DailyVista.com is an online blog that “connects corporate executives in the marketing and advertising industry.” Their teams scour news sources for news of interest to the marketing and advertising world with an emphasis on presenting it in an understandable way.

On August 13, 2009 DailyVista.com feature our own FonGenie service in an article entitled “FonGenie targets small biz customers with phone messaging platform.” We would like to thank DailyVista.com for their insightful article about our exciting service. The article did a good job pointing out that FonGenie is “a user-friendly service that allows retailers to increase revenue while reducing costs to further grow their businesses.” They also emphasized the strong analytics, which has been proven to assist small business owners succeed in this difficult economy.

FonGenie targets small biz customers with phone messaging platform

Customizable phone messaging service FonGenie has found a niche with small businesses that seek a user-friendly service that allows those retailers to increase revenue while reducing costs to further grow their businesses, according to the company.

FonGenie provides sales support as well as customer and sales analytics all in one Web-based platform, and also provides the ability to enhance customer experience when they place a call to the retailer or small business.

“To be successful, many small businesses need to be extremely efficient and avoid activities that divert time and resources away from their core focus of customer service and improved selling of their products or services,” Founder and Chief Executive Officer James Im said in a statement. “FonGenie’s mission is to eliminate many of the time-consuming communications-related hassles experienced by many small businesses today and help the owner boost productivity and profits.”

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company intends to revolutionize the text-to-speech element of small business phone messaging, while also offering promotions and discounts to entice customers for future purchases.

FonGenie’s reporting and analytic capabilities track all of the relevant information, including the details of who called the company, and for what purpose. Early customers have seen FonGenie increase their sales by more than 15 percent on average, and profits by an even higher rate.

Spokesperson Harrison Wise told DailyVista that in a nutshell, FonGenie enables small businesses to increase productivity by minimizing the amount of time they spend on the phone answering mundane questions that customers call in with.

“What time they close or what time they open, and ‘What’s the address?’ and ‘Do you have a Web site?’” he said. “These are all very simple questions that are asked pretty often and could take business owners away from important stuff like their business. FonGenie streamlines that and provides customizable phone greetings that help small businesses answer these questions.”

Additionally, FonGenie provides robust analytics that Wise said are not available anywhere else. He added that this type of analytics is the first of its kind to give incredible insight to small businesses about who’s calling them and what they’re calling about.

“It helps them better target various messages and specials to these customers,” he said. “If you find that people are calling after 6 p.m. at a greater percentage, you might consider staying open later. If you find that most people are calling about your address, maybe the first message on the phone call should be your address.”

FonGenie also allows its clientele to market particular specials or promotions that it would like to feature to customers, which is how the platform was able to increase small business sales between 15 and 17 percent.

“Let’s say you’re calling to find out what time the business closes, you may hear something you like and they may be offering a special that day,” Wise said. “Whatever the incentive is, you wouldn’t know about it otherwise. It’s exclusive for people that do call in, and you can see what works and what doesn’t through our analytics, and you can update the offerings from Twitter or your iPhone or from any computer.”

For now, FonGenie has primarily relied on public relations and its sales team to target small businesses directly. Its core audience includes retailers and service-oriented corporations like spas, florists, nail and hair salons.

“Our core demographic is retail stores and chains, mom-and-pop shops, small businesses and even sole proprietors can benefit,” Wise said. “The small business term is very broad, and applies to multiple industries. Contractors, florists, you name it – it all falls under that category and FonGenie’s service is scalable if you have a larger organization.”

Trade activity like shows and print advertisements are something that FonGenie is considering for the future, but Wise said that because the company is still in its “launch phase,” it’s trying to get the word out organically through public relations, search engine optimization and word-of-mouth.

“Branding will be an integral component for the growth of the company,” he said. “We want to be at the forefront of the small business marketplace and obviously it’s solving a pain point that small businesses have. Now that they’re trying to do more with less and cutting costs, that type of brand awareness and presence will be important to our success.”

Wise said that the launch of FonGenie could not have come at a better time, seeing as all businesses are attempting to cut costs and “do more with less.”

“I think the timing is spot-on,” he said. “The ability to convert callers to customers is an integral part of any business, and the FonGenie platform also provides the ability for caller to speak with a human at any point, so we’re not just creating a barrier, we’re bringing the caller into the fold a lot easier and quicker.”

FonGenie has contracted our source’s firm Wise Public Relations out of New York to assist with press and media outreach initiatives.