Posts Tagged ‘Call Options’

An International Conference Call Service with Options

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Most people are pretty familiar with running or at least attending a conference call.  But what if you have international participants?  What is different about an international conference call service?  How do participants join your conference call if they are out of the country.  Conference call service providers offer a number of ways to connect to a conference call from outside the United States.  Zip Conferencing offers a number of international conference call service options for its customers.

  • Local Number Dial In Access – This international conference call service option is available from most every conference call provider.  Basically when you get a dial in reservation from the conference call service provider they give you a local number here in the United States.  And like any other local number you can dial into this number from anywhere in the world.  The cost to the Host of the call is usually the same as if someone dialed in from somewhere in the United States.  For the participant, however, they will pay whatever toll charges they would normally pay to dial into a local number in the United States.  Depending on where in the world they are this can get quite expensive for the participant.
  • International Local Access – A few conference call service providers, like Zip Conferencing, have local numbers in countries outside the United States that participants can dial into.  The international conference call service company transports the call back to the conference call system in the United States.  That way someone in another country can dial a local number but actually conenct to a call int eh United States.  They only pay for the call in their country and since it is a local call the cost is usuall minimal for free.  The cost to the Host of the call is more than if the participant used the local number in the United States but still less than an international toll free number.
  • International Toll Free Access – The most expensive, but certainly most convenient method for international conference call services is the international toll free number.  Zip Conferencing has toll free numbers in over 40 countries that terminate into their systems in teh United States.  That way the participant dials a toll free number in their country and connect to the conference call in the United States.

The main thing to consider when looking at international conference call service options is whether you want your participant to pay for any portion of the conference call.  The next deciding factor is whether they are near one of the local access point around the world.  And then depending on your relationship with your participant you may want to make sure they get the most convenient no cost option which is toll free.

Posted in Conference Call Service | Comments Off

Cheap Conference Calls are Great if you get Quality Too

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

Everyone likes to save money and conference calls are no different. There are a lot of cheap conference calls out there but make sure you get quality too or you will be disappointed. That’s right cheap conference calls are everywhere. You can even get free conference calls if you want. So what is the difference? Are all conference calls the same? If I buy cheap conference calls will the quality always be poor?

  • Free Conference Calls – As you might suspect, free conference calls are not really free.  The catch here is that you and your participants have to pay toll charges to connect to the conference call because they don’t provide a toll free number.  And do you really think that someone who gives away their service is going to provide a high level of quality?  Really?
  • Are all conference calls the same? – The short answer to this question is no, all conference calls are not the same.  The conference call service provider has everything to do with how the call sounds, how reliable the service is and what customer service they provide.  In this case what you don’t know can hurt you.  If the conference call service company cut corners setting up their network or used inferior equipment you could find yourself with an inferior connection.
  • Cheap conference calls – You can find a high quality cheap conference call but you need to know what to look for.  Zip Conferencing has taken steps to insure that the quality of the conference calls are as good as any conference call service available.  You can for yourself and experience the quality of the calls.  In addition, you should look for a service that offers as many conference call options and features as other services.  You don’t want to find yourself without being able to access features like recordings and roll call because you wanted to save some money.

The bottom line is that you want to shop quality first in a conference call service.  Cheap conference calls can be quite good but look for a reputable provider like Zip Conferencing that will give you all of the features and conference call options you need and the high quality and reliability you deserve.

Posted in Conference Calls | Comments Off

Design your own Conference Call

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Why settle with the way things are with your conference call?  Maybe you really don’t like the fact that there is a tone that plays every time someone joins or leaves your conference call.  Or maybe you don’t want the participants to be able to join the call unless the Moderator is present.  With most conference call service companies  you don’t really have a choice.  You get your conference call the way they are giving it to you and you either like it or you don’t.  Most conference call service companies set the features on the conference call one way and that is the way that all of their customer’s call are configured.  Well, that is not the way it has to be or should be.  With Zip Conferencing you can log into your own account and design the conference call the way you want it.

There are a number of features that can be set on a conference call.  Here is a run down of all of the conference call options that you can control with Zip Conferencing.

