Posts Tagged ‘Sales And Marketing’

Discounted Conference Calling Services

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

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.

www.zipconferencing.com

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Web Conferencing Features Make Remote Meetings Easy

Friday, July 24th, 2009

When Web Conferencing was first introduced it included a number of features that still exist in the web conference service business today.  But over time, conference call service providers and web conferencing companies have enhanced web conferencing to allow anyone to quickly and easily conduct a web conference without the need for a lot of training or experience.

The features that have always existed with web conferencing include:

  • Whiteboarding
  • Share Powerpoint presentations
  • Share Applications

The ability to whiteboard on a web conference allows participants on the conference call to participate on a virtual whiteboard by using their mouse and tools to annotate and collaborate with other participants.  The ability to share a Powerpoint presentation gives you the ability to broadcast your Powerpoint to the entire audience and the ability to share applications allows you to share virutally anything that is on your desktop with the other participants.

Over time additional functionality has been added to web conferencing including:

  • A Chat feature
  • Video conferencing
  • A Recording function
  • Q&A
  • Polling
  • Participant Registration Info
  • Exit Surveys

A chat feature was added to allow participants to chat with each other or the Moderator on a web conference.  The ability to share a video of yourself as the Moderator on the web conference gives the participants a face with the name on the conference call.  A recording function has existed for a while, but only recently has the full integration of voice and visual presentation recorded without the need for extra equipment become available.   A Q&A and Polling element on a web conference has also been available for a while but the tools provided to build the questions and tally the results have become much easier to implement and use.  And one fo the favorite tools of the Sales and Marketing users is the ability to create a registration process to capture participant informaiton on the front end of the web conference and a exit survey process to give the participants the ability to provide feedback after the web conference has been completed.

Even though the features available on a web conference have grown and enhanced, the inuitiveness of the interface has also improved to where anyone can conduct a web conference and look like a pro in a very short time.  Zip Conferencing like some other conference call service providers gives a 30 day free trial of the service to allow users to become familiar with the web confernecing service at no cost before they do a live presentation.

www.zipconferencing.com

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Conference Calls Save Money

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Many people who use conference calls in their daily business lives may have forgotten the number one benefit you get when you use conference calls.  Conference calls save money. 

I think that conference call service early adopters were more interested in solving business issues that could not be solved in other ways.  The legal community in particular simply could not find a way to effectively meet with clients and other counsel in a quick and convenient manner when they were unable to meet face to face.  They were not really concerned about saving money by meeting over the telephone as they charge back their customers anyway.  It was the second wave of conference call users that discovered some of the other benefits to using a conference call service. 

Benefits to Using a Conference Call Service

  • Save Money
  • Save Time
  • Increased Productivity

The widespread growth of the use of conference calls has certainly been from their ability to save companies money.  No other technology offers as affordable a solution to solving the need to meet than the basic conference call.  How else can you meet with dozens of people around the world without leaving your desk for just pennies per minute?  So, the most obvious cost you save when you do a conference call is the travel cost to get to a personal meeting.  What other costs can you save with a conference call?

Costs you save when you do a Conference Call

  • Flight Expense
  • Rental Car Expense
  • Hotel Costs
  • Food Costs

And now with the availability of web conferencing and the ability to add visuals to your conference call there are many more applications for conference calls that save companies even more money.  As an industry we again thought that the legal community would be an early adopter of web conferencing since they could share a contract on the screen and edit it with opposing counsel and so forth.  But actually, the largest users of web conferencing have been in the Sales and Marketing areas where they have been able to dramatically reduce their travel costs and shortened their sales cycles.

And now, with the prices for conference call services hitting all time lows in the marketplace there is no better way to save travel costs than substituting your in person meetings with a conference call.  Conference calls save money.

www.zipconferencing.com

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Conference Call Applications – Sales and Marketing

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Conference calls have been adopted by business as a great way to save money on travel, improve communications and shorten business life cycles.  One of the areas where the technology has been widely adopted is in Sales and Marketing.  While it is widely accepted that face time is important to the sale in many cases, getting in front of the customer with conferencing technology can help qualify prospects, perform product demonstrations and ultimately shorten the sales cycle. 

Audio Conferencing

The same basic principles that assist all businesses when they use audio confernecing apply in Sales and Marketing.  Why they have so widely adopted conferencing technology is understandable because in this area of business you will see an immediate impact to your bottom line.  Travel costs to present the materials to the customer are eliminated.  A conference call can be scheduled much quicker than a face to face meeting.  Many prospects are much more willing to make time for a conference call because it takes less time out of their day than an in person meeting.  Sales Managers can have daily calls with their entire sales force even when the people are located across the country.

Web Conferencing

Web conferencing has revolutionized the way companies sell their products and services.  It is now commonplace to get an initial demonstration of a product or service over the internet using web conferencing.  Especially for software and web services this is more the norm than not.  Customers have now grown used to sitting comfortably at their desks and watching a webinar or demonstration.  The web confernece eliminates the need to travel to a customer premise and set up the projector, get an internet connection and everything else that goes with getting an in-person sales demonstration in place.  Instead sales demonstrations can happen ad hoc or scheduled using a web conference and a telephone.  And beyond being more convenient for salesperson and customer, the statistics prove that using web conferencing services in the sales process is a very effective way to do business.  You can do more presentations in less time for less money than anyone doing in-person sales.

For Sales and Marketing applications the path is clear.  Audio conferencing and web conferencing provide a quicker more effective way to do business.

www.zipconferencing.com

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