BRINGO Blog

Thanks to some complementary coverage from TechCrunch and from ABC-7 news in Los Angeles, we’re getting a (more than slight) bump in traffic the past day or so on our customer service phone site: nophonetrees.com.

We’re getting some great feedback from users, both through the feedback forms on our site, the contact us, form, as well as in the comments on this blog (I think my personal favorite is the Poem someone wrote about BRINGO in the comments on Techcrunch:

Just when I’ve become
Madder than a dingo
Along comes relief
In the form of Bringo

No more hold tape
Of elevator retreads
Why wait 30 mins
Before discussing my meds

No, I do not work there
Not pimpin my VC dime
I sing the song of Bringo
Because it gives me back my time.

Thanks, DotPoet — I don’t think I could have ever hope to say it better than that.

We’re doing our best to respond to everyone and also incorporate the tons of constructive comments we’ve gotten to improve the site.

Keep it coming — we read everything you post to us, and are already working on incorporating some of the specific comments we’ve received!

Booz-Allen published a new survey this month on how consumers and health-care providers are adjusting to consumer-driven healthcare.

Still going through this in detail, but some key interesting points:

- As costs are pushed toward the consumers (through high-deductible plans and the like), consumers are increasingly shopping for value (price/quality) in choosing healthcare providers

- Consumers are not finding the information they need to effectively compare providers and make the price/quality decisions they want to make

- There is a disconnect between the information consumers are beginning to demand and what providers are able or willing to provide.

Based on the above, this fits in well with a few things we’re working on here at BRINGO. More on this later.

The latest press coverage on Bringo — a quick mention in Smartmoney’s print edition (which you can also view online), and a short radio spot on NPR’s Marketplace Money column.

Pretty cool — Mark had a lot of fun with that interview… and surprisingly enough didn’t talk their ear off.

Plenty more where that comes from as we start to gain momentum with our BringoDentist service, so watch this space!

- Clement

Happy New Year!

As regular readers of this blog know, we’ve been hinting at our the next big thing for BRINGO for the past couple of months. Well, that time is finally here… We are proud to announce the (soft) launch of Bringodentist.com — a new way for patients to find local dentist to match their needs via the web. Using our unique web to telephone technology, BringoDentist allows potential patients to find a high quality dentist in their area, and does the hard work of calling around to make sure there is a match with their criteria (location, preferred form of payment, appointment times, etc.).

We are currently available in only limited areas, but are aggressively building our network of high-quality providers. Check back at this space for more details on local availability and success stories.

OK — I’m finally back and ready to post. To introduce myself, I’m Clement, one of the founders. It’s been a crazy month, with all the attention and traffic we’ve gotten, with almost no promotion of the site. A word of advice to intrepid entrepreneurs: never plan a wedding during your first year in business.

While the past month has been pretty crazy from a work and personal standpoint, it’s been a ton of fun — especially when things like having our website featured on TV happen. That’s right — Fox News Tampa Bay did a feature story on nophonetrees.com during their evening newscast. While none of us personally made an appearance, Bringo was on in a big way.

They tested us on US Air’s phone tree and compared us to dialing the phone tree manually. Bringo won, hands down — it took Bringo 23 seconds to call him back, vs. the 15 minutes they took up trying to navigate the phone tree manually. Not bad, huh?

I think the big benefit for me, apart from the time savings, is saving me from the frustration of having to try to figure out the system and how to get around it. I’d love to hear from anybody who has had similar experiences in working with phone trees or with Bringo — feel free to drop me a line at clement <at> bringo.com, or add a comment to the blog.

I’m in the process of pulling together some of the many blog posts and articles we’ve had written about us — you’ll see them up here soon. Oh, we also put up our privacy policy last week — check it out here.

- Clement