What goes into the cost of a conference call service? How good are discounted conference calling services? Does cheaper conference calls mean bad quality conference calls? Not necessarily. If you understand the cost model of a conference call service company you will understand how you can get discounted conference calling services without sacrificing quality and reliability.
- Sales Cost - A conference call service company that has been in existence for a while probably grew using typical Sales and Marketing efforts with salespeople doing cold calls to produce sales. That means the conference call service company had to pay salespeople and probably has sales offices around the country or a telemarketing center which has fixed costs that must pay. A newer conference call service company offering discounted conference calling services can take advantage of internet marketing without the need for a large sales force or remote offices.
- Operations Cost - The older conference call service equipment requires more personnel to operate than newer equipment. Operators needed to man the switch and baby site the equipment more than today’s equipment. A larger group of operators and office space adds costs to the conference call service company. A newer conference call service company offering discounted conference calling services can avoid some of these costs through more modern, automated equipment that requires less space and maintenance.
- Customer Service Cost - An older conference call service company has existing procedures and probably has not automated their operation too much over time. A newer conference call service company offering discounted conference calling services can automate just about everything and provide the customer the ability to service their own account which reduces the number of customer service people required to service their customers thus reducing cost.
- Back Office Cost - The older conference call service companies have not automated their billing, collections and other activities and have a higher cost to operate. A newer conference call service company offering discounted conference calling services can automate billing, collections and virtually all back office operations which greatly reduces the cost to the company.
All of the efforts to reduce cost in a conference call service company do not take away from the quality of the conference call service itself if you do it right. At Zip Conferencing, you get all of the same services at a discounted rate because we have designed and built a company to provide a high quality service but eliminated a lot of the cost associated with an older conference call service company.