Hosting USA Conference Calls with International Participants

Use a world time zone map to help you schedule the call.

Hosting USA Conference Calls with International Participants
USA Conference Calls with International Participants

Hosting USA conference calls is generally easy — if everyone is located within the United States. It gets tricky, however, when you need to invite people from other countries. The two biggest challenges with international USA conference calls are access and timing. Fortunately, you can overcome these challenges with an international conferencing plan that supports USA and dozens of countries around the world.

Here’s how.

How International Participants Can Access Your USA Conference Calls

If your USA conference call were limited to other callers in the United States, everyone would probably dial an 800 number to access the conference. Even if they dialed a regional access number, such as one local to New York or Los Angeles, domestic long distance rates are low enough that such a number wouldn’t be too large of a burden on your participants.

This changes the moment your USA conference call becomes a global conference call. For starters, a USA toll free access number won’t work for your international attendees — and depending on which countries they are in, international long distance charges could be significant. Thus, giving them a direct line to the USA conference call isn’t a solution.

The solution is to use an international conference calling service. Our pay-as-you-go international / USA conferencing plans allow you to enable access to your global call using:

  • Country-specific toll free access numbers — For example, callers from Pakistan will dial a toll free number for Pakistan while those in Germany dial a toll free access number unique to Germany.
  • Local access numbers — Your callers in Berlin, Germany would dial a local number in Berlin while those in Paris, France would dial a Paris number.
  • Dial-out — This is where the moderator or the live operator would initiate access by dialing participants directly and patching them into the conference room.

Each of these options reduces the burden on your international participants. In most cases, they will not incur any toll charges in order to join your USA conference call.

Some may incur regional toll charges, such as if a caller in Nice, France dials a local Paris access number. Finally, if your international participants use a mobile phone to connect to your USA conference call, their time on the call may be subject to the specifics of their individual mobile phone service plans.

Overcoming Timing Issues

You’ll never be able to control time zone differences, but you can try to schedule your call so that the bulk of your participants can dial in during business hours. This isn’t always possible, either, and some participants will likely be inconvenienced. Use a world time zone map to help you schedule the call. For those who won’t be able to attend the call in real time, consider recording the call and sharing the MP3 recording with them after the fact.

Hosting USA conference calls with international participants isn’t as easy as hosting a domestic conference, but it’s not all that difficult with the right international conference calling plan. Check out our pay-as-you-go USA conference calling plans and connect with a broader audience today.

View more details about U.S. and international conference calling here

Phone Conferencing for North America

U.S. Conference Calling with Toll-Free Access

Quality Conference Calling
Quality Conference Calling

US conference call with employees, virtual team members, colleagues, and business partners scattered across the United States and Canada, collaboration becomes more challenging. While a variety of online technologies and mobile apps help facilitate collaboration, sometimes you need to connect audibly.

Hosting a conference call is a great way to get the entire team together for a voice meeting. While free and low-cost conference calling options are available, it’s important to find the right balance between features, quality, and cost. Though paid and toll-free plans may be more expensive than a so-called no fee conferencing, it is possible to get the features you want at an attractive and affordable rate.

The Problem with Hosting a Low-Quality Conference Call

Free conference calls aren’t as free as they sound. If you choose a free conference call plan with a local phone number in Washington, DC, everyone who calls in from outside of the area will incur toll charges. This option can be attractive in some circumstances but is detrimental in others. For example, some participants may have concerns about how much the call will cost them; as a result, they may opt-out of the call. If your conference call involves an interesting prospect, the prospect could be concerned about the non-local phone number or question your cost sensitivity to others or credibility.

Some free conference call providers offer free conferences with advertisements. Others use unreliable VoIP telephone networks with poor sound quality. Ads and interference may be fine when you need to collaborate with your assistants but could be disastrous when your professional image is at stake.

If your conference calls will involve customers, prospects, VIPs, or budget-conscious consumers, it’s smarter to provide them with toll-free access to the conference call or use the moderator dial-out option, if available, to call these individuals directly.

Conduct an Audio Conference with No Computer Required, just any phone.

Gain a full-featured, business-class conferencing plan with included features such as a live conferencing viewer, account code entry, sub-account for other associates, security, post-call summaries, and free session recordings.

Holding a toll-free meeting is an affordable choice that doesn’t jeopardize your reputation or subject your participants to advertisements or toll charges. It’s not necessary to enroll in a long-term conference calling contract, either. Choose a pay-as-you-go conference calling plan and enjoy low-cost conference calling as needed with no contract.

See the conference calling plan here

US/Canada Conference Calls. Added Local access numbers in many U.S. and Canadian cities.

Canada - US Conference Calling
Canada – US Conference Calling

U.S.-Canada Conference Calls

In addition to Toll-Free access from Canada and the US, ‘local’ access numbers are available in Canada and the U.S.

We have added numerous ‘local’ access numbers for the US/Canada conference call plan.  Having more access points enables customers to provide local convenience to their participants to join a conference call or optionally use the included Toll-Free access numbers.

A customer can now host a conference call with some of their participants dialing in Toll-Free and others dialing in using a local access number at a lower rate, all meeting in the same conference room.  All local access numbers for the US and Canada are sent immediately upon account activation.

New local access numbers available in the following US and Canadian cities:

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