Posts Tagged ‘Long Distance’

The Conference Call Company makes a Difference

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

Conference calls have gone the way of long distance with ever decreasing prices and a seemingly endless list of providers.  But there is a lot more to a conference call than you think and the right conference call company can make a big difference in the quality of the call and the features available that can greatly enhance your experience.  Zip Conferencing has taken great care in creating a network that can deliver the highest quality conference calls to its customers and built a platform that provides an extraordinary amount of features that make our conference call service easy to use but feature rich.  Here are a few of the things we have done to ensure that we are the best conference call company in the industry.

  • Reliable Network – Like the foundation of a building, a conference call company needs to build their business on a network that can support the traffic they generate and be able to avoid outages at all costs.  But not all conference call companies have taken all of the steps that Zip Conferencing has because a solid network can be expensive.  Zip Conferencing has multiple telecommunications carriers installed in cae one of the companies has an outage.  We only will accept companies that can provide a direct digital connection to their network so we can have the clearest connections possible.  Our equipment is powered by a back up battery and generator supported power grid to avoid any power outages.
  • State of the Art Equipment – Our conference call company uses the latest conference call equipment that is more reliable than older equipment.  It also offers features many conference call companies don’t have because their equipment is out of date.  We also have spare conference call equipment that is powered up and connected to the network available to take the place of any piece of equipment that experiences any issues.  Most conference call companies don’t do this because it is expensive.
  • Feature Rich Services – Our conference call company has built features that enable our customers and make it easier to do business with us.  As a customer of Zip Conferencing you have access to your account online that enables you to access your account and see usage, add/edit moderators and conferences and order additional services.  But we also give you the ability to customize your conference call experience by being able to control many aspects of the conference call.  For instance, you can decide whether a tone should play when a participant joins or exits the conference call.
  • Superior Customer Support – If there is one area many conference call companies will try to save money it is in the area of customer service.  Our conference call company still provides personal service to its customers 24/7 and you can even get support while on a conference call by hitting *0 on your telephone. 

A conference call is not just a telephone call and many times the conference calls your company does are some of the most important communications you will have.  So, shouldn’t you deal with a conference call company that takes their role in your business communications seriously?

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Should you buy a Teleconferencing Bridge?

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

As companies start to use a lot of conference call services the question will often come up as to whether they should buy a teleconferencing bridge.  And like many services that you can bring in house a large part of the argument is born from economics.  If you are spending thousands of dollars a month on a conference call service provider doesn’t it make sense to buy a teleconferencing bridge and you will save money?  Well, this argument used to hold a lot more weight when conference call services cost 50 cents per minute and you could buy the long distance connection for 5 cents or less.  But these days it is hard to build a compelling argument for a company to buy a teleconferencing bridge.  Here are some of the reasons you may want to stay with a teleconferencing services provider.

  • Capital Cost of the Teleconferencing Bridge – The first expense you will have to incur with a teleconferencing bridge is the expense of the equipment itself.  Today there are some low cost teleconferencing bridges available in the market but given the importance of the conference calls you probably won’t risk your business on a low priced teleconferencing bridge.  A high end teleconferencing bridge like the ones used by Zip Conferencing can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. 
  • Telecommunications Cost to connect to the Teleconferencing Bridge – The next thing you will need to do is connect the teleconferencing bridge to a telephone network so you can dial into it and conduct your conference calls.  You will need to spend a monthly fee to have a connection that can handle hundreds or thousands of callers whether you use it or not.  Depending on the type of connection it can cost thousands of dollars a month.  In addition, you will also pay the per minute charge for participants to connect to your teleconferencing bridge toll free or they will pay a long distance charge to connect to conference calls.  Zip Conferencing uses only the highest quality digital connections tied directly to the telecommunications network.
  • Maintenance Cost of the Teleconferencing Bridge – In order to keep your teleconferencing bridge up to date and within a warranty you will need to spend money on maintenence for the teleconferencing bridge and its software.  You also may want to have a back up teleconferencing bridge or at least components in case something happens to the equipment.  Zip Conferencing has hot stand by backup teleconferencing bridges and maintains all of its equipment regularly.
  • Personnel Cost to Manage your Teleconferencing Bridge - No matter how automated the teleconferencing bridge is you will still need someone in your company to be the administrator.  This person will need to access the teleconferencing bridge to configure the system and manage settings within the teleconferencing bridge regularly.

