Author Archives: Lee Simonson

Conference Calling During the Pandemic

Our essential conference calling services are saving lives as we adapt to the unprecedented shift in the workplace and economy. As this is written, we are in the middle (we hope) of the coronavirus pandemic. Call it a culture shock, call it the new normal, call it anything you want — but life has dramatically changed for everyone. Until there is a vaccine, the disruption will continue and we all have to adapt to being separated. Businesses, organizations and even families, are using conferencing as they preferred way to stay in touch with each other.

Employees all around the world are shifting their regular work routines to help mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus. According to the live coronavirus map (as of mid-April 2020) published by the New York Times, over 2,000,000 people have been infected with COVID-19 across the 177 countries in which the virus has been detected so far: of those infected, at least 131,000 people have died.

Non-essential businesses are now closed to regular traffic and lawmakers encourage (or, in some places, require) those who can practice social distancing to do so, as the risk of spreading or contracting the virus from spending time with a large group of people is immense. Though it may feel strange for those used to long commutes to all of a sudden venture no further than the living room, this “new normal” is for the best.

Head of the Chicago Department of Public Health, Dr. Allison Arwady, explains that the coronavirus’s chain of infection “highlights that really innocuous activities… can play into significant spread,” citing the case of the first patient in Chicago, Illinois who attended a potluck dinner, a funeral, and a birthday party; after days of unwittingly transmitting the virus to their friends and family members, fifteen people became infected as a direct result of the initial patient.

Because of how easy it is to spread the coronavirus, it is simply not an option for people to go to their workplaces anymore. Even those who are not experiencing symptoms could still be latent carriers, passing on the virus to the elderly, to the immunocompromised, or to otherwise healthy people who then carry the disease further on in turn.

Efforts to flatten the curve and stifle the virus are widespread, and so now more than ever, people are donning their sweatpants and setting up their laptops on their dining tables, trying to get comfortable working from home.

Transitioning into Working from Home
In this environment, it can grow increasingly more difficult for businesses to navigate their strategies and remain financially secure through the thick of the pandemic, especially for those deemed non-essential by regional lawmakers. Unless your business is in the food, medical, or infrastructure industries, chances are that if you’re still working, you are doing so from your home.

While it is a surreal shift, it is not without its silver linings. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, it was quite clear that working from home is laden with benefits. WFH policies allow people to spend more time with kids, pets, and spouses. Working from home eradicates time wasted on long commutes, and the atmosphere is quieter and more relaxed in a home office than in a shared office space. People are still capable of productivity from home, and the nature of the pandemic fosters a sense of community amongst all of us.

Efforts to socially distance and minimize inter-household interactions will only help us to overcome the worst of the coronavirus and to transition back into an interactive society when our mitigation efforts prove successful. The benefits of staying at home absolutely outweigh the risks of conducting life as usual, and we are counting ourselves lucky to have access to technology that helps ease our transition and encourage productivity in the workplace — even if our places of work double as bedrooms, playrooms, kitchens, or balconies.

How to Connect from Home
While no promises can be made about shared offices, break rooms, and other high-use workplace areas, it’s widely known that you can’t catch the coronavirus over the phone.

In recent months, conference calling has become wildly popular among people who are striving to perform in this new environment. Schoolchildren can tune in to their teacher’s broadcasts for story time, university professors lead online lectures to college students as the spring semester comes to a close, and businesspeople collaborate in digital meetings to strategize, discuss, and learn from one another.

There are a plethora of ways to engage with others online, and all of them are helping to keep businesses functioning. Conference calls and video calls allow businesses to succeed without sending their employees into potentially dangerous work spaces. Speaking over the phone or on a video chat is easy, quick, and more directly effective than email, as peers have the ability to give one another live feedback on projects and ideas.

Here at 24Conference, we care about your business needs. We want to help you stay productive, safe, and in contact with your teams across a variety of different mediums, each with their own benefits. Below are just a few of the different options that we offer.

Video Conferencing
Video conferencing is a great option for meetings that require face-to-face conversation. By connecting with your team members via video and audio, you’re able to work together while remaining separated in your own individual homes.

In fact, with 24Conference’s virtual meeting services, your company is able to conference face-to-face with your guests anywhere in the world. We have three different video conference plans for you to choose from: a fixed-rate plan with unlimited access, a per-minute plan that lets you pay as you go, and a professionally-managed plan that is handled by our experienced operators. So long as you have Flash installed on your computer and a webcam (either built-in or external), you’re all set to go ahead and conduct business as usual.

Conference Calls
That being said, 24Conference also allows people to enjoy the small comfort of connecting without webcams. A more private option that still allows you to collaborate with your coworkers and supervisors is to host or take part in a conference call meeting.

