Vontoo
Vontoo started out as a voice-messaging tool, blasting targeted lists of people with prerecorded pitches from the likes of Greg Oden, the No. 1 pick in the National Basketball Assn.’s 2007 draft, who “called” Portland Trailblazer season ticket holders to re-up for another year.
But as times have grown tougher, the 25-employee company has morphed into a service for bill collectors.
Dustin Sapp, 30, and Robert Compton, 52, co-founders of Indianapolis-based Vontoo, began their new company in 2005 with $1.5 million from angel investors. Prices range from $15 for 100 message minutes to $1,000 for 10,000 message minutes.
Lately, the founders have discovered their automated phone calls are an effective collection tool. More than a third of Vontoo’s clients today use it to get customers to pay past-due bills, and Sapp expects the share to grow.
Photo by Vontoo.
Angela on February 13th, 2009 8:41 am
Because what we need to do is enable companies to further annoy others?
I suppose it is a service which can make life a little easier for some, on the other hand it sounds like a pain in the butt for those who receive the automated phone calls.
Jaclyn on February 15th, 2009 7:24 am
I agree with Angela…i feel that all this service will be doing is annoying the people more and therefore making them ignore the call or even have their number changed. i know several people…myself included that if we don’t recognize the number we don’t answer it and when checking the voicemail…as soon as we hear that it’s an automated person we hit the #7 to delete it without even listening to the whole message.
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