sit on hold for a while, as instead you sit around at home and wait for the phone to ring, which can be just the same, for all us folks with Speakerphone.

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