IVR systems are basically untraceable black boxes. Nobody publishes changelogs when they shuffle menus around. You just call, hit a dead end, and wonder what happened. So, we built Phone Supported to solve this by using AI to scrape phone trees and create deep links to specific submenus. Now we're going deeper.
What's Shipped: Last Updated Timestamps
We've added timestamp tracking to every phone tree. Each record now shows exactly when we last ran the scraper and verified the menu structure. It's a small detail but crucial as it will allow users to know if the path is up-to-date.
What's Coming: Versioned History
The ambitious part: we're building a lightweight version control system for phone trees. Think of it like git for IVRs, so we can track changes over time, just like the Internet Archive does for websites.
We plan to just capture snapshots periodically and allow users to view the history of changes. For example, if PG&E restructures their support menu? We've got the diff. If your bank moves departments around? Tracked. Over time, this creates a complete historical record of how these systems actually evolve—data that's been invisible until now.
Handling Business vs. Non-Business Hours
We also realized that many companies run completely different phone trees depending on when you call. Same phone number, different menus at 9 AM vs 9 PM. So we're building in support for capturing and distinguishing between business and non-business hours routing. Hoping there are some night owls out there who want to see how the support looks like if they want to call the following day.
Why This Actually Matters
Phone systems are infrastructure that nobody documents. Companies don't publish their IVR trees publicly, and when they change them, there's no record. You're just stuck navigating blind.
By treating phone trees like versioned data, Phone Supported becomes an audit log for a whole category of infrastructure that's been invisible. It's not glamorous, but might be useful to some of you reading this.