Posts Tagged ‘Guess’

Don’t get burned by a Conference Call Service company

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

I speak to many customers who come to Zip Conferencing after being “burned” by another Conference Call Service company.  I guess it is a factor of the competitiveness of this business, but I can’t see how tricking your customers is going to help you in the long run.  Here are a few ways you can be misled by a conference call service company.

  • Access is not Toll Free – Many conference call companies including the Free Conference Call companies offer an attractive rate that may look good but actually have hidden charges.  Any conference call service company that pushes a local or toll connection is making you pay long distance charges to connect to your conference calls.  It doesn’t appear on your conference call bill but it will add to your bottom line cost for you and your participants.
  • Long Term Contracts – Some conference call companies will make you sign a long term contract in order to get a good rate for the conference calls.  If your business needs change or your conference call needs change you can find yourself paying a penalty to get out of a contract for services you no longer need.
  • Hidden Charges – Make sure that all of the charges you will get for the service are spelled out ahead of time.  Some conference call companies will fail to tell you about connection charges or set up charges that you did not expect when you signed up for the service.
  • Per Moderator Charges – Some companies will charge you to add users to your account who can hold conference calls.

The bottom line is you need to ask lots of questions when you are investigating which conference call company to choose.  Make sure your are doing an apples to apples comparison so that you can sort through all of the offers to determine who will provide the best conference call service at the best rates for your needs.  Be sure to check out Zip Conferencing and you will find that the rates for the conference call services are straight forward.  There are no set up fees, no contracts and you can cancel at any time.

www.zipconferencing.com

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From Russia with Conference Calls

Monday, October 26th, 2009

I guess the cold war has really officially ended.  Zip Conferencing now offers local number access for participants of your conference calls from Moscow and St. Petersburg.  That’s right, you can access our conference calls from Russia. 

The world continues to shrink and businesses continue to expand so it is only normal to have enough demand for conference call services in places all over the world including Russia.  In fact there are participants on our conference calls from all corners of the globe.  That is why over time we have continues to expand the coverage of our network to include access from every major city in the world.  There are a couple of ways to access conference calls from outside the United States.

Toll Number Access – The most common way to access a conference call from outside the United States has always been by using the toll or local number provided with a conference call.  That is because the toll free number is not accessible from outside the Untied States, but you can call a local number in the United States from anywhere.  The one drawback to this type of access is that the participants have to pay the long distance charges to access the call from outside the Untied States.  Which if it is an internal company call this may not be a bad thing, but you certainly don’t want a customer or prospect to have to pay to join your call.

International Local Access – Zip Conferencing provides access through local numbers in a number of large cites internationally.  That way if a participant is in that city they simply have to call a local number in their city to get on a conference call in the United States.  Thay way they also don’t need to pay any long distacne charges to access the conference call.  It is just like any other local call to them.

International Toll Free Access – For participants who are not located in a major city that has a local access number, they can dial into the conference call using an International Toll Free access number.  No matter where they are in that country they can dial the toll free access number in their country and not incur any charges to access the conference call.  The only drawback to this service is that it is the most expensive way to access an international conference call.

The bottom line is that there are now many options on how to access a conference call from an international location.  And now with the addition of Moscow and St. Petersburg, there are very few locations that do not have an access number.

www.zipconferencing.com

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Conference Calls in Today’s Busy World

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

I sat down to write about how conference calls help manage your way around the crazy busy world we live in and guess what?  I got interrupted, had to handle multiple emergencies and yes, attend several conference calls.  So, it is certainly not a cure for the crazy busy lifestyle I am so familiar with but it certainly helps.  Conference calls simply provide a way to get more done in the same amount of time.  If I couldn’t attend those conference calls, I would have had to get in my car and drive, along with all the other participants to the office and find an open conference room, and have our discussion there.  That is bad enough that I have to spend the time commuting and the expense to get there, but then I would be in a location where I am limited in what I can do.  In my case I would have encountered the other emergency that happened to come up and I would have had to get back in my car and travel back to my home office again.  Again wasting time travelling, etc.

So, instead opf taking up all this time traveling I was able to jump on a conference call from wherever I am at the time, thanks to cell phones, take part in a productive meeting, simply hang up my phone and immediately return to the task I was on before the meeting, deal with the emergency, etc.  And I think that while we take many of these modern day marvels fro granted, the conference call is as important to helping us manage our busy lives as many of the other conveniences we now take for granted.  Cell phones are great but you can’t meet with ten people at the same time without the conference call.  The ability to carry around your email box on a handheld device is super, but after you get an email saying that you need to meet on a particular topic it would do you no good if you had to drop everything and come back to the office to meet instead of just jumping on a conference call. 

Maybe you appreciate the conveniences that help you manage your busy world, maybe you feel like you can’t escape from them, but one thing is for certain, conference calls help us manage today’s busy world.  www.zipconferencing.com

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