Posts Tagged ‘Business Tool’

Low Cost Conference Calls Provide Powerful Business Tool to All

Thursday, December 9th, 2010

It wasn’t too long ago that I was with a conference call services provider and we were offering low cost conference calls for 50 cents per minute. And at that rate we were saving customers of AT&T over 40%! Well, even at that rate conference calls were easily justified to large businesses because of the savings they recognized in travel and the increased productivity. But now, with toll free conference calls priced less than 10 cents per minute, this powerful business tool is available to businesses of all sizes.

There was a time when the majority of my customers had over 50 employees. But low cost conference calls has really changed that dynamic. Now there is a much wider mix of companies utlizing low cost conference calls. I have many 1 – 3 employee companies who have realized that conference calls can help them be more productive and provide a very important communication link to their customers. Small home construction companies are using conference calls to keep their customers up to speed on their home building developments and coordinating with building supply vendors to make selections for their home. Small Accounting firms and CPAs are using low cost conference calls to keep their customers informed and to have meetings with investment firms and attorneys with their customers. Small law firms are using low cost conference calls to hold conference calls with opposing council and their customers.

And not only have low cost conference calls now opened up the advantages of conference calling to businesses of all sizes but the service itself is richer than ever. Zip Conferencing allows its customers to customize their conference calls in such a way that they have full control over all of the facets of the conference call. With Zip Conferencing you can decide whether participants are announced into the conference call with a tone, their name or not at all. Customers can have their participants listen to music or provide them the ability to speak without the moderator present and engage a number of security measures to insure their privacy on the conference calls. And much more. So now companies of all sizes have the same high quality, feature rich conference call services available to them as large companies. And with small companies the ability to save money on travel and be more productive are no less important than to large companies.

Low cost conference calls have truly leveled the playing field for companies of all sizes in many ways.

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Conference Calling goes Mainstream

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

I have had the fortune to be involved in a few industries as they have gone from the early adoption phase to the accepted norm stage.  I was in the telecommunications industry shortly after the divestiture of AT&T.  I was in the paging industry as it grew wildly and then died just as quickly with the adoption of the cell phone.  And then I joined the conference call industry and over the past 14+ years I have seen the conference call service industry go from a niche application mostly used by the legal industry to a widely used business tool.  Conference calling has truly reached the level of mainstream acceptance.

I am not sure how an expert would judge whether conference calling has reached mainstream acceptance, but I am sure the growth of the industry is certainly one of the factors.  And no one can deny that the conference calling industry has been fortunate to realize exponential growth over the past 14 years.  One of the biggest factors for the growth in the conference calling industry is the change to a reservationless system where you don’t need an operator or schedule a conference call with anyone.  The ease of use of conference call technology has also contributed to the growth.

When I started in the conference calling industry we received many calls from people at businesses who were trying to understand how to get multiple parties on the conference call and they really were not familiar with the technology.  Now we receive calls from people who have inevitably been on a conference call but maybe they have never hosted a conference call before, but now plan to use the service.  The method of conference calling has become somewhat standardized and everyone seems to know what the experience will be like on a conference call.  So, now we spend a lot more time telling customers about the benefits of our service over others and educating them on the small differences between conference call service companies instead of educating them on how a conference call works. 

But probably one of the biggest indicators I have seen in the past few years that conference calling has hit the mainstream is the use of conference calls for personal use.  Because so many people have been exposed at work to conference calls, they are now finding applications in their personal lives to use conference calling.  The wide availability and lower costs of conference calling have really helped this new area of applications.  We have had people use conference calling for wedding and event planning like family reunions where the participants are not able to meet physically.  Recently we even had a family use a conference call so that the missing family members could attend a grave side service because they all could not attend the service in person.  I think that the conference call industry will continue to grow with the advent of new applications as more and more people think up new ways that they can use conference calling to their benefit.

www.zipconferencing.com

 that is widely used

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Conference Calls in the Legal Community

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Conference calls have always been an important business tool in the legal community.  The need to communicate amongst multiple parties has always been a fact of life in the legal system and the benefits of doing it over the telephone as opposed to an in person meeting have been there all along.  In the early days of conference calls the participants had to be called by an operator and the participants had to be at their telephone to answer it at the time of the conference.  Despite the logistical problems this poses the legal community adopted conference calls into their everyday processes early and often.

In the legal community conference calls are used for many applications

  • Depositions
  • Consultations with clients
  • Conferences with opposing attorneys
  • Communication with multiple parties around the world

One of the reasons the legal community also adopted conference calls is out of sheer necessity.  Many times the schedule of attorneys does not permit them to be in multiple places at the same time and by using conference calls attorneys can be more productive.  The cost of the conference calls has never been as much of an issue since attorneys bill back their clients.  For this reason, the most important features of the conference call are call accounting features that allow the attorneys to keep track of their billings to their clients. 

The conference call features most used by the legal community 

  • The ability to attach a client matter number to a conference call to track expenses
  • Subconferences for sidebar conversations
  • Dial out to add participants
  • Security features that prevent unwanted participation

Zip Conferencing has all the features listed and more.  In fact, you can even see the participants on a conference call by logging into your account on your computer during the call.  The invoices have the calls broken out by Moderator and by Client Matter number.  And the ability to break into a side conversation assists lawyers in being able to talk to their clients alone and return to the conference call to resolve issues.  And more and more, the Legal Community is realizing the benefits of web conferencing.  The ability to share documents and revise them on the fly has added another tool to help improve productivity which for an attorney is the most important thing.  Since attorneys bill by the hour, the more they can get done in an hour is directly related to how much they earn.  For the Legal Community conference calls are not a convenience, but a necessity.

www.zipconferencing.com

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