The five most important things to take into consideration your conference calling company
By: Linda Rogers

Choosing a conference call service is not easy. Just type the phrase “conference call“ into Yahoo and you‘ll see lots of providers. Fortunately, most of them differentiate their services on a handful of factors. Understanding these factors, and weighing their relative importance to the needs of your company, is the best way to make a good decision. Research in the field indicates that there are five elements which usually enable a user to make a prudent decision. To help you make that choice, this article reviews these five areas.

1. The price

All-conference calling systems cost at least something to use. This is true even of the ones that position themselves as “free.“ Why is that? Notwithstanding the possible exception of a purely VOIP system covering all users, all-conference calling services require participants to dial a bridge number. In the case of services that provide toll-free access numbers, a per minute fee is assessed. The lowest rate you can typically arrange is several cents per minute and more likely you‘ll be paying 5 to 10 per minute. This charge is levied cumulatively. In other words, if there are 5 participants on a 60 minute call, a 300 minute charge will be incurred. Some services still charge legacy prices of 20 or 25 cents a minute and these services are to be avoided! As mentioned earlier, some services are free in the sense that there is no charge levied by the provider. However, these services do not provide a toll-free number with their free services and thus users will incur normal long-distance charges to participate.

2. Scheduling ability

Services usually fall into one of two categories. Paid and high end corporate services frequently provide a scheduling interface which enables the organizer to set up the conference call. For those services that feature an Outlook integration or similar sort of functionality, a pin code and dial-in bridge can be automatically allocated to the user when the user wishes to do her own call scheduling. The free offerings usually provide only a pin code and dial-in bridge; the initiator of the teleconference call is responsible for sending individual e-mails and maintaining track of individual follow-ups. At the present, the only free conference calling offering on the market which offers both capabilities (scheduling and on-the-fly conferencing) as well as web based response management is Rondee.

3. Archiving and Recording

For many users, the ability to retain information associated with the call or even the call itself can be quite valuable. Some services allow recording of the teleconference call in WAV format, GSM or both formats. Some companies offer this capability for free but generally it is found as included feature of paid teleconferencing services. The audio file is usually retrieved after the conference call is over via a link from the service provider‘s web site or a link e-mailed to the users. It is generally not possible to email the audio itself because of capacity constraints. Some services provide the conference agenda to be archived. This capability is obviously not possible with services that simply offer a pin code and dial-in bridge but can be offered by services that offer scheduling capability insofar as the scheduling template records information specific to call.

4. Sharing Your Desktop

Sometimes a teleconference is not limited to audio. If your business requires sharing of information (e.g. PowerPoint presentations), desktop sharing is a critical component of a successful conference call. Some users choose a best-of-breed strategy and use different providers for their desktop sharing and conferencing. Increasingly, however, conference calling providers are moving aggressively to bundle desktop sharing functionality into their core product. In the case of well-known brands such as GoToMeeting, this is part of a goal to capture both markets. In the case of conferencing calling companies, desktop sharing is being offered as a paid upsell to generate added revenue.

5. Personalization

A typical complaint from users of conferencing systems is the need to remember random dial--in numbers and pin-codes. In the last year, confluence of telecom and internet technologies is solving this problem. A few conference call providers allow for users to customize their PIN codes to something more easily remembered. There are some systems which also offer pinless access when calling from a registered phone number. Such systems, however, do necessitate user registration to enable a matching of the number.

For most users, the final choice of teleconferencing service will require weighting these (and perhaps other) factors according to your organization‘s requirements. The good news is that the increase of competition in this market is expanding the services that are available to you.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleJoe.com

Linda Rogers has written multiple commentaries canvassing the www.rondee.com“>free conference calling industry. Her clients include start-ups such as Rondee which develop new telecom technologies.

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