Conducted over the phone, these meetings can be joined by dialing in to a toll-free conference number and entering a guest passcode, calling a local phone number, or utilizing our trained professional operators to place each participant into the call.

When choosing between video conferencing and conference calling, one important thing to remember is that Internet connections are more frequently fallible than phone connections — not everyone is able to rely on their Internet services working properly all the time, especially when several members of a household are using the Internet at the same time.

Better yet, with our fast conference call set-up, you can obtain your conference call-in number and passcodes in the next two minutes and have your conference call immediately.  No reservations, no waiting, no set up fee — just have everyone call-in and you are on your way to streamlining communications.

International Overseas Calls
Another thing to consider when deciding which conferencing option is right for you is the location of your meeting participants. Do you conduct business overseas, or are some of your employees quarantined in a different country? 24Conference offers international overseas conferencing options that can help ensure that all of your company’s requisite parties are included in your meetings.

The CDC has advised against non-essential business and personal travel as the coronavirus has spread across six continents. Older and immunocompromised Americans are especially warned against travel, and those Americans who go abroad regardless of CDC warnings may have trouble re-entering the United States.

With our international overseas conference calling services, you can connect to people in other countries in a variety of ways. Participants located outside of America can dial in to your call on a toll-free number through one of our U.S. conference bridges, or can be connected by one of our professional operators. With the latter option, all they’ll need to do is answer the phone.

Alternatively, your international guests can dial a number within their country, or, finally, everyone can dial through to a single U.S. phone number.

With travel restrictions unlikely to be lifted for quite some time, the next best way to meet your overseas coworkers, partners, or other collaborators is through a digital medium. Our international conferencing options are outlined here.

We are living through unprecedented times, but we are grateful to have access to technology that keeps us connected to one another as we move through the pandemic together. Take a look at our Guide for Conference Calling During Coronavirus for more tips on how to stay connected using conferencing technology.

Let 24Conference Help You Transition to WFH Today
As circumstances grow more and more tenuous, it is clear that conference calling helps organizations to maintain communications. By working from home, you join millions of others in flattening the curve. By taking part in virtual meetings, you are helping to keep yourself, your family, and others safe.

24Conference takes pride in serving all of our loyal customers with personal attention. We offer the best conference calling services at the lowest, most reasonable rates.

Our company goals are to offer the best conference and communications services, maintain a low overhead to enable us to provide you with the most competitive rates in the industry, and enable you to use our excellent services without requiring you to purchase expensive hardware and software or paying development costs up front.

We can only succeed if you are successful, as well. Let us help you to make this transition easier. Give us a call today at (877) 254-2424 or contact us via our website form and we will email you back as soon as possible. With 24Conference as your conferencing experts, your satisfaction is guaranteed.

Busy Signal on Conference Calls? Here’s Why.

Are you getting constant busy signals when you try dialing in to your conference calls?  Chances are, you’re using a free conference call service. And as you might suspect, you get what you pay for. This article will explain why you are getting those busy signals and what you can do about it.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve received a flood of inquiries from people who are using free conference calling services.  They are experiencing constant busy signals and dropped calls whenever they try to dial in to their current services. Fortunately, we can help.

If you are hosting conference calls and are looking for a new conference call service, we encourage you to sign-up for our Instant Activation service, a toll-free service that comes with all the bells and whistles — and NO busy signals!  Better yet, you can get your conference call-in number and passcodes in just a few minutes.

We are proud of our business model and practices and are committed to helping your company stay in-touch and afloat during these challenging times. While it’s true that the coronavirus has pushed the conferencing capacity in the United States to its limits, there are other more intriguing and lesser-known reasons that you’re hearing those busy signals with your current “free” provider.

Follow the Money

Believe it not, those free conference call services do make a profit, even though they don’t charge you directly for their service. And therein lies the little-known mystery of how a portion of the conference call business works. You see, small local telephone companies charge large carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile for phone calls that come into their jurisdiction. In this setup, the small local phone companies make deals with conference call companies to put conference bridges within their areas. The more phone traffic they can attract, the more they can charge the large carriers.

What do those small local phone companies do with that money? They share the profits with the conference call companies. That’s how the conference call companies can make money and offer a “free” service at the same time.

It Gets Even More Intriguing

So why the busy signals? The large carriers like AT&T don’t like being charged to deliver your calls to the conference bridge. They have made their position on the matter loud and clear and are preventing calls from getting through in an effort to squash a system that costs AT&T millions of dollars a year.

This squabble has been especially frustrating for consumers, as the coronavirus pandemic flooding the nation has forced many businesspeople to retreat into the relative safety of their own homes rather than staying to work in office buildings, where they could be exposed to hundreds of latent carriers. As a result of employees everywhere setting up in their home offices instead of in the boardroom, services such as Zoom, Google Hangouts, and Skype are seeing a surge of users seeking to maintain a semblance of their workday routines.

