Posts Tagged ‘Web Conferences’
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
I think that everyone is aware that conference calls can save you time and money. It is easy to figure that holding a conference call is going to save you money if the alternative is flying to someone’s location to hold a meeting. But what I think a lot of people miss are all of the options available with a good conference call service provider. I know when I started in the teleconferencing industry in 1995 I had been on conference calls and just assumed that it was just a simple matter of getting a dial in access number and a pass code and holding your conference call. Boy, was I wrong. Most people have no idea of all of the options available for audio conferences and web conferences. And that is why a good conference call service company should act as your partner and help you discover all of the options available so that you can customize the conference calls you hold to fit the needs of your company.
Even just a plain automated conference call can be customized with a number options. For instance you can vary how and whether you are notified when a participant enters or exits your conference call. With Zip Conferencing you can have a tone play, play the participants name or have no sound at all when they enter or exit the conference call. And all three options can be enabled when entering, exiting or both. Some people want to make sure that the conference call can not be used when the Moderator of the conference call is not present. You can set the option to have the participants listen to music while they wait for the moderator to join the conference call. This prevents participants from being able to use the conference call information to hold their own conference call. Another measure to ensure that participants are only able to use the conference call when the participants are present is the ability to close the conference call when the Moderator exits the call.
There are also tracking features that some people like to keep tabs on what the call was about. For instance, an attorney want to track the calls so that they can charge back their clients for the cost of the conference call. You can enable a feature on the conference call that requires a Moderator to enter an accounting code at the start of the conference call. An attorney would enter a Client Matter # and then they could track this back to the client at the end of the month.
All of these options and more are available, but most people don’t use them. It is most likely because their conference call service provider has not taken the time to describe these option, listen to their business needs and suggest ways to best use the conference call service to fit their business needs. That is where the conference call service provider can be an invaluable partner for your business.
www.zipconferencing.com
Tags: Access Number, Act Help, Audio Conferences, Call Boy, Company Act, Conference Call Service, Conference Call Service Provider, Customize, Exit, Exiting, Music, Number Options, Participant, Participants, Partner, Simple Matter, Time And Money, Web Conferences
Posted in Conference Call Service | No Comments »
Monday, November 16th, 2009
I am sure there are several conference call service companies that offer a good conference call from a technical point of view. What I mean is that you can call into the conference call without too many problems and the conference call quality once connected is decent and so forth. But what happens if you need help? Is the conference call service company there for you when you need them to be?
At Zip Conferencing we pride ourselves on not just providing the highest quality audio conferencing and web conferencing services available, but we also want to make sure that your needs are taken care of as well. That is why we provide customer service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And, because we know that people like to communicate in different ways we have supplied many different ways to communicate with us. You can call us on the phone to speak to a representative or if you prefer, you can also chat with one of our representatives 24 hours a day as well. The representatives that are available by chat are the same representatives that answer the phones and are well schooled in all of services and features of Zip Conferencing. Or you can send us a Support Request Form via the web site to get an answer to your conference call question if you do not need an immediate answer.
In addition to the people behind the scenes at Zip Conferencing that are ready to assist you, you will find a helpful knowledge base of important conference call and web conferencing information. The information is organized between conference call FAQs, How Tos and Billing questions. You can even search the plentiful knowledge base or ask a question.
We believe that just providing a conference call is not enough. Standing behind the audio and web conferences that we provide with service is one of the important differentiators between us and other conference call service companies. And if you ever have a questions about your conference call service I am sure you will agree.
www.zipconferencing.com
Tags: 24 Hours, 365 Days, Audio Conferencing, Billing Questions, Conference Call Service, Customer Service, Differentiators, Help Service, Highest Quality, How Tos, Important Conference, Knowledge Base, Many Different Ways, People, Point Of View, Support Request, Web Conferences, Web Conferencing Services
Posted in Conference Call Service | No Comments »
Friday, October 16th, 2009
Being able to record a conference call has been around for a while. It is fairly simple to press a command on your phone and initiate a recording of a conference call and then allow people to dial into a system to listen to the recording or download a copy of the recording to share with others. A web conference, however, presents a different set of issues. The web conference is on one platform and the audio portion of your web conference may be on another platform. In fact, in the early days of web conferencing, the only way to record the web conference and the audio of that conference was to have a separate recording of the audio portion made using an adaptor that plugged into your PC and fed the audio portion back into the recording for the web conference. That was fun. Customers could not believe the gyrations they had to perform to record a web conference.
Today, recording a web conference is very simple and it provides a recording that is full audio and web and can easily be played back for participants. Zip Conferencing’s web conference service has a one click mechanism to start the recording of both the audio and web conference portion of the conference call. The recording of the web conference can be stored and viewed by you or your participants or you can download a copy of the web conference recording and distribute it as you see fit. Like many aspects of web conferencing, as the recording has been simplified there are not only more recordings of web conferences being done, but people are thinking of ways to use the service that we in the industry never thought of ourselves.
