Category: International Conference Calls

International Conference Calling Tips for Moderators

International Conference Calling Tips
International Conference Calling Tips for Moderators

International Conference Calling Tips for Moderators

You’ve just signed up for an international conference calling plan, now what? You’re officially a global conference call moderator. As the moderator of an international conference call, you have several roles and responsibilities. Use these tips to make your first, and subsequent, global conference call, a success.

Get to Know Your International Conference Calling Plan

As with any type of service, it’s smart to get to know the various features your new international conference calling plan offers as well as how to use them. Spend time exploring your online account management dashboard, read any tutorials or quick start guides offered, and set up a test call. By getting to know your international conference calling plan in advance, you’ll be less likely to stumble when you need to make your first conference call.

Don’t worry, international conference calling is easy to learn and use. Spend a few minutes getting acquainted.

Plan Your Conference Call in Advance

Whether you’ve moderated hundreds of global conference calls or are about ready to host your first one, planning your call in advance is advisable. Think about what the call’s purpose is, what needs to be discussed, and who needs to attend. By determining these three crucial points, you can then figure out how much time to allot for the call (based on the purpose and discussion points) as well as which countries will be involved in the call (based on who needs to attend).

Allotting sufficient time for the call is smart as you must manage costs and be respectful of your participants’ time. Ideally, you’ll want to stay within your budgeted timeframe without going overtime.

Identifying the countries involved in your international conference call helps you to schedule the call so that it’s as convenient as possible for the bulk of your participants. You can also use your country list to see if it makes sense to use moderator dial out to some countries. Some countries have dramatically higher rates for callers to call into your global conference call than it would cost for you to dial them directly. Look up your international conference calling plan’s rates for each country and choose moderator dial out where it makes sense. You can set up automatic dial out to these participants. At the appointed time, the system will dial them and connect them to your teleconference.

Take Advantage of Your Plan’s Tools and Features

Once the global conference call begins and all participants are on the line, begin your conference. While you could conduct the call successfully from this point forward, your international conference calling plan has several tools and features that can enhance the conference. Make sure to use them!

For example, what if one of your participants calls into the call from a noisy environment and doesn’t know how to, or has trouble with, mute the phone? Instead of subjecting all participants to background noise, you can mute the participant’s noisy line. You can also mute all participants’ lines except yours when you speak if desired. This is ideal for teleconferences where the moderator presents content to an audience of listeners.

Your international conference call can also be recorded for future use if desired. Create an MP3 recording of your call with just a few mouse clicks in your online conference call management dashboard. After the call completes, you can use the MP3 recording as you see fit. For example, you could make it available to participants who were unable to attend the call live, you could create a podcast, you could post it on your internal website for your employees to listen to at their leisure, and more. Many global conference call users use conference calls to create information products and then sell their MP3 recordings to interested parties.

If you need help during your international conference call, a live operator can help. Make sure to take advantage of operator assistance as needed. By handing off a problem to the operator, you can resume your presentation. For example, if a participant has emailed you informing you that for some reason she cannot connect to the conference, you could have the operator attempt to connect her to the call. This way, the teleconference is not unduly delayed due to a small hiccup affecting just one caller.

Holding a global conference call is a great way to communicate with participants located all over the world. It is also extremely affordable. With a pay-as-you-go international conference calling plan, you can hold conference calls as often as needed without minimum usage requirements. Make the most of your plan by taking the time to get to know it, planning your calls, and taking advantage of the tools and features available to you.

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International Conference Calling for Healthcare Professionals

Conference calls for Health Care Professionals
Conference calls for Health Care Professionals

International Conference Calling for Healthcare Professionals

International conference calling is an important tool for healthcare providers around the world. Whether you’re a hospital administrator, doctor, nurse, dentist, chiropractor, researcher, insurance professional, or lab technician, international conference calling allows for cost-effective global collaboration no matter where you, your patients and your colleagues happen to be located.

What is International Conference Calling?

International conference calling is conference calling for participants located around the globe. While your facility may have a sophisticated phone system with conference calling capabilities, international conference calling brings its own set of challenges that your hospital PBX is not likely set up to handle.

For example, if multiple participants are located in different countries, many will have difficulty dialing an international phone number. International long distance fees may also be a concern, potentially stopping some participants from calling. While you could give participants your toll free number, it won’t work internationally, eliminating that as an option.

With international conference calling, these issues are handled. First, you’ll need to sign up for an international conference calling plan with a telecommunications service provider. Don’t worry, international conference calling plans are available on a pay-as-you-go, no contract basis with low per minute rates to hundreds of countries.

Once you have a plan, you can set up international teleconferences easily using an online account management dashboard. Simply select a time and date and schedule the call. You’ll be given a list of international phone numbers to distribute to attendees. If you opt for a toll free international conference calling, each participant can dial a toll free access code that will work in their countries. No matter which international phone number each participant is given, all will be connected to the conference calling “bridge” where an auto attendant will prompt them to access the conference call’s PIN number (which will be provided to them with the phone number). From there, your international conference call begins.

Is Conference Calling Still Relevant in the Instant Messaging Age?

Conference calling is a tried-and-true technology that continues to be relevant despite instant messaging, email, and video chats. There’s no need for anyone to use a computer in order to participate in a teleconference. In some countries, your colleagues may have limited access to the Internet, making Web-based conferences impossible. In addition, if you intend to hold a conference with a large group, using conference calling is the easiest option that can accommodate a huge number of participants.

