Teleconferencing Services

We seem to spend an awful amount of time in meetings. At their best, meetings allow ideas to be quickly relayed among participants and can bring together multiple viewpoints and opinions. At their worst - well, frankly, they can be a waste of time.

Sometimes, geography and logistics make it impossible for participants to meet in the same room. And time and costs often can make travel prohibitive for any budget-conscious business.

In these situations, conference calling, or teleconferencing, can be a valuable alternative. By allowing groups of people to communicate by phone, problems can be resolved and decisions made in minutes rather than weeks.

Unfortunately, most businesses are equipped with phone systems that cannot handle anything but the most basic of conference calls. Because most phone systems can connect only up to three callers on a line, conducting a larger meeting is most often done through a conferencing service.

What is teleconferencing?

Teleconferencing services are offered by long distance carriers or independent service bureaus that use sophisticated call connection "bridges" to join many different phone calls into a single conversation. Conferencing services allow meetings to take place even when everyone cannot be in the same room, connecting people in different branch offices or helping them hold a sales meeting among travelers out in the field.

Teleconferencing can also help if a group of people in one room wish to participate in a phone conversation. This often occurs during a meeting, when one outside caller needs to be connected to the group as a whole. Rather than suffering with the poor sound quality of a speakerphone, many firms use specialized conferencing equipment to make the call more productive.

Conferencing services are generally used on a pre-conference basis. Most services do not require long-term agreements, and there is no need to use the same service that handles your long-distance calling. This makes trying alternate services quite easy and essentially risk-free.

Conferencing options

Conferencing services are remarkably similar in terms of their basic offerings. Because almost all services buy their equipment from one of a few manufacturers, there are very few differences in terms of features and connection quality.

Four basic types of conference calls are typically available. These services are known as operator-assisted, 800 meet me, toll meet me, and a new type called reservationless conferencing.

Operator-assisted conferencing

Operator-assisted conferencing is often the easiest option for participants to use.

To begin this type of call, one party simply needs to call the conferencing operator. The operator then individually calls each participant and adds their call to the conversation. This makes operator-assisted conferencing a good choice for reaching clients who you do not wish to inconvenience in the least.

Of course, to make the system work, participants must be available at a specific phone number at the time of the conference.

Operator-assisted conferencing typically incurs a charge of a few dollars for each participant, plus a per-minute charge of 25 cents to 75 cents for each participant on the line.

800 meet me

In an 800 meet me conference, all participants dial a specially designated 800 number established for the conference.

800 meet me service is not necessarily any less expensive than an operator-assisted call, but it does allow more flexibility in terms of when each individual enters the conference. It also allows conference calls from pay phones or from other locations where a telephone number may not be known ahead of time.

Setting up an 800 meet me conference usually requires a bit more advance planning than an operator-assisted conferencing. Typically, one party sets up a conference a day or more ahead of time, receiving a special 800 number that is then distributed to participants.

Toll meet me

A toll meet me conference works in the same way as an 800 meet me call, except that the number used to connect callers is not an 800 number. This transfers some of the cost of the call to each participant rather than billing everything back to whomever sets up the conference.

Toll meet me calls typically incur a much lower per-minute charge for the call than other options. However, you must add the long-distance costs of other participants into the equation to decide whether a toll meet me service is actually more cost-efficient than other calling methods.

Reservationless

Rather than schedule your conference call through an operator or a service carrier, you can sign up for reservationless conferencing. Reservationless conferencing offers lower costs and greater flexibility over other conferencing options and has been steadily gaining popularity since its introduction a couple of years ago.

Businesses that sign up receive a permanent, toll-free dial-in telephone number and two passcodes: one passcode for the conference host, and the other for conference participants. The permanent toll free number allows you to set up your own conference calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in as little time as it takes to notify all participants of the meeting time. Participants simply need to dial in to be connected to the conference.

