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FonGenie: Our phone automation service will boost your small business sales, or we'll give you $500

A new cloud computing company says it will give you $500 if its new service doesn't boost the sales of your small business.
Written by Andrew Nusca, Contributor

A new cloud computing company says it will give you $500 if its new service doesn't boost the sales of your small business.

The service -- and Mountain View, Calif.-based startup -- is named FonGenie, and it's designed to pick off low-hanging fruit, such as calls asking for your hours, location or current specials.

The Voice 2.0 service went public on Monday after months of private beta testing.

Here's how it works: A web interface allows you to manage greetings and menus heard by callers, with room to allow daily promotions or discounts.

(According to the company's own research, up to 35 percent of callers introduced to daily specials on the phone accepted the offer, resulting in a more than 25 percent increase in sales.)

Instant caller identification offers the who, where and why for customers, as well as what menus they've already been through and their call history.

Additionally, a customer relationship management, or CRM, element allows for custom tagging, appointment management and a place to jot down notes about a caller.

Large business call center automation services already exist -- such as Microsoft's TellMe -- but FonGenie says those products are too expensive for small businesses, its target audience.

The company has made a calculator available for business owners to estimate how much the service could save them.

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