Posts Tagged ‘Quality Connection’

A Conference Calling Company is your Partner

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

A conference calling company takes on a role in your company’s business that you may not realize.  When you think about what is discussed on conference calls in your company and who is on the calls you start to understand why the decision on which conference calling company to use is so important.  Many times a company’s most important and sensitive discussions are on conference calls.  And many times the top executives in a company use conference calling services extensively.  So, in today’s environment where there are a lot of conference calling companies and they all seem like they offer the same services how do you choose the right conference calling company?  Actually the most important attribute to look for in a conference calling company are hard if not impossible to see.  But here are some of things you should look for if you are looking for a high quality, reliable conference calling company.

  • Reliable Network – Since you and your participants need to call into any conference calling company to connect to your conference call you should make sure they are connected to a high quality network.  Zip Conferencing, for instance, using only top tier long distance providers and has direct connections into their networks.  Also, the reason we have multiple carriers is to make sure that if one of the carriers has an outage we have a back up network in place to carry our traffic.  The direct connections make sure that we have the highest quality connection possible.
  • Back Up Systems – For a conference calling company, back up systems are expensive.  But I have been in the teleconferencing industry for over 15 years and I can tell you first hand that occasionally the technology will rear its head and you will have issues.  It is inevitable.  The only way to avoid an outage is to put back up systems in place that can take over when the primary systems fail.  At Zip Conferencing we have back up conference call equipment that is live and ready to handle traffic in the case of an outage.  We also have power back up systems to keep all of our equipment powered up in the case of a power outage.  If an issue arises our customers will not be affected. 
  • Full Featured – Some conference calling companies will cut corners on the services that they offer.  This makes it easier to manage and the equipment they use does not need to be as sophisticated.  But the customer experience is not as good.  At Zip Conferencing we use the latest conference calling equipment with all of the features you should expect from a conference calling company.  In fact, our equipment and online account management allow you to customize your conference calls unlike most other conference calling companies.
  • Support – And when you have an issue you need your partner to be able to support your needs.  A conference calling company that takes their partnership in your company seriously will back it up with the kind of support you would expect from such an important service provider for your company.  Zip Conferencing offer support 24/7 365 days a year and can even join you on your conference call to assist if you need assistance.

If you are looking for a true partner to provide conference calls to your company you need to look closer than the rates they offer.  Once you look “under the hood” you will see that Zip Conferencing is the best value in conference calls today.

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