Because reservationless service is mostly automated, rates are far lower than operator-assisted conferencing. However, reservationless conferencing offers a less comprehensive list of conferencing features (It offers no subconferencing, for example.) than operator-assisted services.

Conferencing features

Conducting a meeting over the phone has its own difficulties, primarily because participants are not face to face. To address some of the problems of teleconferencing, most services offer features that can be used as necessary.

Conference management

In a meeting room, it is relatively easy to control the tempo and flow of conversation. However, control is more difficult to establish in a teleconference. These features give conference organizers the flexibility to manage a teleconference in much the same way they would face to face.

Roll call lets everyone know who is connected into the conference. An operator conducts roll call, asking each participant for his or her name.

Subconferencing allows designated participants to communicate privately within the call. The subconference attendees can later return to the main conference. In most cases, many subconferences can be established within any one call.

Faxing allows a chairperson to distribute materials as they become relevant in a meeting. The service maintains a group of relevant documents, which are then faxed to participants on cue.

Call management

Call management features are available to help make sure problems do not disrupt the conference call.

Call monitoring ensures that an operator is available at all times for the conference. This allows participants to be added in the middle of the discussion, or for other features to be accessed.

For international calls, some services offer online translation services. This allows callers to communicate across virtually any language barriers.

Call recording is available for important conferences, and recorded calls can typically be transcribed for an additional fee.

Large conferences

Conference services can handle conferences of more than 3,000 people. However, the demands of large conferences require additional features to allow for orderly discussion. In many cases, these features are used for large meetings where only a few designated people are expected to speak.

Broadcasting mutes the majority of the participants and only allows certain participants to speak to the rest. This relieves conferences of the inevitable background buzz coming from many participants.

Question and answer creates an orderly exchange of information by allowing participants to signal via phone when they have questions. The operator then "calls on" participants for their input.

Polling allows participants to vote on particular issues. By pushing a touch-tone button, participants can accept or reject proposals in the conference. The operator tallies votes in real time for the chairperson and can provide a printed summary if required.

Pricing

Because conferencing services use similar equipment, pricing is typically the major concern in choosing a service. Unless you are choosing unusual features (such as translation), most providers offer similar services. Your choice primarily comes down to determining which programs are most efficient for your calling needs.

Conference services tend to be quite expensive, although they are substantially less than even limited amounts of travel. With an average conference including eight people and lasting an average of 50 minutes, conferences can easily cost more than $200 a call.

With rates that high, relatively small percentage savings can add up to quite a large sum. The greatest savings are available through choosing a lower-cost conference service. By shopping around, most companies can save 25% of their conferencing bills.

For high volume users, most services also offer volume discounts. These are available to anyone making calls on a monthly basis, and often have no minimum spending levels. More substantial discounts require monthly minimums, with penalties for early termination.

Choosing a conferencing service

In order to choose the right conferencing service, you will need to know what kind of conference call you intend to use, the expected length of the call in minutes, and the approximate dollar amount your company spends on conferencing each year.

What type of call do you want? Operator-assisted calls are the simplest to initiate, but they do not allow the flexibility for someone to call in from any area. Both meet me and reservationless add call-in flexibility, with toll meet me distributing costs among all participants, and 800 meet me and reservationless billing all phone charges to the organizer of the conference.

How long a call do you want? The next consideration is the number of minutes the call is expected to last. Depending on whether you expect a short meeting or a long discussion, different services will offer the best rates.

How much do you want to spend? The final consideration is the amount your company spends on conference calls per month. Many firms offer discounts for frequent callers, which can drop the price of a conference call significantly.

Overall, however, firms need relatively high conference calling bills for these discounted plans to be the best choice. Depending on the characteristics of the call, you will want to use a service with volume discounts only if your calling volume is at least $10,000 per month.

Make sure to find out whether you are charged for the conference as soon as the first person calls in or only after everyone in the conference has connected. If people join at different times, this difference can have a noticeable effect on the total cost of the conference.

Make sure to ask which features, like subconferencing and conference recording, come with your service.