  • Entry/Exit tones – You have three options for tones when a participant joins the conference call.  You can have silence, a tone or their name announced.  Each of these options can be enabled for entry, exit or both.  So you can have a tone when they enter but silence when they leave and so forth.
  • Music on Hold – You can have participants listen to music until the Moderator joins the conference call.
  • Prompt Moderator for ID/code – The Moderator is prompted for their Client ID and pass code.  This is an additional layer of security on the conference call.
  • Prompt Moderator for Billing Code – This will enable you to track by billing code the activity of each Moderator.
  • Prompt participants for PIN – This is an additional code for entry into the conference call for additional security.
  • Abort Conference if no Moderaotr Joins – The conference call will be disconnected if the Moderaotr does not join the conference call.
  • End Conference when Moderator Exits – The conference call will be disconnected when the Moderator leaves the conference call.
  • Record Participants Name for Roll-Call – When a participant joins the conference call they will be prompted to record their name and then the names will be played for the Moderator as a Roll-Call.
  • Post Conference Report – At the end of each conference call an email with the usage detail from the conference call will be delivered.
  • Client Matter number – The system will record a Client Matter number to help with charge back billing clients at the end of the month.

As you can see, there are a variety of features that you can control with Zip Conferencing conference calls to enable you to design and customize your conference call the way that you like it.

www.zipconferencing.com

Posted in Conference Call | Comments Off

A Conference Call Service for Today

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

If you were going to sit back and design a conference call service, what would it look like?  What features would it have?  Given all the options in the service and technology industries you could really put together a service that delivers high quality conference calls at a low cost and contained all the convenient attributes you have come to expect in a service company these days.  Well, that is just what we did when we designed the Zip Conferencing conference call service.  Here is a list of some of the things you should expect in a conference call service designed for today.

  • High Quality – Nothing but the latest conference call service equipment connected directly to the best telecommunications carriers.  The entire conference call service network designed with back up power and equipment to insure reliability.
  • Full Featured – All of the features you would expect to find in a conference call service like line muting, call recording and roll call.  And even some features you may not expect like the ability to record your conference call and download a copy.
  • Personalization – The ability to design your own personal web space for conference calls and have your own greeting for your conference calls.  You can even upload your logo and customize the colors of your web interface to match your company’s.
  • Account Access – The account access and convenience of an ATM with the ability to have control over all aspects of your account.  You can add Moderators and conferences and control conference call options like music on hold.
  • Personal Service – The ability to talk to a person 24/7 if you have any questions.  Our representatives are here to assist you whenever you have any questions about how to use the service.  Our technical representatives will assist you and your participants onto a conference call and can even assist you from within your conference call.
  • Flexible Pricing Plans – An easy to understand pricing plan that includes options for low and high volume users.  Our Pay-As-You-Go conference call service pricing plan has no recurring monthly charges so you only pay for what you use.
  • No Long Term Contracts – A service that keeps its customers because it delivers great service at a great price and not because customers have to sign long term contracts.

Zip Conferencing provides all this and more.  We are proud to have designed a conference call service that is designed for today’s market.  If you compare all of the features and services that Zip Conferencing provides I think you will agree that there is no better option in the market today for a conference call service.

www.zipconferencing.com

Posted in Conference Call Service | Comments Off

Conference Call Options – Keep it Simple

Friday, September 18th, 2009

With Zip Conferencing, like many conference call service providers today, you can add a lot of options to your conference calls.  But, like most things, it may be best to just keep it simple.

Let’s take the way the conference call is set to start.  With Zip Conferencing, the default setting says that participants can speak to each other before the Moderator or Host of the conference call joins the conference call.  For most meetings this is preferable and participants are not left wondering where everyone is while they wait for the Host to join the conference call.  The other way to run the start of a conference call is to have the participants listen to music until the Host joins the conference call.  If the Host does not join the conference call the participants are left wondering what is happening.  So, for smaller meetings I would suggest you go with the open meeting approach which mirrors a regular in person meeting. 

Now that you have the participants on the call most people like to know who is on the conference call and at least know when someone joins the conference call.  This can be accomplished a couple of different ways.  The easiest is to allow a tone to play when a participants joins or leaves the conference call.  The tone is short and unobtrusive if there are not too many participants and if the participants are generally on time.  Another way to handle this is to have the participants name play in the conference call when they join or leave the conference.  But depending on how their name recording goes, this method can be a little disruptive during a conference call in my opinion. 