Yet, not all businesses can remain open and functioning as people shelter in place and practice social distancing, and those that can may face extreme financial strain as the economy struggles. This is why people may initially turn to free services to conduct business.

That’s why the free conferencing services are under more scrutiny than ever and why unwitting consumers are forced to endure constant busy signals and dropped calls.

The FCC is Trying to Plug the “Traffic Pumping” Loopholes

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is reforming this convoluted system with an order that bans access arbitrage, otherwise known as “traffic pumping.” Essentially, the FCC’s order adopts regulations to make the companies who take advantage of traffic pumping financially liable for their behavior.

Thanks to these regulations, large operators like AT&T will no longer have to foot the bill for those companies who intentionally use FCC loopholes to direct conference calls through tandem providers. It’s a win for AT&T and a win for American consumers. FCC research estimated that prior to the Access Arbitrage order, U.S. consumers were indirectly charged a collective $60-80 million each year by companies cheating the system — a steep price for a service otherwise advertised as “free.”

Since the FCC order, free conference call companies have been scrambling to maintain their profit margin, and some have requested waivers (exemptions) calling on the FCC to “stop the failure of calls and protect a business that is otherwise complying with the Order.”

Instead, the FCC issued a temporary waiver to the tandem switch provider Inteliquent, a company used by WebEx and Zoom, citing that the high influx of calls that these services would receive as more and more people worked from home would have gone above and beyond the agency’s ratio and been immensely costly. However, the FCC did not grant other free conferencing services the same exemption.

Here is the exact wording of the FCC decision, including the reason why they did not provide an exemption for the free conferencing services:

“During these extraordinary times, Inteliquent’s preexisting customers are helping to facilitate the massive shift to telework and distance learning…There is no reason to believe that all local exchange carriers that provide service to conference calling platforms are similarly situated to Inteliquent. Moreover, Free Conferencing offers no comfort that such a waiver would be anything but an opportunity for existing access-stimulating local exchange carriers to continue the schemes the Commission sought to disrupt by adopting the Access Arbitrage Order.”

Through this decision, the FCC has ensured that no free conference call service can take advantage of the pandemic — a situation that could unwittingly victimize Americans to those who wish to profit off of their need to adapt to new work at home model.

You Get What You Pay For

Now you can see why there is more to this than just a busy signal and why it is so important to work with businesses that provide good and reliable services for a fair price.  You’ve heard it time and time again — you get what you pay for.

Here at 24Conference, we stay out of the disputes that consume our “free” conference calling competition by being truthful in our business model and providing professional and reliable service. Our only interest is to provide you and your businesses with the highest quality conferencing available through affordable plans that won’t fail. We hope that we can serve you in the future and promise to do our best to accommodate your unique needs.

Give us a call at (877) 254-2424 or send us a message on our website. We’ll be there with our dedicated staff, ready to provide personal service and a conference bridge that will accept your calls all the time — no loopholes, double-dealing, or busy signals.

How to Set Up a Conference Call

The number #1 inquiry we get here at 24Conference is “How to set up a conference call.”   As business, education, non-profit and religious organizations are making huge adjustments during these stressful times, more and more people are working at home or remote locations.  The need for conference calling has skyrocketed.  People are using Google and search engines to learn about conferencing and to find out the best, easiest and most affordable ways to incorporate it into their culture and practices. This article will provide you a general overview.

To set up a conference call, you need to:
1) Get a conference call account. You can fill-in this online conference call order form. (There is no cost to set up an account.)
2) You will immediately receive your conference call-in number and your host passcode and guest passcode. You can use the conference service whenever you want. There are no reservations and you don’t need to tell us when you plan to use the service.
3) Send an email to everyone you want to invite to the conference call, and tell them to call the call-in number and use the guest passcode (followed by the # sign) to enter the conference. Be sure to tell them the day and time to call in. It doesn’t hurt to email everyone a reminder a hour before the conference call.
4) At the time you want to start the conference call, everyone calls the call-in number. If you are the host, you enter the host passcode. You’ve already instructed your guests to enter the guest passcode. Once everyone is in the conference, you can conference as long as you want.
5) After the conference call, we will charge your credit card for the minutes used. For example, if 10 people were on your conference call for 10 minutes, that would equal 100 minutes. 100 minutes times 4.9¢ per minute, equals $4.90 plus applicable taxes. You can also get a detailed report and receipt online.
6) You can use the service whenever you want in the future and are free to continue using the same passcodes. Keep them safe and secure.

That’s it! We do offer other services as well, such as our Flat-Fixed Rate plan which provides you unlimited usage for one low flat rate every month. We also provide Operator Managed conference call services that have our professional operators dial out to your parties and place them into the conference. You can see the array of services on the upper right of this page.

