Posts Tagged ‘Free Calls’

Toll Free Conference Calling is Still Better for Everyone

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Toll free conference calling has been around for a long time and hands down the most popular method of conference calling. The reason has always been pretty simple. No one hosting a conference call wants to subject their participants to having to pay to get on to their conference call. Toll free conference calling means there are no charges to dial into the conference call from your long distance provider. The only person that incurs any cost is the host of the conference call. So, the participants can dial into the conference call from anywhere and not worry about how much it costs. Who wants to think about where people are dialing in from? Here are the alternatives to toll free conference calling and their disadvantages explained.

  • Free Conference Calls – Free conference calls are not really free like toll free conference calling to the participants.  If you do a free conference call you will be given an access number somewhere in the country where you have to dial a long distance number to get to it.  That is you and your participants.  Depending on your calling plan the free conference call could easily end up costing you more than toll free conference calling.  The reason that companies can offer you a free conference call is because they get paid by the local phone company to terminate your long distance call in their facility.  And that is because you and your participants are paying someone for the ability to make that long distance phone call to connect to the conference call.  With toll free conference calling you are paying the conference call service provider to transport you and your participants to the conference call.  There is no mystery to who is paying for the call and the charges are not hidden somewhere.
  • Toll Conference Calls - Toll conference calls are similar to free conference calls only on top of paying to get to the conference call you are also paying the conference call service company.  If you are going to pay for the conference call why not pay for toll free conference calling?  A toll conference call means you are going to get a phone number somewhere in the country to dial into to access the conference call and you will have to pay long distance charges to get to the call and for the duration of the call.  Toll free conference calling means no one pays any long distance charges to participate in your conference call.  And you might think that since some people use a cell phone to dial into the conference call that they are not paying for long distance anyway.  But they are paying for long distance.  It is figured in their monthly plan which also has a certain number of minutes included.  Do you want your participants to have to use up their airtime minutes on your conference call?  With toll free conference calling the participants can dial in from a land line and not worry about long distance charges.

Toll free conference calling is still better for everyone because there are no hidden charges for people.  I am sure you would not want your participants to have to pay to get on your conference call and since toll free conference calling is so inexpensive why not give them an easy, toll free way to access the call?

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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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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.

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Free Web Conferencing

Monday, March 8th, 2010

One of the surest ways to get traffic to your web site is to give something away for free.  But how is it that a service that a lot of people are willing to pay for can be offered by another company for free.  Well, I have gone through free conference calls before and explained how that can happen, but what about free web conferencing? 

A conference call service company that provides web conferencing to its customers has to pay for a number of things in order to provide the service.  Some of those cost items include the following.

  • Software development – If the conference call service company has developed the service themselves then they had to pay to have the software developed in the first place.  And like any software you develop the development doesn’t end there.  There are on going improvements, bug fixes and so forth to fund.
  • Reseller fees- Some conference call services don’t develop their own software, they simply resell someone elses technology.  In this case there is always a cost to the company who is reselling the service.
  • Hosting environment – If you are supporting your own software you need to have a server or servers depending on the number of users to host the software and make it available to your customers. 
  • Internet Connectivity- If you are hosting your own web conferencing service you need to connect it to the internet and the connection needs to allow many users fast access so you will also need a very good and potentially expensive connection.
  • Support Costs – And like any other conference call service you will need to support your web conferencing service with sales and service personnel.

So, if there are all these costs, how does anyone provide free web conferencing?  Well, some conference call service companies will offer a dumbed down version for free hoping you will upgrade because the free version doesn’t do much.  Or the web conferencing service they offer for free is an old version they no longer support and instead of retiring it they simply give it away so you will come to their site and but the other version.  Either way, if you investigate the free web conferencing versions out there you will see that they are not a full version, current representative of what web conferencing can do.  And it just may not have the reliability and capacity you would expect with a service you pay for.  After all it is free so how hard can you complain?

If you really need a good web conferencing service don’t use a free one.  For a low monthly fee you can have access to a web conferencing service that save you time and money wihtout breaking the bank.

