Out of curiosity, how does your app know when a real human gets on the line...? Do you have a database of the automatic messages ("Please stay on the line while we sip Cognac and chortle") for each company so it doesn't get false positives?
Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
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Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#32Brilliant. You've probably added a few years to my life, both in terms of hours lost and frustration listening to the same 24kbps top-40 song over and over.
Thanks. :)
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#33Great idea guys! Just curious, what happens when someone finally picks up and hears nothing? Is there a possibility that the other line will hang up before you have a chance to call us?
So, there's definitely the possibility that you might pick up and hear nothing (maybe the operator hung up, we got a bad connection, etc)... but we've got a bunch of stuff working in the background to "gracefully" recover from that scenario. Regardless, we're going to get you an operator one way or the other. :)
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#34Love it. Twilio is a great platform. An idea: if you want to have the customer service rep doing productive work while he waits you can have the user type in a message with their information (account number / name / address) in a text field and read it out to the rep before telling them to wait.
It would probably make sense to do this only for paid customers in the future so that people don't abuse the feature (and CS reps).
Facebooked.
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#35How do you tell the difference between hold music, and a representative?
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#36I'm interested to know what you plan on doing for revenue. I'm sure the cost of the calls will quickly outweigh the $.70 you're getting out of the app store.
Other than that its a great idea which I'm certain people would be willing to pay for (I would be if it was available internationally)
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#37This is a great service, and if I was in a position where I had to deal with phone trees regularily for my job, then I'd even be willing to pay something for it.
One minor gripe -- at least in Chrome, if you type something in ("Verizon") and hit enter without selecting any of the auto-complete options presented, you just get a generic "whoops, something went wrong". Ideally, just pop the user through a screen that lets them select from a list of possible matches.
I'd make a snarky comment about how the site doesn't render properly in IE 5.5, but I think I'm about 2 years late on that trolly.
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#38curious how you intend to handle abuse? Maybe have an sms sent to the recipient first and they must confirm? I was just able to enter the example number ("555-555-5555") and it seems to process just fine (currently "Status: Operator on the line! Trying to connect you...") even though I clearly don't own that number. I could cause problems for both customer service people and cellphone users with this. I'm assuming yo…
Great question. There are a few ways we could handle it, but in principle we want to see how the problem happens before solving it. A confirmation process is a great idea but adds friction, and as we roll out we don't want to discourage usage. Basically, we want to see what happens so we don't optimize or problem-solve too early.
I personally would be quite worried about it being used for prank calls. At the click of a couple buttons anyone can create a very awkward conversation between AT&T and a random stranger (or a friend).
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#39Just bought your app for my IPhone. One comment: the app is not searchable on Fast Customer, only on FastCustomer (no space). If you just added Fast Customer to your description, it would be searchable.
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#40you guys are awesome. A few friends and I have been working on a similar project. You totally upped us on it. Great job :)
Synchronicity. We were discussing implementing this exact product not two days ago... decided against it since we couldn't beat Fonolo for free.
Glad someone else is solving this problem :)