Another setting that can be troublesome if you are not careful is when a conference call is set to disconnect all participants when the Host leaves the conference call.  I think that many Hosts will tell you that the idea of this is good, but in practice the participants may want to carry on the conversation at the end of the meeting after the Host has disconnected.  If the Host enables this feature the participants are left to try to contact each other another way if the Host leaves the call.

I find that the use of too many of these bells and whistles only complicate things and can actually make what should be a simple thing, holding a conference call, complex and annoying.  So, my suggestion, like many things in life, keep it simple and you will probably be better served.

www.zipconferencing.com

Posted in Conference Call | Comments Off

Conference Calls with a Large Audience

Friday, September 11th, 2009

The majority of conference calls are with less than five people and last around 45 minutes.  With a small group like that you can simply get on the conference call and talk amongst yourselves like you are in a room together and manage to keep the conversation orderly.  With this many participants the only thing you really have to worry about is when one of the participants is introducing outside noise to the conference call like if they are driving in their car with a headset on or outside on a cell phone.  And that participant usually knows enough that they will mute themselves during the conference call unless they need to speak and then they can simply un-mute themselves using controls on their cell phone or from within the conference call.  But the dynamic changes when you need to have 20, 30 or even 100 people on a conference call at the same time.  How do you keep control of the conference call and keep the intrusion to a minimum?

It used to be that if you wanted more than a few people on a conference call at the same time you would need to have an operator help you run the call and you still can do that, but it can get rather expensive.  So here are some ideas on how to best manage a large conference call using only a standard conference call.

First, as the Host you need to be extra organized.  The planning before the conference call should include an agenda that you follow although you might not distribute to the participants in advance it will keep you on track.  You will need to adjust your conference call options to make sure they are set correctly for this type of call.  If you normally have tones sound when participants join the call you will want to turn that off as it will interrupt your call when participants join the conference call late.  You will also want to have your participants join the conference call and listen to music prior to the Host joining.  If participants are allowed to talk before you join there may be noise and confusion among the participants.  And you will want to mute all participants when you join the call to make sure that extra noise does not enter the conference call.  All of these controls are available to you as host of a conference call with Zip Conferencing through your phone or a web interface whichever you prefer.

Once you are all set you can present your materials or have a discussion with the other hosts on the call and then open it up for comments or questions at the end of the call.  If you are going to open up the lines on a large conference call you should instruct participants to mute themselves unless they have something to add as this will also keep any interruptions to a minimum.  When the conference call has ended you can set the call to disconnect when the host hangs up which will make sure that all participants are disconnected and you will not incur any charges beyond what you expected during the conference call.

Today it is possible to run a large conference call without the assistance of an operator and much more cost effective too.

 

www.zipconferencing.com

Posted in Conference Call | Comments Off

Conference Call Service Pricing Options

Friday, August 14th, 2009

There certainly are a lot of choices out there for conference call service companies.  It seems like there are a dizzying number of choices, so I thought I would pull back the curtain and boil down what is really going on with the pricing options out there.  If you are thinking about choosing a conference call service company and you can’t tell what the difference is in the pricing you may want to read this article.

There are really just a few different flavors of conference call service pricing.

  • Toll Free or Toll per minute billing
  •  Flat Rate Billing
  • Monthly Subscription Plans

Toll Free or Toll per minute billing- The industry standard has always been the Toll Free or Toll per minute billing method.  The price per minute is calculated using a standard formula in the industry to determine conference call minutes.  Since a conference call is like having several long distance calls all going at the same time, the calculation of conference call minutes is on a per participant basis.  That means that the price per minute you pay is multiplied by the number of participants on the call.  And usually the minutes are calculated by the connection time of each participant.  That way if a participant on the conference call is only on the call for 5 minutes and the conference call lasted 60 minutes, you will only pay for 5 minutes for that participant.  So the formula goes like this, # of participants X # of minutes = total conference call minutes.  So this pricing method simply takes the total number of minutes you did and multiplies it times the rate per minute you pay.  This pricing method is good if you don’t know how much you will use a conference call service or if you only use the service infrequently.