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A Conference Call Service Reflects on Your Company

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

As a business we sometimes get caught up in saving money on the things we use in the business and forget to think about how it will reflect on the image of our company.  Let’s face it.  We’ve all done it.  Save a little money by replacing a reliable service or product with a cheaper one only to find that in most case, you really do get what you pay for.  It is the same with a conference call service company.  It is okay to switch to a new conference call vendor to save some money, but you do need to be careful about the service you are getting as the participants on the conference calls you run will see the conference call service you use as a reflection of your company.

You see, you are going to invite customers and prospects to attend meetings you hold via a conference call or web conference.  And it is important that the meeting have the kind of quality and reliability you expect.  After all, you would not invite your guests to a roadside motel where the lights don’t work for a meeting, right?  With a conference call service company it is not always so apparent to see the differences in the companies, but if you know what to look for, at least you will have a chance.

First of all something for free is rarely free.  In some way or another you are paying for the service.  Many times there are advertisements associated with free conference call service that the company is putting in front of your audience.  And invariably, the conference call service is not as good as a fee based service either.  Free conference calls make the participants pay to connect to the conference call because they have to dial a long distance number to connect to the call.  And the conference call service company can’t afford the latest equipment or services, or the best connections tot he telephone network either.  And they might not even have the conference call capacity to support your call when you need it.  All of these things cost money and free doesn’t pay for them.

Some of the conference call service companies are now offering unlimited capacity and rates that are less expensive than a long distance phone call.  How do they do that?  Well, they are probably offering a service based on VOIP technology.  Don’t get me wrong, VOIP has come a long way in the past 5 years, but would you trust your business to it?  Again, if it looks too good to be true it probably is. 

In the end you should be looking for a conference call service company that uses the latest conference call equipment, solid connections to the telephone network, back up network provisi0ns and provides service to back up their conference calls like Zip Conferencing.  Because when you hold an audio or web conference, the conference call service company you choose will reflect on your company.

www.zipconferencing.com

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Conference Calls are Still a Great Value

Monday, October 19th, 2009

There have been many predictions ofValue the conference calls’ demise over the years.  First, the video conference was going to be on everyone’s desktop and people wouldn’t bother with regular conference calls anymore.  Then services came along that purported to provide free conference calls.  Then everyone was going to be speaking into their PCs and wouldn’t use a phone anymore.  And on, and on.  The fact that conference calls done over the telephone are not only still here but doing so well is the basic fact that there is no better value if you want to have a high quality connection and be able to speak to a group of people at a distance.

Video conferencing has been around for a long time.  So why aren’t we all looking at each other during our calls already.  There are probably many reasons.  But first and foremost it is not as easy as a conference call and not necessarily available to everyone.  I mean these days it is hard to buy a PC without a webcam attached, but many people don’t use them or know how to use them.  And the quality of the connection still has a lot to be desired.  If anything, the call can be more distracting than anything.  And then you have the whole social aspect.  The fact that most people don’t feel comfortable having their image in front of themselves and broadcast to many people.  It will be quite a while before video conferencing is as easy to use as a telephone.

I’ve addressed the concept of the free conference call in other posts, but in short nothing is really free.  You simply can’t get a high quality conference call with toll free access for nothing.  And toll free access for your participants is simply the right thing to do.  And if you want to make sure the call is there when you need it to be and want a good sound would you trust it to a free  service?

And we are also still a long way away from having an integrated device on our desktop that does all of our phone tasks as well.  Can you do it today?  Of course, but the complexities of getting it done is worse than getting the video camera to work and if you still have to connect to people using a telephone you still have to connect to the telephone network to do a conference call so you really aren’t gaining anything unless you eliminate that aspect. 

One of the big drivers for new technology is saving money.  Today, the costs of conference calls have come down to the point where it is difficult to justify putting up with any inconvenience to try to save a little money.  Let’s face it, everyone has a telephone and that is really all you need to have and know how to use in order to join a conference call.  And you will get a clear, high quality connection without any issues. 

So, given all the choices that are out there, conference calls continue to grow because they still deliver the best value for the money.

www.zipconferencing.com

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