Archive for June, 2009

Conference Call Applications – Sales and Marketing

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Conference calls have been adopted by business as a great way to save money on travel, improve communications and shorten business life cycles.  One of the areas where the technology has been widely adopted is in Sales and Marketing.  While it is widely accepted that face time is important to the sale in many cases, getting in front of the customer with conferencing technology can help qualify prospects, perform product demonstrations and ultimately shorten the sales cycle. 

Audio Conferencing

The same basic principles that assist all businesses when they use audio confernecing apply in Sales and Marketing.  Why they have so widely adopted conferencing technology is understandable because in this area of business you will see an immediate impact to your bottom line.  Travel costs to present the materials to the customer are eliminated.  A conference call can be scheduled much quicker than a face to face meeting.  Many prospects are much more willing to make time for a conference call because it takes less time out of their day than an in person meeting.  Sales Managers can have daily calls with their entire sales force even when the people are located across the country.

Web Conferencing

Web conferencing has revolutionized the way companies sell their products and services.  It is now commonplace to get an initial demonstration of a product or service over the internet using web conferencing.  Especially for software and web services this is more the norm than not.  Customers have now grown used to sitting comfortably at their desks and watching a webinar or demonstration.  The web confernece eliminates the need to travel to a customer premise and set up the projector, get an internet connection and everything else that goes with getting an in-person sales demonstration in place.  Instead sales demonstrations can happen ad hoc or scheduled using a web conference and a telephone.  And beyond being more convenient for salesperson and customer, the statistics prove that using web conferencing services in the sales process is a very effective way to do business.  You can do more presentations in less time for less money than anyone doing in-person sales.

For Sales and Marketing applications the path is clear.  Audio conferencing and web conferencing provide a quicker more effective way to do business.

www.zipconferencing.com

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Conference Call Etiquette

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

We have all been on a conference call where someone does something to either disrupt the call, embarass themselves or both.  I am going to point out things that will help make the difference on your conference call between a success and a failure whether you are hosting the call or jsut a participant.

As the Host or Moderator of conference calls

  • Give participants plenty of notice about the scheduled time of the conference call.  Even if you are the boss and can make them attend at a moment’s notice, if the participants are harried or have to reschedule to make the call they will be distracted during the conference call.
  • Send out an agenda with the conference call meeting invitation.  I know that this is not done in many cases but having your audience prepared for the call allows particpants to be ready for the discussion.  Even if it is not a formal agenda a simple listing of topics to be discussed on the conference call really helps.
  • Start your conference calls on time.  Even if a participant is late if you become known as someone who starts on time your participants will learn to be oon time as well.
  • Take a roll call at the beginning of the conference call so that everyone knows who is in attendance.  This will get everyone participating right away and make people  more comfortable.
  • Even though everyone takes the technology for granted, try to not use a cell phone if you are hosting the conference call.  It is one thing for a participant to be on a cell phone, they can mute their line if they have to, but the Host needs to control the meeting and have a clear, consistent connection.
  • Put yourself in a quiet environment.  Background noise can be a real nuisance on a conference call.
  • Treat it like a meeting.  Take notes, assign tasks, etc.  Where most people struggle on a conference call is being aimless in the way the meeting is conducted.   

Good practices for Moderators and Participants

  • Introduce yourself when you speak every time.  Many times the participants have a hard time determining who is speaking.
  • Learn to use the mute button.  Especially if you have to join the confernece call via cell phone you should use the mute button whenever possible.  Any noise you produce or background noise will be on the entire conference call.
  • If you are using a speakerphone and own a PDA like a BlackBerry, make sure the PDA/BlackBerry is nowhere near the Speakerphone.  The transmission and reception of messagtes into the device will make noise across the conference call.
  • Don’t ever put your phone on hold while on a conference call.  Any hold music or messages will play across the entire conference call the entire time you have your phone on hold.
  • Just like an in person meeting take care of any bathroom needs prior and after the conference call.  No matter how familiar you are with your mute button, inevitably everyone will hear the flush.

Finally you are ready to close the conference call.  Thank your participants for their time.  Whether an in person meeting or a conference call, people’s time is valuable and should be recognized.  Participants will be more willing to give you their time again.

www.zipconferencing.com

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Conference Calls Explode

Friday, June 19th, 2009

I have been in the conference call business since 1995.  At that time many people had not even been on a conference call and web conferencing was little more than an idea.  Over 50 % of the conference calls we ran back then were operator assisted because the concept of running a reservationless conference call was foreign to most people.  Now the technology has made it simple to run a conference call from any phone at any time without the need to schedule the call and web conferencing and sharing your desktop with someone thousands of miles away is just a few clicks away.  It has been an amazing ride and newer technology promises to make conference calls even easier and more compelling for the customers than ever.  No wonder the amount of conference call minutes has exploded to over 40 billion minutes a year and is expected to continue to grow to over 70 billion minutes by 2012.  Zip Conferencing is poised to bring you the best technology the industry has to offer at rates that make the service affordable to everyone.  Never before has this technology been so easy to use and so affordable.  In this blog I hope to bring you some of the conference call applications used by customers across many industries in hopes it will help you find a way to improve communication in your company.  I welcome any input and feedback on Zip Conferencing, questions about our services, the web site and I hope you will share the ways that you are using conference calls and the benefits they bring to you.  Just like the technology itself promotes, there are power in numbers and sharing makes us all better.  Enjoy!

www.zipconferencing.com

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Hello conference call world!

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

I am Jim Miller, the President of Zip Conferencing, and I invite users of conference call services to share their thoughts on conferencing services, conference call technology and the ways they use conference calls to help their business.  I also welcome any comments or questions on Zip Conferencing and the web site.  I intend to make Zip Conferencing the easiest to use, most affordable conference call technology available and only through real customer input can I achieve that.  So, bring it on!

www.zipconferencing.com

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