Why hold the same seminar over and over again for different audiences? If the subject matter for your web conference is not going to change you can just record the material once and then invite different people to observe the web conference to absorb the material. Maybe there is a web conference when the participants were especially intriguing. Record the meeting and you can share the insightful observations of one audience with another. If you cannot attend a meeting live, but you still need to present the material you can record the meeting ahead of time and then share with your audience later.
The ability to easily record a web conference with the audio portion of the call has opened up a world of possibilities.
Tags: Audiences, Audio Portion, Back Web, Call Recording, Conference Call, Conference Portion, Conference Service, Gyrations, Participants, Presents, Share With Others, Subject Matter, Web Audio, Web Conference, Web Conferences, Web Conferencing, Web Fun, Web Service
Posted in Web Conference | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
It may be hard to imagine, but there are still a good amount of potential customers that don’t understand the basics of holding a conference call. We frequently get questions about how it works, how many people can you have on a call at once and what they need to do to host a conference call. So, it is no wonder that many people out here have not have not been on a web conference and in fact don’t even know what it means to hold a web conference. Today, I would like to talk about the general principles of web conferencing and what it means to hold a web conference.
When the industry first invented the web conference it struggled with what to call it. Is it an online meeting, a web conference, a webinar or just a conference call? Well, you will still hear it called a variety of things but a web conference has kind of stuck as a term to refer to any conference call that has a visual element you view over the internet. Web conferencing has also become somewhat standardized in the functions that you can perform on a web conference no matter what brand you choose to use. Basically, a web conference allows you to share what is on your computer with the participants on the conference call in addition to being able to speak to them. And, just like any in person presentation, the ability to share images during your web conference has a positive impact in engaging your audience and improving their retention of the materials.
The web conferencing services have gotten pretty sophisticated in their feature set, but most people are still just using about 10% - 20% of the software’s ability. This is not unlike any piece of “software” and you can still hold successful web conferences jus tusing the basics. In fact, I know many users that have always simply used the application sharing abilities of the web conference alone no matter what they are doing. This feature simply shows everyone what is on your computer screen as you see it. Since the concept is simple and the web conferencing service does this with a single button it is understandable why people have gravitated to using this function.
A couple of the other standard features available are the ability to share a whiteboard on your computer with your participants while on a web conference, and the other feature used by most people is the ability to share a Powerpoint presentation. Again, this functionality is familiar to anyone who does a presentation and once you start the web conference, showing your Powerpoint slides is as easy as doing it in person. It is no wonder that web conferencing is expected to grow dramatically over the next five years. www.zipconferencing.com
Tags: Audience, Computer Screen, Conference Call, Feature Set, General Principles, How Many People, Images Web, Internet Conferencing, Internet Web, Online Meeting, Participants, Presentation, Share Images, Visual Element, Web Conference, Web Conferences, Web Conferencing Services, Web Services, Webinar
Posted in Web Conferencing | No Comments »
Monday, July 13th, 2009
So, you need to add a new user to your account. Typically, that means you would call your conference call service company and wait in line in the customer service queue and get them to add a new user to your account. Inevitably they will enter the wrong information, mispell the name and forget to mention all of the options available to you for the user and their conferences. Wouldn’t it be easier if you could just add your own confernece call moderators and select the conference call options that suit you yourself? Well, with Zip Conferencing you can do just that.
I don’t know about you but one of the great things I find about the internet is the ability to serve yourself. I find that if the web site is easy to understand I can service my own needs in much less time than it would take me to explain it to someone else. I don’t have to wait for a customer service agent and I have a clear idea of what I can and cannot do in my account. When we went about designing Zip Conferencing, this concept of self service was central to our ideas. Not because it eliminates the need for service agents and support. We still offer 24/7 customer service. But simply because it offers our customers an easier way to do business with us. And I know that if we can make it easier to do business with us our customers will appreciate it. The fact that our services cost less than most others is simply the icing on the cake.
When you sign up for our services you get a Client ID and a Web Password. These conference call account credentials allow you to l0g into your online account management space called the conferencing hub. This Hub allows you to schedule conference calls and web conferences, see your usage for completed conference calls, add users and conferences and manage conference call options. You can even customize your conferencing Hub with your logo and company color scheme. That way, when your participants join your web conferences it looks like your own interface.
Aside from the basic functionality of managing your account, I think one of the coolest things you can do is manage your conference call options. Starting with the way people enter your conference, you can control whether a tone is played when participants enter your conference call or not, whether they must record their name to be played into the conference or whether you like no tones or notifications whatsoever. Do you care whether your participants carry on the conversation when you leave the conference? Or whether they listen to music before the conference starts? Maybe you want an extra layer of security in your conference? All of these options and more are available to be customized by you when you sign up. The interface is intuitive and powerful. I think you will agree, it is much easier and more convenient to do it yourself. Enjoy.
www.zipconferencing.com
Tags: Account Management, Call Management, Call Options, Client Id, Company Color Scheme, Conference Call Service, Conference Management, Credentials, Customer Service Agent, Hub, Icing On The Cake, Logo Company, Moderators, Participants, Self Service, Service Queue, Web Conference, Web Conferences, Web Password
Posted in Conference Call Service | No Comments »
