voice auto response

[kallen3]

I wonder if anyone have any suggestions. I am looking for a way where I 
can set up a system to make outbound phone calls to my customers to 
advised them of when to expect a route person for a service request. 
Currently I do this by having the operators who took the request to call 
the customer back and to advise them of the status of their request and 
when they can expect the service person. However this is eating up a lot 
of time and is backing up incoming calls something fierce. What I am 
looking for is the type of system I came across when I called for road 
service through my insurance company. The operator took all of the 
information and then advised me I would be called back with an eta. 
Within 20 minutes an automated system called me back told me who will be 
coming out and when to expect them. I have looked at the commercially 
available systems and the 5 figure price tag for the base system is 
awful steep. I then looked at the open source solutions and came across 
a few that may meet my needs including gnuDialer. does any have any 
other suggestions that may also work. All I'm looking for is to step up 
a few boxes with 4 or 5 modems each  program the  outbound messages and 
then pick up the names and numbers to call  from my database . Any 
suggestions?

And no this is not for telemarketing of any type :)  people will only be 
called in response to an incoming call