Inefficient to Efficient: Bringo

Like you probably are, I’m always frustrated when trying to navigate through call trees. I find myself zoning out when I hear, “Please listen carefully to the following options” and after I do make a connection, “Your call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance purposes.”

Bringo is a new service (with the unfortunately different NoPhoneTrees.com domain name since they started off apparently as a Dentist connection service) that provides an incredibly useful and efficient service: navigating phone trees so you can get connected with an actual human being.

I tried it with Vonage and was immediately connected to “advanced tech support” though scratched my head since what if I wanted to talk to customer service? Billing? I did, however, have an advanced tech question that’s been percolating on the back burner (did any other SIP softphone work with Vonage? No.) so I got that answered.

Next was a car rental company. Within moments I was connected with reservations so was able to ask about my next trip and any deals. Cool.

In both cases, I was pleased at how simple it was to use and that it removed a surprising amount of angst and bother when trying to connect to some company. I know they’re in beta, but they need a lot more companies in their database. What I’d also like to see going forward is to have them build-out per company selections for different departments within the company (e.g., tech support, advanced tech support, customer service, billing, supervisors, etc.).

Bringo is a perfect example of what I posted about a week and a half ago about the Internet making the inefficient, efficient.

One more thing: I’d like to see Bringo add recording to their service. When I mentioned above how every company seems to have some variation on the phrase, “Your call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance purposes”, I’ve clearly agreed to a recording or monitoring of my call. Sometimes with critical support, reservation, billing or other calls I record it on my end too with Audio Hijack Pro since I call-out often using Skype and recording it is a two click process (and it’s legal in Minnesota).

Under Minnesota Statute 626A.02, Subdivision 2: Exemptions, (c): It is not unlawful under this chapter for a person acting under color of law to intercept a  wire, electronic, or oral communication, where such person is a party to the communication or one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception. In order to deploy a recording service, Bringo would have to ensure that somehow that statement is made to me, a caller, and that I’m the agreeing party to the call.

If Bringo could offer it in those areas where an agreeing party recording a call is legal (and it may be nationally), they could legally record it and make it available for download only to the account holder who is the agreeing party. What a fantastic audit trail this would make in the event of an arbitration or lawsuit!