Earlier this month, CallJoy announced early access of its easy-to-use cloud-based phone agent that enables small business owners to delight customers.

In 2018, a team within Area 120, Google’s internal incubator for experimental ideas, estimated that American small businesses receive 400 million calls every day from customers to place to-go orders, book appointments, check open hours or to inquire about inventory. More importantly, the team found that nearly half of these calls go unanswered because owners are just too busy or assume the caller is a spammer.

With SMB call volume on the rise, CallJoy’s phone technology was developed to give small businesses the same scalable customer service options that typically only large corporations have previously enjoyed. 

“The telephone continues to be a small business’ lifeline," says Bob Summers, founder of CallJoy. "But, this volume can easily overwhelm any small business when coupled with other factors such as peak call times and the ever-increasing monsoon of spam callers. We created CallJoy to help business owners turn the burden of calls into an efficient, delightful experience for their customers that can also give them actionable insights to improve their business.”

How CallJoy Works

With CallJoy, SMB owners receive the following for a monthly flat fee:

• a phone number with a local area code

• an intelligent virtual voice agent and custom greetings

• unlimited call recording and conversation transcripts

• textback functionality

• spam blocking technology

• Google My Business integration

In addition, CallJoy’s virtual phone agent gives small business owners visibility into metrics, such as what their customers are calling about, the frequency at which they're calling and popular call times. Each day, CallJoy categorizes the company’s calls and then compiles the data into an online dashboard and daily insights email.

Before its official debut, CallJoy was tested by small businesses coast-to-coast, specifically local restaurants, retail shops, beauty salons, service providers and automotive services. As a result of these insights, many of the owners updated their training programs, optimized their phone greetings and implemented automated SMS textbacks to improve their customer service.

“Our phone line used to ring off the hook with customers wanting to schedule or change their appointments, which overwhelmed our receptionists and made it difficult for them to provide quality customer service both over the phone and in person," says Danielle Hunt, salon and spa manager at Panache Spa in Whitehouse Station, NJ. “We love CallJoy's transcripts and insights because they’ve enabled us to improve receptionist training and adequately staff the front desk to manage bookings during peak call times. Now, no receptionist is ever too busy to say 'have a great day' to a customer before they leave the salon."