As you can see, it is difficult these days to make the argument that a teleconferencing bridge will actually save you money.  With a company like Zip Conferencing available that provides full featured conference call services for as little as 2.4 cents per minute for toll free access why would you want to take on the headache of managing a teleconferencing bridge.  Like most service provider arguments it is probably best to concentrate on what you do for a living and let the experts worry about the rest.

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Conference Call Bridge

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

A conference call bridge is the name for the piece of telecommunications equipment that enables multiple participants from various telephone connections to be placed into the same call to create a conference call.  If you do a significant amount of conference calling you may think that buying your own conference call bridge would end up being a good investment because you could reduce your costs for conference calls.  Here are a few things that you will need to consider if you think about buying a conference call bridge yourself.

  • Equipment Cost – First thing is the cost of the equipment.  The cost of conference call bridges has come down over the years but the cost of a conference call bridge like the ones used by conference call service companies is still hundreds of thousands of dollars.
  • Telecommunications Connections – You will need to dedicate telecommunications connections to the conference call bridge.  There is a cost to just maintain the connections to the conference call bridge.
  • Equipment Maintenance- You will need to pay the manufacturer of the conference call bridge equipment a maintenance fee to keep the hardware and software up to date.
  • Support Cost – You will need to pay for support on the conference call bridge equipment in case there is an issue.  Typically this may be included for the first year in your maintenance cost.
  • Internal Support – You will need someone in your organization to maintain the conference call bridge.  No matter how self serving the equipment is you will need someone to play administrator for the conference call bridge.
  • Long Distance Cost – There is a variable telecommunications cost for having toll free access and you will need to pay the long distance connection per minute charges for your participants to get to the conference call bridge.

So when you add up all of the cost to run your own conference call bridge you may find that the cost per minute to operate your own equipment may be higher than if you use a conference call service.  Especially now that the conference call rates are as low as they are it really is hard to justify having your own conference call bridge.

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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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Are Conference Calls Simply a Commodity?

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

When I first joined the conference call service industry 14 years ago the average cost of a conference call was around $.20 per minute per participant, today it is around $.07 per minute and it is fore casted to decline to around $.05 per minute average by the year 2013.  What has driven this decline and are conference calls simply a commodity that should be judged on price alone?

The decline in the cost of conference calls has been driven over the years by competition in the industry.  The lowering of the telecommunications costs associated with providing the conference calls has allowed conference call service companies to lower their rates in order to capture business from the competition.  Also, the conference call service equipment has evolved over the years and the price of the equipment to provide conference calls has also come down in cost as the technology has gotten better.  Like the long distance call itself, as the costs have declined and competition increased we have seen a constant pressure on conference call service companies to deliver conference calls at an ever decreasing revenue.  Ultimately, as the prices continue to decline some of the service associated with conference call services will suffer unless people recognize that conference calls are not a commodity and are willing to pay a little more for the service part of it.

I have detailed in other blog posts about all that goes on behind the scenes at a conference call service company, so I won’t go into great detail here, but here is a quick summary.  First, you need high quality telecommunications connections from a large carrier that provides redundancy in their network or you risk quality issues and outage possibilities.  You then need to get the best conference call service equipment or you will not get the best results.  Your own network needs to be constructed with fail-over and back up contingencies.  And finally, you need to provide a level of customer service that provides your customers with a good customer experience.  All of these things cost money to the conference call service providers.  I don’t think that customers will be happy with a conference call service that has quality issues or doesn’t answer the phone when they need help or has an outage because the telecommunications carrier they use had a lengthy outage.  So, customers want to pay as little as possible for a conference call but certainly do not want to have an inferior service.

