Choosing a teleconferencing service is not easy. Just type the phrase "conference call" into Google and you'll see dozens of services. Fortunately, most of them position their services on a small-group of factors. Understanding these factors, and weighing their relative significance to the needs of your organization, is the best way to make an informed 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 decision, this article reviews these five areas.


1. The price

All-conference calling services cost at least something to use. This is true even of the services that brand themselves as "free." Why is that? With the exception of an entirely VOIP based system (e.g. Skype), all-conference calling services require users to dial a bridge number. In the case of services that provide toll-free bridge numbers, a per minute fee is assessed. The lowest rate you can typically arrange is several cents on a per minute basis and more likely you'll be paying five to ten cents per minute. This charge is assessed 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 rates and of 20 or 25 cents a minute and these plans are to be avoided! As discussed earlier, some services are free with respect to the fact 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 general categories. Paid and custom corporate services often provide a scheduling interface which enables the organizer to arrange the conference call. For the services that feature an Outlook integration or similar type of functionality, a pin code and dial-in bridge can be automatically allocated to the user for situations where the user wants to do her own scheduling. The free conference calling systems usually provide only a pin code and dial-in bridge; the initiator of the conference call is responsible for sending individual e-mails and keeping track of individual follow-ups. At the present time, the only free conference calling service available in the industry featuring both capabilities (scheduling and on-the-fly conferencing) as well as response tracking is Rondee.com.

3. Archiving or R
ecording

For a lot of organizations, the ability to store information associated with the call or even the call itself can be very useful. Some services allow recording of the conference call in WAV format, GSM or both formats. Some companies provide this capability for free but generally it is found as a bundled feature of paid conferencing services. The audio file is usually retrieved after the conference call has ended via a link from the conferencing web site or a link e-mailed to the participants. It is generally not possible to email the audio file itself because of capacity constraints. Some services provide the conference agenda to be archived. This capability is obviously not possible with services that only offer a pin code and dial-in number but can be offered by services that offer scheduling capability because the scheduling template records the call specific information.

4. Sharing Your Desktop

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

5. Personalization

A frequent complaint from users of conference calling 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. Some conference call companies allow for users to personalize their PIN codes to something more easily remembered. There are some systems which also offer pinless access when calling from a known phone number. These systems, however, do require user registration in order 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 offerings that are available to you.
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Scott Baily is the author of a variety of publications pertaining to the free conference calling area. He has worked with start-ups such as Rondee to revolutionize the set of options available to users of telecom services.