Today’s typical conference brings together people from all over the country and all over the world. It gives everybody the solid connection that they need to be heard and to make the most productive use of their time. When you start to “conference in” branch offices, field sales locations, telecommuters, travelers on their cell phones, other remote workers, more often than not you are just starting a snowball of bad reception, dropped calls and lost participants.
If you are looking for phone conferencing rates, there are many cheap, discounted and low cost plans. Finding the most affordable plan requires you to know your business’ volume and frequency needs. It requires you to establish the total number of callers that you want your provider to “network” into your conference plan. A very low cost plan may be at 4 cents a minute, may contain many restrictions to the total number of callers who can be brought, such as a maximum of 8 callers with an underlying cost rate of 0.5 cents-per-caller-per-minute plan. On the other hand a more affordable conference call plan might be a flat rate plan with 15 cents per minute; however you can network 50 callers, to result in a low cost rate of 0.4 cents-per-caller-per-minute.
There are many businesses that offer different rates on phone conferencing:
- Web Conference offers a Premium 800 where you pay ten cents per caller to receive a toll-free dial-in number for your conference. It allows 150 callers with a maximum time of five hours. You will have a toll-free number assigned during the online scheduling process and a participant access code assigned to you.
- Cooperate Conference Calls offers a toll-free anytime 5.9 cents per line cost. It has no monthly fees or setup costs with as many lines as you need. It is available 24/7 without a reservation with online billing.
- Infinite Conferencing is a popular service that will meet your everyday needs. It is fully automated 24/7. There is no need for a reservation. All you need to do is simply give invitees the date, time, toll-free call-in number and code entries.
- Unlimited Conferencing gives a 4.9 cent plan with no setup fees, no long-term commitments and no hidden costs. It gives you a maximum of 20 participants on a call with larger plans of up to 99 participants available. There is call recoding available for 9.9cents per minute that will let you play back the call. You can also have the recording transcribed, downloaded to your computer or have an audio CD sent back to you. There are no reservations. There is also a dial out capability for 9.9 cents per minute per caller so once you have started you can dial out to add another participant. Dialing from Canada, Alaska, and Hawaii is 6 cents per minute surcharge per caller.
- Meeting One is a phone conferencing business that has a lot to offer as well. Whether you are looking for a simple, low cost and reliable audio conferencing service, this service will give you a lot. It is pay per use, with personal toll free numbers, it does not require reservations, is easy to use, has many special features, and a free online control interface.
Each of these phone conferencing services offers great plans to get you what you want for your business.
By Jessica Maughan