Ideas for Using International Conference Calls in the Healthcare Industry

There are many terrific potential uses for international conference calling in the healthcare industry. Below are just a few ideas of how you might be able to connect with colleagues in a teleconference:

Consult with specialists – Do you have a patient with an unusual condition? You could hold an international conference call with leading specialists from around the world and get your questions answered. Likewise, if one of your patients is overseas and suffers a medical emergency, you could consult with his or her doctors as needed using an international teleconference.

Hold training sessions or workshops – Teleconferences are a great way to exchange knowledge. Whether you need to discuss new medications, sales techniques, practice management concepts, or insurance billing, an international conference call could be an effective medium for bringing a diverse group together.

Collaborate with healthcare professionals around the world – Traveling to other countries and touring healthcare facilities has its value, but it also has its costs both in terms of time and money. By using international conference calling, you can continue learning about other countries’ healthcare systems in an intimate, but less expensive, setting.

Speak with other researchers – Compare notes with other researchers no matter where in the world they may be. Whether your colleagues are conducting field research or you want to reach out to other experts, holding an international conference call is a cost-effective way to connect with others.

Stay connected with your team when traveling beyond borders – Whether you’re in Haiti on a humanitarian mission or in Italy on vacation, international conference calls allow you to speak with two or more team members from around the world.

Not only can you use international conference calling for global collaboration in a variety of scenarios, you can also record your teleconferences for future reference or use. You could use MP3 recordings of the call to refresh your memory, have the recordings transcribed, or make them available to your colleagues as appropriate. Recordings are also useful for training-related conferences because everyone can hear the same material both now and in the future.

Using an international conference call is easy, cost-effective, and beneficial to healthcare professionals who need to communicate with others around the world. How will you put international conference calling to good use?

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How to Keep Your International Conference Call on Track

Keep Conference Calls on Track
Keep Conference Calls on Track

How to Keep Your International Conference Call on Track

When it comes to international conference calling, your calls can easily run over your allotted time. Not only can individual speakers dominate the conversation or send the conversation off track, questions and answers sessions at the end of a global collaboration call can quickly gobble up valuable conference calling time.

While you certainly want to answer everyone’s questions, international conference calls that continue beyond the scheduled timeframe can quickly become more expensive than planned for. After all, you pay per participant, per minute.

In addition, participants may be reluctant to join future international conference calls based on fears that their time won’t be respected. Keeping your budget intact and your participants willing to join you in the future requires managing your international conference call to keep it on track.

Create a Global Collaboration Agenda

In order to stay on track, you will need a solid plan for the international conference call. The best approach is to create a global collaboration agenda and map out every topic you want to discuss. Your agenda could be as formal or informal as you need it to be.

For example, you may prefer to keep it simple by listing topics of discussions and assigning time limits to each one such as the following:

• Introductions / icebreakers – five minutes
• Discuss sales figures for quarter 1 − ten minutes
• Brainstorm ideas for increasing sales – ten minutes
• Training opportunities – five minutes
• Company news – five minutes
• Questions and answers – ten minutes

If you prefer more details, your global collaboration agenda could include the names of individual speakers, descriptions, and exact times such as the following:

8:00am – Introductions / icebreakers: Nancy introduces herself and asks each participant, one by one, to do the same.

8:05am – Discuss sales figures for quarter 1: Bob presents first quarter sales figures for the company as a whole. Recognizes Region 2 for top sales performance.

8:15am – Brainstorm ideas for increasing sales: Nancy guides the team through brainstorming session.

8:25am – Training opportunities: John from HR introduces new online learning portal and recommends the social media selling course for each regional manager.

8:30am – Company news: Nancy discusses pending acquisition, reassures team that it’s a beneficial move that brings more opportunities for personal growth.

8:35am – Questions and answers: Nancy and Bob to field questions.

8:45am – international conference call ends.

No matter how detailed you prefer to make your international conference calling agenda, the  most important task is to identify the topics and allot sufficient time for each one.

Share Your Agenda with Participants

Agendas are valuable planning tools for international conference call moderators. However, they’re also useful for your call’s participants. If, in the example above, Nancy were to keep her agenda to herself, Bob and John might not realize that they’re expected to discuss first quarter sales results and training opportunities.

In fact, they’ll likely arrive unprepared because it’s impossible to read Nancy’s mind. Bob may need to excuse himself for a few minutes to find, download, and briefly analyze the latest sales figures. Meanwhile, John, who’s on the spot and unprepared, may discuss the wrong training program.

By sharing her agenda with Bob and John, Nancy is taking another proactive step to ensure that the global collaboration call moves efficiently from one topic to the next and that the exact topics she wants to address are discussed.

In addition to sharing the conference’s agenda with other speakers, consider sharing it with all participants in advance. This gives them a chance to prepare as well, and it shows them how their conference call time will be spent.

Use a Timer during the Conference Call

Use either a stopwatch or a timer during the conference call to ensure that each topic stays within its allotted time period. As the call’s moderator, you should take an active role in managing the call. For example, Nancy might prompt Bob that he has two minutes left to wrap up his presentation by saying, “Bob, this is fascinating.

You have about two minutes left. Would you mind telling us which region had the most sales this quarter and how other regions might emulate their success?”

Allow for Questions and Answers

Scheduling time for questions and answers at the end of an international conference call provides participants with the opportunity to ask questions. It also allows you to revisit topics that may not have had enough time to explore thoroughly earlier.

Make sure to schedule a Q&A session into each international conference call. Doing so gives you a little extra padding should your call run longer than expected. At the same time, if there are no questions, or if the Q&A session ends early, you can release participants from the call a few minutes early. No one appreciates a meeting that runs long, but most everyone appreciates getting out early.

