Posts Tagged ‘Saving Money’

Business Conference Calling in any Economy

Monday, November 15th, 2010

I get asked all the time “How’s Business?” and since I became involved int he conference calling business in 1995 the answer has remained the same, “Business is Great!”.  That is because business conference calling makes good sense in any economy.  Certainly since 1995 I have been through growth economies and recessions and the growth of business conference calling has not really changed.  Why is that?  Well, let’s examine what is going on for businesses in a growth economy and a down economy ans see why business conference calling continues to grow in either economic condition.

Downturn in the Economy - Over the past couple of years during the recession business conference calling has continued to grow.  That is because businesses are trying to save time and money.  Saving money is easy to understand when the economy is bad.  Businesses are generally selling less and trying to conserve cash until sales pick up.  But most businesses still have to continue to sell what they can and spend less doing it.  Because business conference calling saves a lot of money compared to conducting in person meetings businesses are happy to spend money on conference calls.  When you think about the cost of getting people together, especially when they are located a great distance apart you can see why spending money on conference calls makes sense.  And in addition to saving money on travel, business conference calling save a great amount of time as well.  In a down economy businesses are trying to do with less resources because sales are off and they can’t afford to carry the same staff.  But they still have work to do and meetings to attend with customers and prospects.  Business conference calling really helps businesses to put what resources they have on the job and spread those resources over more responsibilities.  Someone can sit at their desk and through business conference calling attend meetings across the country all day.

Growing Economy – In a growing economy companies are trying everything they can think of to get the most out of the situation.  And many times the growth in the economy follows a period of downturn in the economy.  During the downturn businesses have laid people off and now they are trying to keep up with the growth with the resources they have so business conference calling can really help.  Someone can get more work done than if they attempted to attend all of the business meetings in person.  Sales can get to more prospects in a day using business conference calling than if they tried to attend all meetings in person.  And even in a growing economy saving money is always welcome.  So if your business is trying to get more done with less resources and save money doing it business conference calling makes all the sense in the world.

So it really doesn’t matter what the economy is doing.  Business conference calling continues to grow because it makes a lot of sense to businesses of all sizes.

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Conference Calls during Weather Emergencies

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Washington, DC has received a record amount of snowfall this winter and there is more on the way.  Places like Boston and Chicago are used to getting lots of snow and dealing with it.  Washington, DC not so much.  The government and private businesses in the area have been forced to shut down their offices while they try to clean up after the storm.  For most businesses, taking days off for a weather emergency is just not that practical.  Conference calls provide the means to continue to conduct business during a weather emergency.

The benefits of conference calls are evident when the weather is good and people can travel to work and attend face to face meetings.  You get the benefits of saving time, money and increasing your productivity whenever you do a conference call.  But when you have no choice to do an in person meeting, a conference call can really save the day.  I have no doubt that all conference call service companies have seen a rise in usage over the past week due to the weather emergencies experienced from the recent winter storms.  Zip Conferencing certainly has seen more conference calls being conducted.  Conference calls provide the much needed link for companies to continue to conduct regular business during these types of situations.

The best thing to do for your company is to be ready for a weather emergency by enlisting a conference call service and having conference call capability in case of emergency.  Most conference call service companies like Zip Conferencing offer their services on a Pay As You Go basis which means that you will not pay for the service unless you use it.  That way you can have the conference call information on hand and when the emergency happens you are ready.  Certainly using conference calls in your every day business helps at all times and would help you be even more ready if an emergency happens, but even if you only use the conference call service during an emergency it is worth doing.

So, don’t worry about the weather.  You can do a conference call even during the worst weather emergency mother nature has to offer.  Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

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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 help you Go Green

Friday, October 30th, 2009

I have addressed the money saving opportunities a number of times on this blog, but another great benefit that conference calls provide is the environmental benefits.  Yes, conference calls can help you go green!

Conference calls do offer a number of benefits to it users in saving money and increasing productivity.  Conference calls also give its users the ability to conduct their meetings without travel which is where the opportunity to help save the environment comes in.  I am not aware of any study that has come up with but if you just use the numbers we know you come up with some staggering statistics.  In 2009 it is estimated that there will be about 50 Billion minutes of audio conferencing alone done in just the US.  If you use an average conference call of 5 people for 45 minutes you get approximately 225,000,000 conference calls being held with an average of 5 people.  If the 5 participants in these conference calls only had to travel an average of five miles to get together face to face they would have to travel a total of 5.5 billion miles.  And if you use an average of 18 miles per gallon of fuel you will see that they used a total of 300 million gallons of gasoline to travel to these meetings.  That is the total amount of gasoline the US burns in a single day.

And I think if you think about the calculation you quickly realize that I used some pretty soft numbers, like the 5 miles average travel distance.  I would bet that it is closer to 100 miles or more considering that people are doing conference calls on a global basis and most people would not even be able to drive to a meeting that has been replaced by a conference call.  If you include flights and taxis and rental cars that would be involved in all these meetings I would not be surprised to hear that replacing 225 million conference calls with in-person meetings would save over a billion gallons of gasoline.

So, as you can see, using conference calls instead of doing in-person meetings doesn’t just save you money and time, but it also helps save the environment.

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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