The tap-to-call feature, dubbed ?concierge? by Hello Vino, is a new development in the mobile wine marketing industry, according to Hello Vino?s founder and CEO. The move reflects a growing interest among marketers in leveraging the smartphone?s native functionality as both a voice-communications tool and a research and browsing device. 

?We liken it to the Mayday button on the Amazon Kindle Fire,? said Rick Breslin, founder and CEO of Hello Vino, San Francisco. ?It is the first of its kind in the wine industry.? 

Hello Vino is a mobile-app marketplace that offers product information and recommendations and also connects buyers with wineries. For the new concierge feature, it is partnering with VinoPro, which operates a Santa Rosa, CA-based call center offering telephone support for wineries and wine clubs. 

A core component of the functionality of the Hello Vino app is its ability to build profiles about its users to facilitate more personalized interactions. The app tracks usage and analyzes each user?s finger taps to create profiles that assist in displaying appropriate recommendations. 

Creating the ability for the app to transfer the user profile information to the call center during a call was the most challenging aspect of creating the concierge function, Mr. Breslin said. 

?Adding the tap-to-call button wasn?t too difficult,? he said. ?Getting the data from the user profiles over to VinoPro in the fraction of a second during the call was the real heavy lifting.? 

Hello Vino created the tap-to-call feature in-house using its own developers, working closely with VinoPro. At VinoPro?s call center, callers can be further segmented according to whether they are high-end wine buyers or standard buyers. 

VinoPro has a team of 40-plus wine experts on staff who have historically engaged in outbound telesales and other support. The company approached Hello Vino to partner on creating an inbound component, which resulted in the concierge feature. 

The move to add voice-calling functionality with the app follows the recent introduction of a click-to-call feature within Twitter ads, which has been tested by Mountain Dew and others. 

Last year Nothing Bundt Cakes, which operates stores around the country, partnered with marketing vendor Hipcricket to drive success with a campaign that leveraged click-to-call and geo-location in mobile banner ads. The bakery chain saw a 55 percent engagement rate over the course of four holidays with store directions and click-to-call functionality for qualified users (see story). 

To use the Hello Vino concierge feature, users simply tap on the ?concierge available? button displayed at the top of all Hello Vino screens in the app. Tapping the button launches a tap-to-call screen. Users can request a call back at a specific day and time.

The Hello Vino app also includes a wine-label scanner using image recognition, and a wine notebook to keep track of purchases and build wish lists. It was one of the first apps on the wine scene when it launched in June of 2009.

?Every time we update it, we try to add something big,? Mr. Breslin said. ?Concierge is the big thing this time.?