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Virtual Team Collaboration with an International Conference Call

Virtual Team Collaboration
Virtual Team Collaboration

Virtual Team Collaboration with an International Conference Call

As part of a virtual team, you may be called upon to work with people scattered across a wide geographic area. When that area crosses international borders, simple phone calls suddenly become more complicated. Hosting an international conference call is one way to facilitate global collaboration amongst your globally diverse team. Here’s a quick look at how you can use international conference calling without spending a fortune.

  • Start by signing up for an international conference calling plan. These plans are available on a no-contract, pay-as-you-go basis. By choosing a no-contract plan, you have the flexibility you need without getting locked into a yearly service that you may or may not need.
  • Schedule an international conference call. You can schedule your calls in advance or hold an impromptu international conference call if desired. Once your call is scheduled, you’ll need to let your virtual team members know which phone number to call in order to join the conference. With an international conference call, participants receive a local or toll free number to call that is specific to their countries. This addresses several concerns your team members may have about joining an international conference call. For example, the phone number will be local to each individual; no one needs an operator to help them connect to your call. In addition, your team members won’t need to worry about incurring expensive international long distance charges on their personal phones (the host of a toll free international conference call call typically pays for the call).
  • Hold the international conference call. At the appointed time, everyone dials their assigned phone number, enters an access code, and collaborates. Optionally, you can set up the system to automatically dial participants. Moderator dial out features are useful in several ways. For example, not only can you preprogram participants’ phone numbers into the system and initiate automatic dial out, you can also dial some participants individually in order to take advantage of lower per minute calling rates. This simple act could save you nearly 20 cents per minute depending on the countries involved. Moderator dial out also helps to ensure that no one forgets about the call.

In addition to selecting an international conference calling plan on a no-contract, pay-as-you-go basis, you can reduce your global collaboration costs by actively managing your conference. Use the tips below to squeeze the most value out of each international conference call you host.

1 Create and follow an agenda. Agendas are a terrific time management tool that help keep meetings and teleconferences on track. Using an agenda forces you to determine what to discuss and how long to discuss it. In order for an agenda to keep a teleconference from going over its time limit, you must actively follow it. Use a stopwatch, clock, or timer to time each segment of your international conference call. When the time limit is reached, move to the next agenda item. Leave a few minutes at the end of the teleconference for questions or to further discuss items that ran out of time.

2 Invite the right people. Because you pay for an international conference call per minute, per participant, you’ll want to make sure that you’re inviting the right people to attend. While your virtual team may consist of 20 members, is it necessary for the entire team to join every conference call you hold? For example, if you need to hold a conference call to brainstorm ideas for your company blog, your accountant, office manager, and legal advisor may not need to attend.

3 Record your teleconferences. If you decide that it’s not necessary for every team member to join your live international conference call, consider recording the call and making it available to the other team members to listen to at their leisure. Call recordings are also useful for participants who missed the live call or who live in time zones where live attendance would have been impractical.

4 Ask participants to use landlines rather than mobile phones. Calling rates are generally less expensive for traditional landlines than they are from mobile phones. If your virtual team is on a budget, asking participants to call from a landline instead of a cell phone is one way to reduce your call’s cost. You can check rates online to see which countries have the largest gap between landline and mobile phone rates.

Global collaboration using an international conference call is an affordable way for virtual teams to communicate. Affordable, no-contract plans are available loaded with desirable conferencing features including moderator dial out and MP3 call recording. How will your virtual team put international conference call to good use?

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Using an International Conference Call – Global Collaboration Made Easy

Global Conference Calling
Global Conference Calling

Using an International Conference Call – Global Collaboration Made Easy

Do you need to brainstorm ideas, go over project work, or introduce new products to a group of two or more people around the world? With the help of a low-cost international conference call, global collaboration is a simple matter of dialing a local or toll free number, entering an access code, and speaking with your collaborators.

Not sure you need an international conference call for global collaboration thanks to your phone system’s conference calling feature? While many corporate phone systems have complex PBX systems loaded with calling features, including conferencing, challenges arise when your collaborators are located around the world. For example, if your main phone number is an American 800 number, your collaborators located outside of North America won’t be able to connect using that 800 number. Sure, you could give them the standard local phone number to dial, but it will be unconventional looking to international callers accustomed to their own country’s dialing conventions. Plus, your callers will likely be concerned about the potential long distance costs they’re likely to incur.

How International Conference Calling Works

With an international conference call – global collaboration plan, you can overcome these challenges. With an international conference call, each country involved in the call a unique phone number for participants to dial into the conference. For example, your participants located in Italy will dial either a local Italian phone number or a toll free number for Italy while your participants in India will dial an Indian local phone number or toll free number for India. Local or toll free access depends on how you set up your international conference call.

Global collaboration using local numbers is one option. However, participants could still incur toll charges when dialing a local phone number in their country. For example, in a large city such as Los Angeles, dozens of calling regions exist as do multiple area codes. Simply ordering a Los Angeles phone number doesn’t guarantee that it will be local to your Los Angeles participants. With that in mind, most businesses opt for toll free international conference call – global collaboration plans.

There are hundreds of toll free access numbers to countries around the world. If your international conference call – global collaboration plan does not have a toll free number for one of your collaborator’s countries, an easy workaround is available: moderator dial out. Moderator dial out allows you to dial a given participant, or group of participants, directly. Their phones ring and they are connected to the international conference call. Global collaboration really is as easy as that!

