2) Use Agares Auto Attendant to pre-screen your support calls.  This way, you’re able to automatically answer your common questions, without the expense of an actual person.  Since most of your support callers will ask many of the same questions, this is one time and money saving idea that will put money back in your pockets.

3) Use Agares Auto Attendant as your own personal secretary.  There’s no reason to answer the phone yourself, or even pay a secretary just to route calls to the correct place.  Instead, you can automate the entire process by setting up Agares Auto Attendant to do the work for you.

4) Offer your phone services in more than one language.  You see, instead of hiring a full time, multilingual employee to talk with customers who speak another language, you can use Agares Auto Attendant and offer all your information in multiple languages.

5) Use Agares Auto Attendant for trivia, quizzes, surveys, and games.  You can setup multiple choice questions, tell the caller whether their choice was correct, and setup surveys that can be tallied using the resulting log file which is produced.

This brings us to Agares Auto Attendant, which, as of version 1.2, is freeware.  However, it is not open source as of yet, because the DTMF tone detection library was purchased and it is proprietary.  If a suitable open source DTMF .NET library were available to replace the proprietary library currently used, I would have no problem completely open sourcing Agares Auto Attendant.

Version 1.2 is completed, just needs to be updated and released.

http://agaresautoattendant.com/download/

The download allows you to run Agares Auto Attendant full featured for 30 days.  After that time, we’re confident that the ease of use, the professional image this software gives you, and the time and money you will save will easily justify the low price of $49.99.  So what have you got to lose, download Agares Auto Attendant for Skype software today.

1. Using a hardware auto attendant and physical phone lines. The first option we’ll explore is the traditional route.  Most brick and mortar businesses lease a phone line and use a hardware based auto attendant system.  Prices range usually between $50 to $1000 a month for traditional landline phone service for many small and medium sized business.  Combine that with a hardware auto attendant and we’re adding on either a one time cost between $150 and $2000, or even more if the hardware is leased.  Based on these numbers we’re talking between $200 to $3000 upfront investment with reoccurring monthly charges.

2. Using Agares Auto-Attendant for Skype software, Skype, and physical phone lines. The next option is to keep your land based lines, but use Skype to route incoming calls and pass it through Agares Auto-Attendant so that you and your employees waste less time on the phone answering common questions or routing calls to the correct department.  Following this path means you’re existing landline telephone system doesn’t need to be replaced, although your main business phone should be handled by Skype, eliminating that bill.  In this example, you’ll simply use your SkypeIn phone number (under $150 a year last time I checked) to receive the calls, which will be answered by Agares Auto Attendant ($50) which will then forward your calls to the correct phone line.

3. Using Agares Auto-Attendant & Skype exclusively. Businesses that are really looking to save money will definitely want to go with this solution.  Aside from the $200ish that it will cost for Agares Auto-Attendant and a Skype number, we’re looking at only one additional expense, a USB Skype phone (I bought mine at Walmart for $25.)  You can also find adapters which will allow you to use any landline phone with Skype (including wireless phones.)  With this option, you and your business will save thousands of dollars each year.

So in conclusion, Agares Auto Attendant can save you thousands of dollars over hardware based auto attendants, and Skype itself can save you thousands a year over a traditional phone line.  Stop throwing money away, and wasting precious company time.  Download Agares Auto Attendant today.