ow many times have you called a business, only to have its voice mail labyrinth greet you? You know, press 1 for this, 2 for that. By the time you get to menu option 9, the system still has not addressed your issue, nor have you spoken with a live person.

Even if you were lucky enough to speak with someone, that person placed you on eternal hold. Although this is certainly annoying, many businesses argue it's a necessary evil.

In the case of small merchants, many simply don't have the staff or funds to employ someone to answer phones 24/7. Wouldn't these merchants like to know that you could connect them with a company that would solve these types of problems?

Athyron Corp. is that company. Athyron develops and markets software solutions allowing businesses to address the universal problems of busy signals and long hold times for customers trying to place orders.

Roman Teller, President and Chief Technology Officer, and Alfredo Faubel, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, founded Athyron three years ago.

"We are in the business of increasing customer satisfaction, boosting merchant revenue and staff productivity," Faubel said.

A Solution for the "Please Hold" Phenomenon

Athyron's flagship product is eat2go, a proprietary solution. The company distributes it to food service merchants exclusively through ISOs/merchant level salespeople (MLSs).

"The company's mission is to deliver on the promise of the Internet as a revenue generator for ISOs and merchants alike, by improving the quality of life of time-starved consumers and raising the productivity of hurried wait staff," Faubel said.

Here's how it works: Using a standard Web browser, consumers log on to eat2go. They place orders for delivery or pick-up directly with a restaurant's kitchen and pay for orders online. The eat2go system takes orders, authorizes credit cards online and sends order information via the Internet to a restaurant's kitchen or fax machine.

Restaurants prepare meals and customers pick them up or have them delivered, without ever standing in line or waiting on hold. Customers can even set up text message alerts to track order status.

A restaurant's phone line remains free so customers who do call don't get a busy signal. "It's the answer to the 'please hold' phenomenon," Teller said.

Teller and Faubel believe eat2go is the tool independent merchants will use to level the playing field with the larger food service businesses and nationwide chain restaurants, without having to invest a lot of money.

"It is our ultimate line-busting product, created specifically to bypass the dreaded 'please hold' or worse, the busy tone," Faubel said.

The eat2go system differs from other solutions because it's not a shopping cart; rather it's a turnkey product. This is an important distinction because it means that MLSs, ISOs and merchants do not have to surrender the Web site management to an IT department or administrator.

Instead, merchants control their online ordering Web site. If merchants already have a Web site, they simply link their site to eat2go.

"This tool harnesses the power of the Internet like never before, yet is completely controlled by only the merchant at a very low cost," Teller said.

Revenue Times Four

With Athyron's eat2go, "ISOs can now make serious, immediate money as well as long-term residuals," Teller said.

ISOs/MLSs reselling eat2go profit from the commission on the sale of the software, as well as on residuals from each transaction.

Once they sell the product, there is nothing to deploy or maintain. Sales agents set up merchants to process through an authorized gateway. Once merchants are signed up, agents fax the restaurant's menu to Athyron, where eat2go personnel convert it and load it into the system.

Agents receive an upfront sales commission; they receive residuals from per-transaction and/or hosting charges.

"We understand our product is quite different from most of what ISOs are used to, but we feel it not only offers ISOs a truly unique opportunity to increase revenue from their existing customer base, but also a tool to increase customer loyalty and add value to their current offering for merchants," Faubel said.

"Eat2go aids the ISO in client retention, adds a revenue stream from existing merchant accounts, opens doors to new merchants and offers the opportunity to cross-sell the more traditional products and services," Teller said.

By selling eat2go, ISOs/MLSs can profit in the following ways:

• A one-time software licensing fee provides upfront profit opportunity to agents. Athyron discounts the software, and they can set their own pricing. Agents don't need to worry about invoicing because Athyron bills merchants directly at the price established by agents and pays agents the difference.
• Agents can up sell the monthly hosting charge.
• Agents can up sell the per-transaction fee applied to every order placed through eat2go. They provide merchants access to eat2go and share in the revenue stream for the life of the account.
• The advertising revenues from online ads, sold by either agents or merchants, are split between the agents, merchants and Athyron.

Athyron provides affiliates with a private password to a back-end secure server so they can view their residual activity at any time.

Resources and Sales Maximized

Athyron designed eat2go for the entire food service market, but takeout, curbside takeaway and delivery service merchants stand to benefit most from using the system.

As these types of orders become increasingly popular (and lucrative), they also take time and attention away from sit-down restaurant diners.

When servers must run to deliver carside orders, or answer phones to record orders for pick up, dine-in customers might feel neglected or ignored.

The eat2go system allows merchants to modify their menu, prices and operating hours at any time. The program is fully scalable and can be tailored to meet individual needs. In fact, Athyron recently incorporated a catering module into eat2go that allows mixing and matching of items while considering party minimums.

The company also added "sweet hearting," which enables merchants to establish relationships within their product lines so that selecting a particular item triggers a predetermined discount or sets an absolute price for a subsequent like item. And, Athyron maintains a 24/7/365 merchant help desk for eat2go.

"The time for action is now," Teller said. "Never before has there been such an opportunity to market a greatly needed product at such profit margin."