Today, we’re thrilled to announce the launch of Tello, Inc. and our Tello real-time customer service ratings at http://tello.com. It’s been a crazy few months, and it feels great to bring Tello into the light of day and get a bigger group of customers starting to use it.
The idea for Tello started with one of those bumper stickers we’ve all seen on the backs of trucks. They usually say “How Am I Driving? Call 1-800-XYZ-ABCD.” I thought to myself “wouldn’t it be cool if every interaction you had with a customer service representative from ANY company had one of these bumper stickers?” Combine that thought with the proliferation of smartphones like the iPhone and Android, location-based apps, and crowdsourcing, and you now have a way to rate any interaction you have with any person at any company. It seemed that if we could “shine a light” on these every day interactions, we could really help improve the customer service that people receive wherever they go. That felt like a pretty big idea, and we’re more convinced than ever that we’ve found a great problem to solve.
Whether it’s a flight attendant, a shoe salesperson, a car dealer, a cellular phone provider, a DMV employee or a waiter–you now have a way to thank them for great customer service, or give them constructive feedback on what they could’ve done to serve you better–all in 30 seconds or less on your smartphone. I’ve often wanted to thank someone for doing a great job for me by letting their boss know, but finding their boss is really hard. I’ve also often wanted to give some feedback about how someone could have done a better job, but the fear of a confrontation always took over. Tello solves both of these problems, and also let’s me lookup any service provider in advance–say a car dealer or realtor–before I go and shop. And if you are a business, you now have a way to find out which employees are doing a great job with customers, and which employees need further training or help.
The Tello team (you know who you are) have done a great job pulling everything together for launch. Thank you for all of your hard work! I’d also like to thank the 10 all-star seed investors who have agreed to join us on this adventure. They have all given their time, connections, and advice, and we very grateful for their support. Our heartfelt thanks to Jon Callaghan of True Ventures, Ron Conway of SV Angel, Mark Goines, Dave McClure of 500 Startups, Eric Paley of Founder Collective, Shervin Pishevar of SGN, Naval Ravikant of Venture Hacks, Chris Sacca of Lowercase Capital, Aydin Senkut of Felicis Ventures, and Russ Siegelman.
If you haven’t already, please download Tello from the Apple App Store (just search for “Tello”), or if you use an Android phone (or any other smartphone), go to m.tello.com to try out the HTML5 version.
We’d love to hear from you–tell us what you think about Tello by emailing us at hello [at] tello [dot] com any time.
