

Sick of waiting on hold? Try lucyphone! Snag an account w/ code = "LUCYCOMB" - tomeeo
http://www.lucyphone.com

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sophacles
Cool service! Too bad my power company hung up on lucyphone instead of doing
whatever is needed for me to get a callback.

How is monetization planned? Targeted ads based on who is being called?
Selling lucyphone service to companies to manage wait queues? All of the
above?

On a related vein, why doesn't any company sell an asterisk add on that says
"your menu choices have been noted.You will now be put on hold A csr will be
w/ you in approximately X minutes. Alternatively our csr will call you back at
$calling-number as in that same time frame -- press foo"

edit: if they do, how come no big companies buy such a thing? doesn't the cost
of callback get absorbed by the reduction in idling "wait queue" lines?

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Dilpil
Cynical answer: by making you wait, they encourage many people to hang up,
reducing volume at peak hours, and allowing the company to hire fewer CSRs.

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sophacles
Doesn't callback do a similar thing. Most people wouldn't mind a longer wait
if it wasn't "on-hold" time. The frustration usually has more to do with
"holding wastes my time" not "they aren't answering now"

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tomeeo
Agreed. The value proposition for LucyPhone for business is potentially
reduced support costs while improving the customer experience. Customers feel
empowered when they invoke LucyPhone to hold their place in line. Once they
are connected, the CSR has a happy customer ready to have their needs met,
rather than an angry customer who has to vent for two minutes about the
egregiously long hold time.

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davidblair
During the signup process it wasn't particularly obvious that I had to choose
an account type. After I clicked continue my account seemed to be properly
created however I couldn't continue through the registration process on screen
because both my email and username were now taken.

On the bright side I love the idea, I wish I had then when I had to wait on
hold with United for 1 1/2 hours over Christmas.

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tomeeo
Thanks for this constructive feedback! We will be tweaking the signup process
to get rid of this issue.

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jackowayed
I'd make it a little more clear in the video that you get a call back when
Lucy gets a person. That's what I assumed would happen, but I had to dig to
actually confirm it. Just add something to the last sentence of the video.
"And Lucy does the waiting for you" ... "calling you back when she gets a
human". Something along those lines.

Also, just wondering, what VoIP service/whatever are you using?

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brown9-2
Damnit, I spent last week thinking about how something like this could be
implemented technically and if there was any way to turn it into a business.

Congrats lucyphone!

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tomeeo
Would love to chat and exchange ideas. It's validating to hear that others
have been pondering a solution to this problem.

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brown9-2
Never really got past the "Wouldn't this make sense? Why isn't anyone doing it
phase?". Congrats on the launch/product though! Looks great.

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almost
What an incredibly good idea, I really hope they or someone else does this for
the UK at some point!

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mosofoco
Yeah - we've gotten some good feedback that the UK is even more notorious for
poor customer service - that's a market we're eager to roll out to soon.

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mikeoristian
I've used this service in the past and it works great with Comcast and
Verizon.

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thechangelog
The Twitter feed is a brilliant touch.