Estimating Your international conference call Costs

As the host of the international conference call, global collaboration costs are billed to your account. In general, you will incur costs on a per participant, per minute basis. Per minute rates vary based on the country of each participant. For example, rates for callers located in the United States will be much lower than for callers located in the Philippines. Another factor that influences the rate charged for a given participant is whether or not the caller dialed from a mobile phone or landline as calling costs for the different phone types can vary.

You can look up international conference call calling rates to get a better idea of how much you will pay per minute for each caller based on the caller’s country. From there, you can estimate the cost of your overseas conference call if desired.

The cost of your international conference call is far less expensive than holding a face-to-face meeting. Holding an international conference call meeting is much easier, too. With a low-cost international conferencing plan, you can collaborate with others as needed with minimal hassles and dramatically lower costs.

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Tips for Better Communication during an International Conference Call

Conference Call Tips for the Moderator
Conference Call Tips

International collaboration using a conference call is a cost effective choice that allows you to accomplish many tasks without the high cost of travel. For example, you can negotiate deals, conduct training, conduct creative brainstorming sessions, get feedback, conduct research, and much more with an international conference call. Just about anything you can do face-to-face, you can do on a teleconference. However, with audio-only conference calls, you may miss non-verbal cues such as facial expressions. In addition, not all callers will recognize one another’s voices. Use these tips to enhance communications during an international conference call.

  • Ask each participant to announce their names and departments before speaking – While you may recognize Glen from accounting’s voice, other participants might not. Asking each participant to quickly say their name and department or job role before they speak helps give context to their comments.
  • Use active listening techniques – Some participants may be difficult to hear or understand for any number of reasons. As the moderator of the international conference call, part of your job is to ensure that everyone is heard and understood. If the sound is muffled or a person’s accent heavy, it’s helpful to repeat what you believe was said and ask the speaker to confirm. For example, you might say, “Barbara from our San Diego logistics office just said our freight contract expires in two weeks. Did I hear that correctly Barbara?”
  • Allow a few minutes for questions and answers at the end – At the end of the international conference call, open up the meeting for questions and answers. As you wrap up the call, thank participants. You might even leave the lines unmuted for a few minutes, allowing for a little friendly banter which builds a sense of camaraderie.

Many international conference calls suffer needlessly because of telephone system quality issues. Many communications problems can be avoided by choosing an international conference calling plan known for quality connections.

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Strategies to inspire attendance of International Conference Calls

International business people communicate via global conference calls
Inspire Global Conference Call Attendees

Strategies to inspire attendance of International Conference Calls

Hosting an international conference call involves more than signing up for a teleconferencing account, scheduling the conference, and inviting participants. It also means keeping conference call attendees engaged and interested. If you’ve ever attended a boring or useless conference call, you know the pitfalls of poor planning. Use these tips to plan an engaging international conference call.

  • Determine what you want to accomplish before you schedule the call. By planning your topics beforehand, you’ll have a better idea of how much time you need. If you only need 20 minutes to accomplish the goal of the international conference call, schedule accordingly. Your participants would prefer a short, on-task meeting over an overly long one with no clear direction.
  • Create and distribute an agenda for the call in advance. Again, your attendees will appreciate knowing what to expect and how much time they’ll be required to invest in the teleconference. The agenda will also be helpful for potential attendees to determine if their attendance is necessary.
  • Adhere to the agenda’s topics and time limits. If you’ve designated 10 minutes for an individual to speak on a given topic, you may need to jump in if the speaker goes over the allotted time period. As the moderator of the call, it’s your job to moderate the pace of the call. If a speaker doesn’t use up the entire allotment, you can either use that time for questions and answers or wrap up the call a few minutes early. It’s helpful to have a list of alternate topics to discuss if time allows.
  • Use icebreakers at the beginning of the call. With an international conference call, you’ll have participants from around the globe. A quick icebreaker game or a short round of introductions can be fun and interesting to callers. For larger groups, individual introductions are time-prohibitive. In this case, a few shout outs, such as “We have callers from Hong Kong, Canada, London, and South Africa.” If you’re using the chat tool in conjunction with your international conference call, you could also prompt attendees to enter their names and locations in the chat box.
  • Offer an incentive to stay on the conference call. Staying on task and delivering relevant content are vital to your teleconference’s success. However, people often sneak out toward the end of the call for any number of reasons. One way to keep them tuned in is to offer an incentive at the end. It could be as simple as randomly awarding a $10 Starbucks card or offering a special offer on a product of interest to your attendees.

With advance planning and a solid agenda, your next international conference call can be a resounding success!

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Engaging International Conference Call Attendees

International Conference Call Hosting
International Conference Call Hosting

Engaging International Conference Call Attendees

Holding an international conference call can be a one-to-many experience with the call’s host doing most of the talking or it can be much more collaborative. In either case, the success of the call often relies on how engaged attendees are. For example: Is the content relevant to them? Is the pace appropriate? And do attendees have the opportunity to share their thoughts or ask questions? Use the tips below to create a more engaging international conference call:

  • Prepare all participants – Everyone should understand the purpose of the call as well as their individual roles. Create and share the conference call’s agenda in advance so that all participants can prepare accordingly. If you expect individuals to contribute, let them know so that they understand your expectations and can arrive prepared. For example, if you expect the graphic designer to share three concepts during the call, the designer may want to upload PDF files of the design to a file-sharing site in advance so that the files are readily available to call participants during the teleconference.
  • Acknowledge attendees throughout the teleconference – You certainly don’t want to feel as though you are talking to an empty room; and your attendees don’t want to feel as though they’re not present. One way to avoid this is to use the interactive chat feature included in your international conferencing account. For example, you might encourage attendees to enter their questions in the chat box. If you do, have a co-moderator monitor the chat. Your co-moderator may be able to answer some of the questions in real time. Likewise, the most relevant questions can be selected to discuss during the Q&A section.
  • Respect everyone’s time – Finally, a bored audience is a disengaged audience. Keep your teleconference on task and relevant. Stick to its agenda and end the call on time – if not earlier if you’ve accomplished everything earlier than expected.

