nowfound

Dev tools · March 3, 2011

NW

"Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio

My buddy paulsingh and I have been working on this for a few weeks, got something up and running and wanted to show you. The problem we're solving: When you need customer service (your flight got canceled, strange fees on your bill, etc) you just want to talk to a real person. Waiting on hold wastes your time AND your concentration; you can't be coding in the zone when part of your brain is waiting for an operator. Our solution: We wanted to make it "one click" to reach a real person. How it works: You click on who you want to talk to (even a specific department, like the billing dept at…

Alternativestop 1% of March 2011

What it does

In the maker’s words, at launch

My buddy paulsingh and I have been working on this for a few weeks, got something up and running and wanted to show you. The problem we're solving: When you need customer service (your flight got canceled, strange fees on your bill, etc) you just want to talk to a real person. Waiting on hold wastes your time AND your concentration; you can't be coding in the zone when part of your brain is waiting for an operator. Our solution: We wanted to make it "one click" to reach a real person. How it works: You click on who you want to talk to (even a specific department, like the billing dept at AT&T) and we take it from there. Our system dials in, presses whatever buttons need pressing and waits on hold for as long as it takes. Only when we have an actual operator on the line do we call you. Website version: http://www.fastcustomer.com (free) iPhone: http://itunes.com/app/FastCustomer (99 cents) Android: Know any great Android developers? ;) Technical: Rails + Twilio, hosted on Rackspace Cloud. We'd LOVE your feedback, and if any HNers want to review it let me know and I'll send you a promo code. If there are any companies you call regularly that we don't have (we're closing in on 1000 of the most-called companies) just say the word and we'll add 'em. Also, if you can think of things to do with our API we'd love to talk to you. Thanks for checking it out!

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    Phoneify - 20 hours with Rails 3 & Twilio2011 · phoneify.com · ▲95

    I wrote this over the last couple of weeks using Rails 3, Twilio and a variety of Gems, putting in about 2 hours per day. I'd love any feedback from the HN community on any aspects of the site (design, API construction, documentation, marketing, pricing which is TBD). On a related note: I have to say that I'm really flying with Rails 3. Typically I roll with Django, but have been super impressed with the Rails 3. Feels really clean, and there are some Gems that make the more mundane parts of the webapp construction fun and agile: Haml/Sass, blueprint, Fancy-buttons, Devise. I'll probably…

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