eFounders has made a name for themselves by building solutions to basic problems that software startups have – whether it’s social media (mention), email management (mailjet, frontapp), PR (Pressking) or translation (textmaster) – and their latest project, Aircall, is certainly playing to their strengths. The service provides startups a scalable customer service hotline across multiple countries, which can be redirected to any number of employee phone numbers.
The service looks a lot like Zendesk to me, but that hasn’t stopped eFounders from carving out a place for itself. The group hosts all of its companies in a common Paris office space, and I can imagine that many resources are shared among the companies, such as potential clients & opportunities.
Currently, the product is available in 40 countries, roughly the number of countries that Twilio currently has phone numbers available in, which leads me to believe that the service is being built on top of Twilio. The product’s list of features include a shared call log, unlimited calling, a collaborative management tool, click-to-call web interface & more; essentially everything a startup might need to feign a customer hotline service.
You can request access to a beta of the service here – if you’re looking to offer a hotline experience for your startup, this may be a simple, scalable solution to get you started.