One of these days, it would be interesting to measure how long a person without a secretary spends trying to arrange appointments or conference calls. The accepted method today is "trial and error." One of the participants suggests a date and the other invited participants check their diaries to see if it's convenient for them. If the date isn't suitable, another participant suggests a date of his own and again everyone else checks their diaries to see whether they're free. This usually entails an exchange of emails which can sometimes take a few hours. "On average, setting up a meeting with more than two participants is a process that can take between half to a whole working day," says Dan Benger, CEO of wireless application start-up Neatcall Ltd.
Neatcall seeks to simplify the process of arranging meetings and conference calls. Its dream is that one day we will be using it to arrange even one-on-one calls, thereby avoiding the notorious cat and mouse syndrome.
Let's start with multi-participant calls. Using Neatcall, the process will begin in similar fashion to the arranging of a meeting on a certain day, except that instead of announcing the date in the email, several possible dates are marked in the calendar (using either Google calendar or any other popular scheduler). The marked dates are automatically formulated by the system as a suggested timetable for a meeting and sent to the addressees.
The recipients then have to indicate which dates they prefer. The date that gets the highest number of votes and is acceptable to all the important participants, is automatically selected by the system and circulated to everyone.
Yet the real improvement offered by the method is not actually in the voting. Today, arranging appointments is done by email, which not everyone has access to all the time. Our cellphones, on the other hand, are always on us. So the solution is to send the invitation as an SMS message. The suggested dates appear in the message field together with the instructions "Send S to select the first date, T for the second date, and U for the third date." Once the system has logged all the votes it chooses the most suitable date and sends out another SMS message.
But how will the person receiving the SMS know when he has free dates? If he also becomes a paying Neatcall subscriber, the company's system can scan his diary, select the free dates and send them together with the invitation. The dates sent out are adjusted to the local time in the country of the recipient. When a date has been selected, it is automatically marked in the diary.
Aside from SMS, notices can also be sent as an instant message (using programs such as ICQ and Messenger), or using a WAP protocol, or as a simple email message, depending on the user's preference.
Globes: Isn't there a risk that in a democratic process, people will always choose the time that is the most convenient for them, even if there are other suitable dates, and in doing so actually reduce the options?
Benger:"A customer can define whether our service will offer the other party the possibility of choosing the dates convenient for him, or only those dates that are inconvenient."
Call scheduling too
Benger realized there was a need for solution like that of Neatcall when he served as VP international marketing and business development at web and video conference call solutions company Interwise. Customers were happy to have conference call solutions, but always complained of the difficulty in scheduling them. Upon leaving Interwise to set up a business of his own, Benger looked at a host of ideas, but ultimately found himself returning to the original pressing need he saw at his customers.
Neatcall was founded under the auspices of the Targetech Innovation Center in February. "We want to reach a situation where anyone who wants to set up a meeting will just log on to our system straight away, instead of sending a message or using the phone," he says today.
The company's big dream is that their system will also schedule one-on-one calls. "On average, it takes eight hours to have a conversation with someone - you call and leave a message. They return the call, but you're no longer available. You catch them, but they can't talk for long.
"The system can send a person a message: 'I'd like to talk to you, I would be pleased if you could contact me now, or schedule a time for a call.' If they agree, a psychological contract is created between you and them. When the scheduled time arrives, the system sends a message 'it's time for our call,' and also indicates 'I call you' or 'You call me', depending on what was agreed in the first interaction"
The product will be priced according to a system usage fee through licenses sold to individuals or enterprises. The person initiating the meeting has to be logged into the system, but the invited participants do not have to be connected at all or to have even heard of Neatcall in order to use it - the interface is simple and can be synchronized with all standard interfaces.
Neatcall will market the product independently, but also through conference all solutions providers such as Interwise, global telephony service providers, and others.
Does the product have any competition?
"There are players in the mobile industry which offer systems that check everyone's telephone diaries to see who's free on a particular date, but this kind of system is incomplete."
The telephony companies will have to forego their revenue from call scheduling and the various cat and mouse announcements
"Yes, but they realize that today, with all the scheduling going on, sometimes the call itself doesn't get made, and the profit on it could have been higher. In addition, this system moves a lot of the scheduling currently carried out on the Internet to the telephone."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 3, 2008
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