So here we are in the conference call service industry.  Given today’s available telecommunications rates which are not going down any more, the price of the conference call service equipment which is also not declining and the cost of personnel and I think you can see that the cost of the conference call is approaching the point where it cannot go any lower without sacrifice.  And I think if you ask the customers you will find that although they like to save money, a conference call is important enough to their business that the quality, reliability and service really do matter.  Conference calls are not simply a commodity.

www.zipconferencing.com

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Is a Conference Call Service a Commodity?

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

In the past 15 years I have watched the average cost of a conference call service go from over 20 cents per minute to less than 10 cents per minute.  In that time one of the fundamental costs of the conference call service business, the cost of telecommunications, has dropped a lot so conference call service companies have been able to get more aggressive in their pursuit of new business by dropping rates as well.  As prices continue to fall and conference call service companies continue to think up new ways to package pricing to make the rates more attractive I thought it would be good to examine if a conference call service is a commodity.

In the eyes of the consumer on the surface it is difficult to see any difference certainly in a conference call service, especially if you are not too familiar with conference call features and so forth.  But, behind the curtain there are many things that distinguish differences in conference call services.  Some are plain to see, like the type of access the conference call service company offers.  A local access number is less cost to the conference call service company so they can charge less, but you will incur hidden cost by having to call a long distance number to connect to the conference call.  Another obvious difference can be the number of participants allowed on a conference call.  The more participants you can get on a call raises the cost of available equipment to the conference call service company.  And support is another cost that cannot be hidden.  If the conference call service company offers 24/7 support, which you would want, they will need to pass that cost on as well.

Some of the costs that you may not see, but you should look for in a conference call service company are the quality of its network, a redundant network to avoid catastrophic failure and the personal support you need to help you when you need it.  Zip Conferencing has taken all of the possible precautions to make sure that your conference calls are available when you need them and the support you need to make sure you get the most out of the service.  And all of the things that make for a high quality experience with a conference call service company have a cost to them.  So, even though they may all look the same on the outside, conference call service companies are not all the same.  And because of all the differences you can and cannot see, a conference call service is not a commodity.

www.zipconferencing.com

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Web Conference vs. Conference Call

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

A Web Conference versus a Conference Call, is it a fair fight?  It is hard in some respects to compare a web conference with a conference call.  A conference call is held on a telephone and has no visual element to it unless everyone looks at the same document at the same time you sent to them previously.  But then, you really don’t know if they are looking at that document do you?  A web conference on the other hand allows you to show documents, web sites, applications, etc to all of the participants on your web conference at the same time.  It even allows you to edit the document real time and can even allow the participants to edit the document on your computer.  And a web conference generally has a conference call component to it unless you are meeting with a single participant.  Then you can just call them on the phone.  So, is it really a contest.

Well, no.  It really isn’t, but most people are choosing to hold a conference call instead of a web conference so why is that.  A conference call has certainly become easy to use and most people have been exposed to the practice of dialing an access number and putting in a pass codeto enter a conference all these days that we rarely have to explain the technology anymore.  And no one is intimidated by using a telephone to access a system and provide commands to the system using a touch tone command like you do to control a conference call.  People are just used to it.  And a conference call provides the basic means needed to communicate with other people over long distance, a voice connection.  Let’s face it, the telephone has been used to communicate over great distances and has been accepted by everyone as an essential means to communicate for business and personal reasons.  On a conference call you can discuss anything and refer to documents if everyone has access to them or was distributed them prior to the meeting.

A web conference on the other hand is relatively new.  It has really only been in existence less than 15 years and only in the last five or so become widely accepted by businesses.  But web conferencing can do what a regular conference call just can’t do.  A web conference can allow the host to share visuals with the participants on a conference call.  And as the saying goes “A picture is worth a thousand words”.  So adding a visual element to any meeting helps with the retention of the material and the engagement of the audience.  I think the only reason that every conference call is a web conference is that people are just not that used to communicating using their computers as they are with their telephones.  As people continue to integrate they way they use their computers with their telephones there will be a shift in the way we communicate and using visuals to help communicate will be the norm.

So, is it fair to compare a conference call and a web conference.  Not really, a web conference wins hands down.  But for now, the telephone has a 100 year head start in establishing itself as the de facto communication device and is winning the race.  For more on Web conferencing visit www.zipconferencing.com

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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

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