A couple of things to be aware of with this method.  First, the access method Toll or Toll Free.  Although many conference call service companies will put out an attractive rate for conference calls on the internet, it many times is for a toll connection.  The problem here is that a toll connection has hidden costs for the participants as they will need to dial a long distance number to connect to the call.  The last thing you want if you are inviting guests to a meeting is have them incur any costs.  Second, is if the conference call service company rounds minutes on calls to a minimum such as 10 minutes per participant minimum on a call it can really add up and end up costing you a lot more. 

Flat Rate Billing – This method of pricing is based on you paying one set price and then you can do as many conference calls as you want monthly.  Typically this method has some restrictions that go along with it.  You will usually only be able to have a small number of participants on the call and you may have to pay a separate monthly subscription for each user in your company.  It also it usually for only toll access which again means that your participants will have to pay a long distance charge to get to your conference call.  In the end, these types of services can end up costing you more than the per minute billing method depending on how you use the service.  The economics for conference call service companies are no different.  We pay for long distance like everyone else, so no one is going to give it away.

Monthly Subscription Plans – This pricing method has become popular lately since you can obtain a pretty good discount if you use a conference call service regularly and you know how many minutes you typically do a month.  The pricing works just like your cell hone plan.  You subscribe to a certain number of minutes per month and pay a monthly fee for those minutes.  If you go over the minutes in the plan you will pay a charge for the minutes over the included minutes in the plan.  Rates as low as 2.5 cents per minutes are available from Zip Conferencing if you subscribe to one of these plans.  You did need to watch out for the small print in some of the offers  in the marketplace for these plans.  Some conference call service companies will set participant minimums, restrict the number of participants and make you buy a plan for each moderator.

I hope this helps explain some of the conference call service pricing options available.  www.zipconferencing.com

Posted in Conference Call | Comments Off

Conference Calls – The Basics

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

I take it for granted that people have done conference calls before, but if you believe the analysts the market for conference calling services is only penetrated at a rate of 58%.  That means that 42% of the possible customers for conference calling are not using the services today.  Which means that many of you have never done a conference call.  Here is a simple guide to holding a successful conference call.

INVITE YOUR PARTICIPANTS
Send your guests, via email, fax, or word of mouth, the information listed below. All of the conference call codes and Dial-In numbers can be found online by accessing your account when you sign up for Zip Conferencing.
 
Design an Invitation:
Date/Time of conference call – you may want to include an agenda.
It is recommended that you inform your Guests to log into the conference call no less than 5 minutes prior to start time.  Your guests can speak together prior to you joining the call.  You can change that by accessing conference call options in your account and change it so that the guests listen to music and can not speak prior to you joining.
 
Audio Conference Dial-In Info:
·          Instruct guests to dial into the Audio Conference approximately 5 minutes prior to the conference
·          Provide Dial-In phone number
·          Provide Guest Code
·          Require attendees to refrain form putting the call on hold, as some companies have hold music that would disrupt the conference. 

PRE-CONFERENCE PREPARATIONS

·          Set an agenda for the meeting.
·          If possible, send the agenda to all meeting participants.
·          Send out a reminder to participants for calls scheduled far in advance.
·          Make sure you are in a quiet location where you will not be disturbed
ACTIVATE THE CONFERENCE CALL
 
·          Be on time! It helps if the host or chairperson dials into the conference a few minutes early. This avoids confusion if guests dial-in early.
·          Turn off call-waiting. Most call-waiting features can be deactivated by dialing 70# before dialing into the conference.
·          Dial into the call using either the Toll Free or Direct Dial-In conference call number provided. You will be prompted to enter your passcode.
·          Conduct a roll call to find out who has joined your conference.
·          Remind attendees to refrain from putting the call on hold, as some companies have hold music that would disrupt the conference.           Instruct everyone to state their names when speaking to avoid confusion. For example, “This is Karen, and I’d like to see…”
 
 
DURING THE CONFERENCE CALL
 
·          Ask for feedback from specific participants instead of from the entire group.
·          Postpone any discussions that are not relevant to the conference for another date and time.
·          Promptly deal with any noise or distractions.
·          Summarize the issues discussed and recap any action items resulting from the call.
·          Clearly state when you are ending the conference. Often a guest can be left on the line not realizing that the conference has ended.
You will find that if you treat the conference call just like an in-person meeting you will get the same results.
www.zipconferencing.com

Posted in Conference Calls | Comments Off