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How Do Companies Use International Conference Calling

International Conference Call Sales Tool
Conference Call Sales Tool

How Do Companies Use International Conference Calling?

Companies use international conference calls for all kinds of purposes. For some, the international conference call is a cheap way to keep virtual teams connected. For others, teleconferences are a convenient way to share ideas with a global audience. Some sales professionals use conference calls to pitch their products or negotiate deals. The possibilities are endless. Below are a few ways that businesses of all types have used international conferencing:

  • School is in session – Virtual schools, charter schools, colleges, and other educational institutions often use teleconferences as part of their distance learning programs. For example, students may be required to attend weekly teleconferences where they’ll be able to hear the instructor’s lecture, get their assignments for the week, and have the opportunity to ask questions. Schools also use international conference calling for administrative purposes such as staff meetings and as alternatives to in-person meetings.
  • Legal proceedings – Court reporters, lawyers, and litigation support services firms often use international conference calling to conduct some legal proceedings. Not only does doing so eliminate travel, it’s possible to record conference calls and the calling plan can create an accurate record of who was present during the call.
  • Board meetings – From charitable organizations to Fortune 500 companies, many businesses use international conference calls to hold virtual board meetings with attendees scattered around the world. This saves on travel expenses while accomplishing the agenda items.
  • Mentoring and coaching – Many businesses and entrepreneurs use teleconferences to mentor and coach others. One of the benefits of using an international conference call to host a mentoring or coaching session involves recording the call for later use. Not only can the original attendees benefit from the session, future ones can listen to the call and receive the same information.

These are but a few of the many ways that businesses use international conferencing. How will you use your international conference calling plan?

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Conference Calling and the Virtual Team

Virtual International Conference Team
Virtual Conference Team

Conference Calling and the Virtual Team

Virtual teams are made up of team members who typically work independently of one another. Some team members may work from home while others might work in various branch offices. Some may even belong to other companies. For example, a virtual team of volunteers coordinating a charity even may have team members from multiple organizations.

While face-to-face team or committee meetings are often held, they can also be impractical especially if the team is scattered across a large geographic distance. To solve this problem and facilitate communication, many virtual teams use international conference calling.

With conference calling, each person simply dials a designated phone number, enters an access code, and begins collaborating. No one needs to travel, and the international conference call can be as long or short as necessary. In addition to these obvious benefits, conference calling also allows for:

  • Call recording – By recording the call, individuals can go back and listen to it as needed. In addition, the call recording can be used as “meeting minutes” or be transcribed. Absent team members can listen to the call after the fact. Superiors and colleagues could also be invited to listen to the call after if appropriate.
  • Collaboration and team building – While email solves many communications challenges, it doesn’t necessarily build camaraderie. By holding regular conference calls, virtual team members can get to know each other on a more personal basis.
  • Anytime, anywhere conferences – With a pay-as-you-go teleconferencing plan, you can hold virtual team meetings anytime, day or night. There’s no need to preschedule your conference, allowing you to hold impromptu conference calls as needed.

Virtual team members often have conflicting work schedules, especially when working across multiple time zones. While some international conference calls may require some participants to attend at odd hours, they can do so from their homes or other remote locations. There’s no need to dress up, either.

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Top Four International Conferencing Features

Four Most Important Features
Four Most Important Features

Top Four International Conferencing Features

If you have an international conferencing plan, you also have a host of features that you may or may not know about. The following four conferencing features are among the most useful. Use them to control the cost of your international teleconference, find out who is in attendance, record your conference for later use, and eliminate background noise.

  • Moderator Dial-out – Moderator dial-out allows you to dial participants directly rather than requiring them to dial into the international conference call. While you may not want to do this for every single attendee, it makes sense to do it for some. For example, dial-out rates are typically less expensive than toll free charges. If a participant lives in an expensive country, it could make sense to dial that participant directly. You can even preschedule dial-out and let the international conferencing plan dial a group of attendees simultaneously.
  • MP3 Call Recording – Recording your teleconference provides you with options later on. For example, you can share your MP3 recording with participants who were unable to attend the live call or who want to re-listen to the call. You could even repurpose the audio by using it as the basis of a podcast or informational product.
  • Attendance Tracking – Most international conferencing dashboards provide you with a real-time display of the conference call – including a list of attendees. Use this feature to document attendance.
  • Background Noise Control – Did you know that you can mute noisy callers? In some cases, you may want only one line open, the line of the person currently speaking. In others, you may want everyone’s line open so that the entire team can brainstorm ideas. While you can instruct everyone of how to mute and unmute their phones as needed, inevitably someone will forget. When this happens, distracting background noises such as computer chimes, ringing telephones, nearby chitchat, and even barking dogs disrupt the conference. The responsible caller may be unaware of the problem (or may even have stepped away from the phone). As the moderator, you can identify the source of the noise and mute it directly from your account dashboard.

These international conferencing features are easy to use, and they deliver important benefits. Make sure you know how to use them before your next international conference call.

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The Benefits of Recording Conference Calls

Record Conference Calls
Record Conference Calls

The Benefits of Recording Conference Calls

Recording conference calls is a simple matter of clicking a button in your conference calling dashboard (if this feature is offered by your service provider). While you may not have given much thought to this feature, there are many benefits to recording conference calls. Below are just a few creative ideas to prompt you to click that button the next time you host a conference call.

