Posts Tagged ‘Convenience’

A Conference Call Makes More Sense All The Time

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

A conference call has been a good option for businesses for many years because of the expense savings and increased productivity.  And as time has gone on the lowly conference call just keeps making more sense than ever.  In fact I can not think of a time since I have been in the business that a conference call has made more sense than right now.  Here are just a few thoughts on why a conference call should be the preferred method of communication for any business.

  • Travel Costs – Okay, so you have to meet with a customer or internally and they are in Texas and you are in New Jersey.  The natural reaction is to schedule a trip to Texas for the meeting.  Have you seen the cost of air travel these days?  If you book 30 days in advance you might be able to get there for less than $500 but if it is in the next 2 weeks it will cost you over $1,000.  And that doesn’t include all the crazy fees they charge these days.  Once you get to Texas you will need a car, a room, dinners…you get the idea.  It is so expensive to travel these days you can save enough in travel costs to hold a conference call every day with the participants and still save money.
  • Travel Hassle – On top of the costs to go to Texas you get to put up with all the convenience of air travel these days.  Travel to and from the airport, the security lines, baggage checks and on and on.  I have had more fun on days I was sick than what they are putting you through these days.
  • Lost Productivity – How many hours of useful work are you going to lose by travelling to Texas.  The flight time is only a few hours but you need to get to the airport and then to the office on the other end.  And what are the chances the plane takes off and lands on time.  That conference call keeps getting more and more attractive.

I know you can’t do away with all in person meetings for conference calls.  It is just not possible.  But if I were you I would think long and hard about using conference call services whenever you can.  You will be happier and so will your budget.

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What is the difference in Conference Calling Providers?

Friday, June 24th, 2011

If you are shopping for a conference calling provider it can be pretty maddening on trying to tell the difference in the services.  Some of that is created by the conference calling providers themselves.  When I look at some of the ads that are used to attract new customers and then look into the actual offers it is easy to understand how people can get confused.  Here are some of the things you should look for when shopping for a conference calling provider.

  • Quality and Reliability – It is funny, but when I talk to customers I rarely get asked about the quality of the conference call service.  Maybe conference calling has really become a commodity in customer’s eyes and they simply assume that the service will work no matter which conference calling service provider they choose.  Having been in the teleconferencing industry for over 16 years I have intimate knowledge of what goes into making sure that there is quality and reliability in a conference call service.  And I can tell you that not every service is the same in respect to quality and reliability.  It takes a real commitment on the part of ownership to make sure you do everything to insure the service is available and ready when people need it to be.  At Zip Conferencing we have done everything possible to make sure we are delivering the highest quality and reliability available.  After all, isn’t this the most important aspect of the conference calling service?
  • Toll Free Service- When you look at many of the advertisements of the conference calling service providers out there you will see some pretty low rates and even “free” conference calling services.  The last thing you want is to have your participants paying hidden charges to attend your conference call.  Imagine inviting prospects to your presentation only to have them paying to get there.  It certainly takes something away from your presentation.  Nothing beats the convenience and peace of mind that toll free conference call services can provide.  And at the low rates they are available today why would you want to do anything else?
  • Features- You may not use every conference calling feature that is out there because there are many.  But there is also no reason to try to save money by signing up with a service that has only limited features available.  Zip Conferencing is a conference calling provider that offers low rates with a full featured service.  Many of the features simply make your life easier before and during your conference call and some are essential conference call tools.  Why not have them and a great rate too?
  • Support – Hopefully a conference calling provider service will not require a whole lot of support because it works and is easily understandable.  But if you should need support, especially when you are in the middle of an important conference call, wouldn’t you want it to be there?  Zip Conferencing is a conference calling provider that has support available 24/7 and can even join your conference call for assistance if necessary.  You may never need it but isn’t it nice to know it is there if you do?

Conference calling services are an important communications piece of your business.  Make sure you look closely under the hood before you buy and get a service you will be happy with for years to come.

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Residential Conference Calls

Monday, March 29th, 2010

Just about everyone has done a conference call in their business life.  Conference calls have become universally known for their convenience and ability to save people time and money compared to an in person meeting.  But can you also use a conference call service for your residential conference call needs?  Sure you can, here are some of the uses we have seen for residential conference calls.

  • Family Party Planning – Many times you may want to have a party with your family and you need to work on logistics like during the holidays.  If you have a dispersed family and you need to get everyone on the same page a conference call will allow you to get all of the family members on the same page.
  • Family Emergencies- If you have a family emergency you need to deal with such as a death or hospitalization of a family member and you need to coordinate with the other family members you can do a conference call to get together more easily.
  • Birth of a child – A new family member is a great excuse to get everyone on the phone so you can celebrate with everyone in the family.
  • Local Organization – If you have a local club or organization that you organize you can use a conference call to coordinate your efforts with the other members of the organization.

Basically, anything you can think of where you need to get multiple parties together to discuss something you can coordinate with a conference call.  Conference call rates have gotten low enough where even for residential conference calls it makes sense rather than an in person meeting if you would like to save money and time.

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Are Conference Calls Too Convenient?

Friday, January 8th, 2010

We are more connected than ever before.  Between the email, voice mail and BlackBerry or other PDA it is difficult to escape the endless stream of information from your work and personal life.  It just seems to me we are heading to where there is no escaping work and like many of the other modern day work convenience maybe conference calls are getting too convenient.

Let’s face it, you can do a conference call from anywhere.  Just like you can talk to people from anywhere, I don’t even want to know all the places that calls are done from, conference calls are as convenient as your next cell phone call.  When cell phones first came out the conference call service industry would discourage people from using them on a cell phone because they introduced a lot of noise and the networks were such that a dropped call during the conference call was pretty much a certainty.  So, naturally our customers would call us and complain about the conference call service because they were losing participants during the call of there was a lot of noise on the call.  And inevitably when our operators would join the conference call we would identify the culprit and most times it was a participant on the conference call on a cell phone.  Well that has certainly changed.  Now most of the participants on a conference call are probably on a cell phone.  With the cell phone networks improvement and better equipment you can join and participate on a conference call from anywhere you can get a cell phone signal.  And that is just about anywhere.

And now that people can get you just about anywhere they can also get you just about anytime.  People seem to expect that since you have a cell phone than I should be able to reach anytime, anywhere.  So, before when you would schedule a conference call with Asia, for instance, the participants would schedule the conference call for a time that was good for all concerned, knowing that people needed to be in the office during normal work hours to conduct the call.  But know it seems that people just assume you can get on a call anytime.  My wife, for instance, is regularly asked to attend conference calls with other parts of the world at all hours of the night.  The other night she had three conference calls from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at night with Australia and Asia.  They just don’t seem to think that there are any boundaries since you are always accessible.

So, what do you think?  Are conference calls too convenient?

www.zipconferencing.com

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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

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