วันพุธที่ 18 มีนาคม พ.ศ. 2552

What Is Conference Calling?

By Richard Arnesdale

A conference call is a call made on a telephone which involves more than two people. This kind of call is generally most often used in a business context as it allows a variety of people in different locations to participate in a single phone call at the same time. A variation on this theme -- video conferencing -- allows the people in a meeting to use video services so that they can see each other as well as chat.

Audio conference calls remain a popular way of holding meetings and having business chats with multiple people on both a formal and informal basis. The big advantage to using this kind of call is that you can bring together different people in different locations without them having to spend time and money traveling to have a meeting face to face. It also allows you to arrange meetings on an ad hoc basis quickly and simply.

So, for example, if your business is headquartered in New York but you need to have a meeting with your European Sales Manager who is based in London then you can look at having a conference call instead of a face to face meeting. Here, you can arrange the meeting via conference call when you like and neither party has to spend time traveling. This is also a much cheaper option in financial terms.

In the past you would need a telephone with the facility to make/receive conference calls although today's technology has changed the way that many conference calls can work. It is, for example, becoming increasingly common to use both on and offline conference call services for this purpose and these services can set up calls for a lot more people at once. Some providers have the potential to hook up hundreds or even thousands of people on the same call as well as a small group.

The cost of conference calls can also vary according to the equipment you are using, your phone provider's charges and/or the costs levied by a specific conference call provider. These costs can range from a flat fee that you pay on a regular basis through to prepaid and 'Pay As You Go' conference calls.

The range of services that you can access by using a conference call company may also vary. Some services, for example, will offer you operator assistance. Here, the company could help you set up the call itself, make sure that everybody is on the line when they need to be and they can even take minutes of your meeting if you prefer.

One of the big advantages to using a specific conference call service -- whether you use it once or on a regular basis -- is that they can give you access to a conference 'bridge'. This means that you have greater flexibility in the number of people who can participate in the conference call itself and it is easier for them to be brought together simultaneously as you don't have to physically make sure that they are all connected yourself.

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