  • You can include participants who were unable to attend the live event. By recording conference calls, you make it possible for those with schedule conflicts to listen in after the fact. For example, if you held a conference call and one of your law firm’s attorneys could not attend because she was in court all day, she could listen to the call later that night, the following day, or at some point in the near future. Recording conference calls allows absentee participants to receive the full value of the teleconference despite schedule conflicts. This also reduces your burden because you do not need to rehash everything that was discussed.
  • You can use conference calls to create reusable resources. Conference calls are often used for training purposes. By recording these teleconferences, you can reuse them indefinitely. Not only can this save time and resources, it also ensures that future trainees receive the same exact training and guidance that the original participants received.
  • Participants can listen at their leisure. By recording conference calls, you can offer participants a convenient option for receiving information. Not only can they choose when to listen to the recording, they can do so from virtually anywhere. MP3 recordings, for example, can be downloaded onto portable music players. Your participants could listen to your conference call while jogging, working out at the gym, or commuting to or from the office.
  • You can create podcasts with a conference call. While you may see your conference calling plan as an internal communications tool, your marketing team may see other possibilities. For example, you could create podcasts by recording conference calls and saving them as MP3 files. From there, you can upload them to iTunes or your website if desired. You could even create a series of audio recordings for a paid membership site.

Recording conference calls creates a valuable, reusable resource that you can use time and time again. You can use your MP3 conference call recordings internally or create podcasts for a wider audience. The possibilities are endless!

View details….

How to Schedule an International Conference Call

Conference Call Schedule
Conference Call Schedule

After signing up for an international conference call plan, you have access to a valuable communications tool that can bring your entire global team together. While most conference calling services are generally easy to use, time differences can make scheduling a conference call challenging. Below are a few tips to help you schedule a global teleconference that accommodates most of your team.

  • Identify all countries and states/provinces involved in the international conference call. Use either an Excel spreadsheet or a piece of paper to list each country that will be involved in your call. This list may be overwhelming at first, especially if you have a lot of countries involved. If you have participants from large countries such as the United States or Canada, your list will need to be broken down further into states and provinces to accommodate different time zones. At this point, don’t worry about the size of your list; it will become more manageable as you break it down into time zones.
  • Use a world time zone map. GreenwichMeanTime.com has a world time zone map that you can print. Use a highlighter and mark each country. Not only will you be able to see which time zones your callers are in, you may also see clusters of callers in the same general time zone. This will make it easier to choose a time that’s most convenient for the majority of participants. Look for clusters that span an eight-hour time period as you may be able to schedule a call that occurs during business hours for all of those countries.
  • Choose a convenient time of day for the majority of your participants. While your company may be based in New York, if the bulk of your international conference call participants are located in Naples, Italy, it may be best to schedule your call during normal business hours in Naples. Note that there’s a five-hour time difference between New York and Naples. This means that you could schedule an international conference call that takes place during normal business hours for both countries. In this example, a call that takes place at 9:00 AM New York time would be convenient for your Naples participants because it would be 2:00 PM local time for them.

Finally, use MP3 recording to record your international conference call so that participants who cannot participate have the option to listen in after the fact.

Learn more….

 

Tips to Lower the Cost of your International Conference Call

International Conference Calling Costs
International Conference Calling Costs

Tips to Lower the Cost of Your Next International Conference Call

To frame this post correctly, these are tips about reducing costs on professional, high quality, business class, full service, excellent line clarity, toll-free international conference calling. Versus a conference call service which provides an experience similar to when you were a kid and created your own walkie-talkie system made out of two cans and a string 🙂

Being able to say “That went well” after your overseas conference call. Isn’t that the goal?

Instead of: “people were cut off and we couldn’t hear some participants, and some couldn’t dial-in, the call sounded muffled, voices were fragmented. My boss was not happy“.

No joke, this is what we hear from customers that have tried many international conferencing alternatives but always come back to wanting their call experience to be great for everyone on the call as opposed to having numerous quality issues too lengthy to go into here.  Most of the problematic conferencing services claim to be free.

Hosting an international conference call is a cost-effective choice for communicating with colleagues, employees, customers, vendors, suppliers, partners, and even loved ones from around the world. Not only can the entire group discuss important matters using a low-cost international conference call, several options are available to further reduce the cost of your next call. Use these tips to plan and execute your next global teleconference.

  • Identify the countries with the most expensive international conference calling rates – International conference calling Toll-Free access rates vary dramatically by country. For example, you’ll pay about 10 times more per minute for a caller in the Philippines than you will for callers in Canada. If your international conference call is just a few minutes long, this may not be a big factor; however, if your call lasts an hour, you’ll pay nearly $50 for each caller from the Philippines and about $3 for each caller from Canada for that 60 minute call.
  • Use moderator dial-out for callers with expensive calling rates – Moderator dial-out is a feature that you can use to take advantage of lower per minute rates. With this option, the chairperson dials callers in expensive countries rather than requiring them to dial into the international conference call. Participants are still able to participate in the global teleconference, but your costs will be significantly lower. For example, you could slash your per minute rate for callers from the Philippines by about 70 percent.
  • Dial-out works for any country.  Country rates are usually lower than toll-free number access using dial-out.  The host has no constraints as to what country the participant is located in.   Only the participant’s overseas phone number is needed for the chairperson to dial-out to the attendee and place him/her into the call.  Dial-out rates depend on the country. You should compare dial-out rates to toll-free access rates.
  • Encourage mobile participation – While your current international conference calling plan most likely works on mobile phones, VoIP phones, and landlines alike, callers using mobile phones to dial into your international conference call may be subject to excessively high mobile calling rates. If you are hosting the call and offering toll free access to participants, encourage participants to dial from landline phones if at all possible.  Use your best judgment on this one as you may not want to impose on VIPs and potential customers. That said, if you have employees sitting at a desk with both a landline and a mobile phone, it makes sense to ask them to use the landline.

