Hi,

I'm working in a startup firm. My company is trying to cut costs down. I wonder if Skype has phone interface system. This system will allow customers to get a professional outgoing message and phone tree. It would be a plus to have a local area code. I wonder if Skype has this service.

Thanks.

Hi,

We are also a startup firm. And, just like you guys, we wanted to cut down on costs. So, here is what we did:

1. We create a new Skype account that will be used as our main company account. During the purchase, we paid for a local 12 month SkypeIn number and the Skype Unlimited plan for SkypeOut.
2. Next, we created more Skype accounts, but these are special accounts. They are the basic free Skype accounts, without SkypeIn and SkypeOut. We created an account for each of our departments, such as a main account for the Marketing Department, and accounts for any individual who will receive phone calls. To standardize all of the accounts, we started each account name with the name of our company, added a period, then added the name of the person or department. For example, if our company name was SEAGULL INC, our main Skype account would be called SEAGULLINC, and every other account would be like "SEAGULLINC.CEO", "SEAGULLINC.CFO", "SEAGULLINC.SUPPORT", "SEAGULLINC.MARYANN", etc...
3. Now that our company's departments and employees have Skype accounts, anytime we call each other, it will be a free call, as long as we are using Skype. But that is not the best part, the part you want to know about. I'll get to your question soon. I just wanted to build you up to creating an effective phone system.
4. With all of your new Skype accounts, you will want to organize them. Skype has a webpage for businesses. Follow the instructions on that site so you can create a master Skype site for your company, and add all of your company's Skype accounts to it. You can learn more about it at the website.You will also have to login to all of those accounts and accept the invitation to join the company.
5. Ok, now to your company's master Skype account, the one that you purchased SkypeIn and Skype Unlimited on. You need to choose a Windows XP computer in your company that will be your main office telephone system. You don't need anything except a network card and a sound card, no extra hardware. Install Skype on that pc, and use your company's main account. After logging in to your main account, add all of your other Skype accounts as Contacts. You will need this later. After that has been done, go to this link and download "PrettyMay Callcenter". This will be your PBX software, your automated telephone answering service, with menu options and more. The software is also free, and it works!
6. Follow the setup instructions on the PrettyMay website forums (it is pretty easy). PrettyMay will use your main Skype account to receive telephone calls. You will have to create some mp3 audio recordings to use for each voice prompt. Once you have decided what your prompts will be, such as "For Sales, Press One. For Support, Press 2", in PrettyMay, you will have to select who to forward the calls to. That is the reason you setup those other Skype accounts, and that is why you added them all as contacts after you first logged in to your company's main account.
7. When a user presses the button for Sales, as long as there is a list of potential sales people listed in PrettyMay, PrettyMay will attempt to call each of the sales people (it is calling their Skype accounts). The caller will hear music or whatever audio file you added to PrettyMay for onhold calls. Once a sales person answers the call (using the Skype software that is on their computer), the two people can talk. Remember that your employees can only receive calls through your company's main number, since their accounts do not have SkypeIn. But you could purchase the yearly SkypeIn numbers for everyone, and the telephone numbers will be sequential, if you purchase them in bulk through your Skype Business account website.
8. If there is no one available from your sales team, in PrettyMay, you can set a time limt for waiting. After the time is up, PrettyMay will tell the caller whatever you said in your mp3 file, and send them to voice mail, or ask them to call back later.
9. You can also make it so that one of a caller's options is to press a button where they will only hear information.

Ok, so, I hope something in that spew of words will help you guys out.

Dich

Thanx, Dich - that was helpful. So does this mean that each of your users can then use your single SkypeOut unlimited plan for making calls? It seems that you are saying you don't need to buy separate plans for each user.... how does this work?

Probably you can find Skip2PBX interesting.

This is a Skype gateway to PBX compatible with any kind of PBX even VoIP, Analog and ISDN. Supports up to 99 concurrent lines and any features of your PBX is supported.

Thanks Dich - Great information. I do have one basic question. If you just have one master account that has Skype Unlimited, can't only one SkypeOut call be made from the company at a time?

You need to add Skype Out credits or a price plan to each user account who is making calls that are not to Skype users.

Unless you want a set up with multiple log ins, if that's accepted by Pretty May.




I also want to thank Ditch for sharing this experience!

I am so sorry for the delayed response. For your question, yes and no. If each user has purchased a skypeout unlimited plan (or if the company has purchased it for each account), then they can dial regular telephone numbers. With us, we only see a few individuals dialing regular telephone numbers (such as management staff or HR). As far as support and sales staff, if they need to call a customer, then something is wrong! In that case, the situation would be escalated to a manager, who would have a Skypeout Unlimited account.

But, if I'm correct, the Business control panel allows the company to add credits to certain users, so just in case they need to call out to a regular phone but don't have Skypeout on their account, credits can be assigned to their account. But, once our ecommerce site is running, we will recommend users call us using Skype, since it is free for us and them. As a Startup, or even when we become a major corporation, limiting costs will always be a key factor in our business, and if we can save money by getting people to use Skype instead of regular phone lines, we hope to get as many people as possible on Skype! We will even have our Skype contact info on our ecommerce site, so users with Skype can just clikc on the link to call us. For example, if you go to the Blog site we are working on (http://isylonline.com), we have the Skype scripts running on the main page (though we are still trying to get them to show more accurate statuses).

bnaut is correct in his statement (at least I think). We are saying the same thing, but my company has not had the chance to use it yet, since we are still in the planning phase. But from reading the instructions on the Business site, the credits your business purchases can be distributed to your company's various Skype accounts, and all from your Business account (so, your users do not have to worry about paying for anything on their individual accounts). Also, it can be setup so that your most important Skype accounts can have credits added AUTOMATICALLY if needed!


Dich

Well, PrettyMay has dissappointed us! It will no longer be a free product, and in fact, it will not even be a reasonably priced product! They are asking for $100 every month, which makes no sense. The software is only an addon to Skype, and it is still buggy.

So, disregard my above comments. If you want a better solution, we have 2 more options. They are not exactly cheaper than Skype phone service, but for a business with PBX, they are better. I won't talk a lot about them (you should Google them), I will just list them:

GotVMail.com - Online PBX hosting company. Costs from $9.99-$49.99 per month, and has a lot of PBX functionality (we used to use them, and with this dramatic change with PrettyMay, we may go back).

Asterisk - Open Source PBX system that is easy to setup using your own existing hardware. You will pay about $9.00 per month for incoming and outgoing calls, and you must be comfortable setting up your own server.

Dich

You might want to try AIVMS. There are no monthly fees associated with using the software, although there is a one time registration fee of $15. You can try it for free for a month or two to see if you like it.

It can be a challenge for some to setup initially, but we have our own support forum where there is "always" a friendly staff member to help with any setup questions you may have.

It seems that PrettyMay has lowed their price to $50 per moth, I got this news just now...

hi im working at a new forum for IT for schools and work for all those help problems on computers and the boss wants all members tohave accsess to skype phones and a mothly redit for all members do you know how we coud do that


please feel free to take a look at the site on
www.phpbbserver.com/compugeek
hope to see you there

I also want to thank Dich for his concise and very clear information. It's very helpful! I run a Not For Profit community service, so Skype's been very important for us in minimising our communications costs. This sounds like very useful software, and could be excellent! Thanks again, Dich!

Seems pretty may dropped thier prices yet again. Down to $500 for a one time fee, and $150 for small businesses - 5 or less. $500 really doesnt seem out of hand considering what it does.