In order to slash the cost of your next international conference call, focus on the participants that are most likely to incur the highest costs. Use Leader dial-out to reduce your per minute rates for participants from expensive countries.

View details about international conference calling….

Using Conference Calling to Communicate with Teams

Using Conference Calling to Communicate with TeamsWhether you’re forming a committee, organizing a team of service providers, or need to communicate with managers from branch offices, conference calling is a cost-effective means of communication.

All you need is a conference calling plan and the desire to hold group meetings over the phone. With the right calling plan, you can hold impromptu and scheduled conferences with minimal fuss.

Why Use Conference Calling

Any time you have three or more individuals working on a team from different locations, phone communications become more difficult. Rather than holding multiple phone calls, use a conference call to keep everyone informed and engaged.

Conference calling allows you to:

  • Hold group meetings over the phone – Why hold a meeting in the office or a conference center when your entire team can collaborate over the phone?
  • Eliminate costly meeting room rentals – If you usually rent meeting space, a conference calling plan can quickly save your business a substantial amount.
  • Record group conversations for later review – Some conference calling plans feature MP3 recording. You can then email the MP3 file to team members who were unable to attend the teleconference.
  • Eliminate travel expenses – Need to meet with team members from across the country or around the world? Instead of booking flights, rental cars, and hotel rooms, plan a conference call. Just about any topic can be discussed in a teleconference.
  • Improve productivity – Conference calling requires much less time than physical meetings. There’s no commuting, no need to take anyone on a grand office tour, and no need for small talk before and after the meeting. Simply host the conference and begin at the appointed time.
  • Hold impromptu meetings – Conference calling can be used on the spur of the moment, allowing you to hold meetings with key team members during times of crisis or inspiration.

How Conference Calling Works

When you think of conference calls, what comes to mind? Complicated phone systems and speakerphones are no longer the norm.

Today, conference calling service providers make conference calling a simple process that can be carried out on any phone including mobile phones and smartphones.

Here’s how it works:

  • Sign up for an international or domestic conference calling plan, ideally one with low per minute rates and no monthly fees, contracts, or penalties.
  • Notify your participants when the call will take place.
  • Share the conference call’s details including scheduled time, phone number, and “PIN” number with attendees.
  • At the appointed time, everyone dials the phone number, enters the PIN number, and the conference begins.
  • As the conference moderator, you may have several tools available to you in an online dashboard. For example, you should be able to mute and unmute callers, dial participants, and start MP3 recording.
  • Once the conference is over, everyone hangs up. Depending on your conference calling plan, you will most likely be billed per minute, per participant.

Conference calling is a low-cost alternative to holding live meetings.

The more you use your conference calling plan, the more indispensable it will become.

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The Conference Call Bringing Your Business into the 21st Century

Making your mark

In today’s world, it seems as though business is only getting bigger and a lot more complicated. As the world of communication technology continues to expand on a global basis, it can be easy to get lost in the mix, not knowing exactly what you need to help your business thrive in the long run. With the advancement of technology, terms like “foreign country” seem to not really apply anymore, as it is become a lot easier for people to communicate with each other on a worldwide basis. And because of this, it is very important for your business to make sure that it is on the top of its game, that way you can securely make your mark on the 21st century.

THE INTERNET HAS BROUGHT US TOGETHER

If there is one thing that the Internet has done for us, it has brought us the ability to communicate our business needs no matter where a person may be. Whether we are making a sales pitch to a potential client in China, or if we are discussing investor relations with co-workers in India, or even if we’re having a general board meeting with executives in Canada, the Internet has made it extremely easy to make this type of communication possible. Because of the Internet, the world of the conference call has forever been changed.

POPULARITY IS GROWING

Ever since the Internet allowed for such communication, the idea of a conference call has grown dramatically, oftentimes being one of the official forms of communications between business executives. Whether it through a networking program or a video conference calling software, the popularity of organizing a meeting of this type has grown a lot over the past couple years and it will only continue to grow as technology continues to improve.

MOVING PAST CHAT ROOMS AND MESSAGE BOARDS

In our world today, group communication through message boards and chat rooms are just not good enough. If you are communicating through a message board, things may seem a little bit too impersonal, things do not happen in real time, and you will most likely be reading through a lot more useless information than you need to read through. When it comes to chat rooms, things can get a little too jumbled and a little too chatty. Yes, you are communicating with each other in real time, so it is a lot better than a message board, but again, it does not feature any of the personalization and customization that a conference call provides.

VOICE INFLECTIONS

With conference calls, you will be able to understand and use voice inflections. Voice inflections are very important in the world of communication because it helps you understand what someone else is saying and how they are feeling about the given topic. Chat rooms and message boards or any other type of typing interface will not allow you the luxury of doing that. When you are talking to someone, you will want to have a full understanding of their various range of emotions, making it easy for you to reply in a manner that fits the situation.

RELATIONAL VERSUS INFORMATIONAL

Message boards and chat rooms are typically informational, whereas a conference call capitalizes on how relational communication can be. In fact, the informational and relational difference between these forms of communication is the biggest difference you will ever see in the world of communication. If you are looking to make a sale, you will make a sale by forming a relationship with a customer, not by simply relaying information.

In another example of the difference, you cannot simply encourage your employees by simply relaying information to them. You can encourage and motivate your employees by building relations with them, something that chat rooms and message boards cannot do.

OTHER IMPORTANT BENEFITS OF THE CONFERENCE CALL

  1. The sound quality is exceptionally high, meaning that you will hear everything that you need to hear with no confusion or misunderstandings.
  2. You will be able to record your meetings easily for future reference. Many conference call providers allow for you to playback all conversations in a matter of minutes.
  3. Having a great conference call service will save you a lot of money and possibly make you a lot money as well. You should never sacrifice good communication because of money. There are plenty of pricing options available for you to consider.

Learn more…

Continue reading “The Conference Call Bringing Your Business into the 21st Century”

Ukraine conference calls are easy with Toll-Free access

Ukraine Conference Call
Ukraine Conference Call

Ukraine international conference calls

– Businesses based in the Ukraine can now Host or attend global conference calls the most convenient way by dialing a local Ukraine Toll Free access number.

Local conference calling companies located in the Ukraine are virtually nonexistant. International conference call requirements of Ukraine based businesses rely on outsourcing their conferencing needs to U.S. or UK conferencing companies that can provide local access numbers in the Ukraine. Ukraine Telecommunications.

Ukraine Conference Call

Clear and reliable connections are the norm because of worldwide PSTN Toll Free connections provided by aitelephone.com

Ukraine International Conference Calls from any Ukrainian city including; Kiev, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovs, Donetska, Odessa, Zaporozhye, Lviv, Kryvyi Rih, Mykolayiv, Mariupol are a reality.

If your business is officed in the Ukraine or if you are visiting the Ukraine on business, you can be the chairperson or join a conference call by using the Ukraine Toll-Free access number.

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Serbia Conference Calls made easy with Serbia Toll Free access number

International Conference Call Serbia
Serbia Toll-Free Conference Call

Hosting or attending a conference call from Serbia is as easy as dialing a Serbia Toll Free access number.

No matter where the Serbia conference call host or participant is located, be it Belgrade, Kraljevo, Novi Pazar, Leskovac, Subotica, Cacak, Zemun, Novi Sad, Niš, or any other location in Serbia, local toll-free conference call access from Serbia is available through aitelephone.

As with many countries, Serbia based businesses outsource their international conference call requirements to companies like aitelephone.com because there are virtually no Serbia national global conference call companies to be found.  Serbia Telecommunications.

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Create a private international access number for your conference calls

Create a private local access number for your international conference call participants.

Create a private overseas conference call access number
Create a private overseas conference call access number

International conference call services are nothing new.

There are now many variations of international conference calling to suit the requirements of enterprise users that must collaborate with their offices in other countries on a regular basis.

One of the newer innovations is the ability to create an access number in a country where previously none existed.  Why is this useful? For instance, what if you are a UK based company and you have a scheduled requirement to host conference calls with attendees located in Kenya.  How does the Kenya guest enter your conference call without needing to call the UK or the US or another country where the conference bridge happens to be located?

Another example, assume you are a company based in the US and you host regular conference calls with an overseas office or a client located abroad. What do you do if that overseas participant is located in a country that has no local access number at all,
either local or toll free? How does the invited guest access your international conference call?

Through the use of ‘international call forwarding’ a private access number can be enabled providing local access in scores of available countries.  Participants will be able to dial-in to your international conference call from their country location at no cost to them.  Currently there are 94 countries and approximately 2000 cities worldwide that are available to be used as a local access number for international conference calls.

Learn more about creating your own international conference call access number utilizing global call forwarding here.

Attendees join international conference calls Toll Free

Attendees join international conference calls Toll Free

Join international conference calls Toll Free
Join international conference calls Toll Free

There are times when it’s very important for a company to host an international conference call and have all of the participants join the call free of charge  Said another way, the Host of the call wants to remove any monetary obstacles that may give pause to the invitee from dialing into an important international conference call.

For the conference call host that wants participants to join a call at no cost, dialing in Toll Free is an obvious first choice.

But what about the participants that are geographically located in a country that has no Toll Free access?  How do they join the call at all, let alone free?

The Dial-Out solution

The ‘dial-out’ option permits the Leader to call the attendee in ‘any’ country and bring them into the call.  This is an ‘inbound’ call to the participant.

What about ‘local’ access numbers in countries.  Isn’t it a free call when the participant dials into an international conference call using a local access number in a country. A local number provided by a conference call company that says the call is free?

Doubtful that it’s a free call for the participant because the local access numbers that are offered are considered a ‘long distance’ call when dialed from the attendees city location.

For example, one conference call company offers what they call a ‘free’ Australia ‘local’ access number for participants to join a call if they are located inside Australia.  The problem is that the number is a ‘1300’ prefix code. 1300 numbers are not free, as they are charged as a local call at a fixed price to the caller. In other words, the participant can join the call using the local access number but will be charged a fee by the Australia telecom provider.  But the call will probably be free to the ‘host’ if the host is located in the U.S.

Local access numbers may be desirable if the intention of the Host is to have the ‘participants’ pay for their own access to the international conference call.

Or, if the situation of the participant is such that they have unlimited national long distance dialing capability in their country, then it would not matter if the local access number was 800 miles away from their location.  This would require the Host to check to make sure their participants can dial the offered local access number before the call so there are no complaints from the participants after the call takes place.

Learn more about ‘host pays’ international conference calls here.