Why a Conference Call?

So with all of our online technology, why do a conference call at all? There are actually a lot of situations in which a conference call would be preferred over web meeting services. As a general rule, the more people you have involved in a conversation, the more it makes sense to have a conference call instead. There are a lot of things to consider before settling on a method of communication. You want to consider the capabilities and locations of the attendees, the number of attendees, and the format of the meeting. Conference calling is a perfect solution that is often overlooked.

Common Situations

There are many situations in which you might benefit from conference calling. Anytime you have a number of people in different locations, conference calling can be an effective tool. Although some people prefer web meeting services, somethings there is no substitute for the old fashioned conference call.

Some of the most common situations that conference calling is the best option include:
• Holding management meetings across locations
• Making team wide, location wide, or companywide announcements
• Holding a Q&A session about new policies and other changes
• Provide a platform for feedback to assist in developing policies
• Mobilizing outside salesmen for promotions or competitions
• Team meetings while managing remote workers

The current pandemic gives us a unique perspective on these potential situations. Whereas you may not have considered holding meetings virtually in the past, these are now our new norms. But conference calling isn’t just an advantage during a shutdown. These situations arise in the course of normal business, and it is wise to remember your experiences now when planning for the future.

Special COVID-19 Considerations

If you are used to doing everything online, you might still be wondering if a conference call is really the best option. But consider the impacts that COVID-19 has had on technology already. Internet service is being slowed, interrupted, or disrupted completely in some areas. Not everyone can get online reliably at the moment. That makes scheduling video meetings a bit risky.

Let’s face it. There are more people working from home than at any time in history. There are more kids at home online for school than anyone would have ever dreamed. Yes, technology is amazing and service providers were prepared for a crisis. But there are still going to be outages and interruptions. It simply won’t be avoidable, at least for a while. This situation might prompt providers to expand services, which would especially be of benefit to those in rural areas.

In fact, many people in rural areas have no access to high speed internet. In some towns, you can’t get anything faster than 10 mbps. Can you imagine trying to be on a video chat with hundreds of people with that kind of connection? It just doesn’t work. It is for these reasons that telephone conference calling is the best option during these turbulent times.

Another thing to remember is that many of your employees and clients are also parents. Schools are closed, and that means their children are at home with them. With everyone working from home, there is bound to be a certain amount of chaos involved with meetings. But conference calling makes it much easier to keep background activities out of the mix.

Types of Teleconferencing Services

Most people don’t realize that there is more than one type of conference call. There are actually several different types of conference calling available. You should easily be able to set it up to meet your needs. Here are some of your options.

Operator Assisted

Operator assisted conference calls involve operators calling attendees and introducing them onto the call. Operators will be available to introduce attendees before they speak and allow different people than the host to participate in the call.

International Calls

If you have attendees from overseas, you’ll need some special services to make sure that the call is successful. Teleconferencing services specifically designed for international conferencing should be utilized in these situations.

Other Options

When choosing teleconferencing services, you also have options such as:
• Pay as you go or monthly usage plans
• Toll free, international, or local access numbers available
• Web conferencing available if you really need to be face to face, or if you need to do screen sharing

If you ever have questions about what features and type of call will meet your needs, it is always best to contact your vendor. Through a series of questions and lengthy discussion, they will be able to help you determine the best services for your purposes.

Preparing for Your Conference Call

Your first conference call will take quite a bit of planning and preparation. If you start using conference calls on a regular basis, such as weekly or monthly, you usually only have to go through the process of setting everything up once. You can set up your teleconferencing on a repeat schedule so that it is always ready when needed.

Your first step is to choose a vendor and determine what features are available. From there you’ll need to plan your call. Here are a few of the steps you may encounter.

Determining an Agenda

You probably have an idea of what you want to cover in your conference call, but it’s a good idea to make a formal agenda. Even if you allow for some flexibility, having an agenda will help keep you and the attendees on track. It is very easy for conference calls to run long. An agenda helps you stick to your time slot and avoids adding costs.

Choosing Features

Think carefully about the features that you need during your call. If you want people to be able to interrupt and ask questions, you’ll need to go with operator managed conference calls. This is teleconferencing where operators dial your attendees at the appointed time, introduce them to the call, and take and prioritize their questions or interjections.

If you need to be able to have multiple speakers or hosts, make sure that the vendor you choose allows that capability without operator assistance. You also want to make sure that the service you choose can handle your attendance, especially if you are expected several hundred attendees.

Notifying Attendees

Of course, your conference call will only be successful if your team logs onto the call. Most people notify attendees of a conference call by email. It is a good idea to send out several emails periodically leading up to the day of the conference call, especially if it is your first one. If you have recurring calls, you can simply send out a reminder the day of or the day before. These measures should be sufficient to make sure that everyone gets on the call.

Scheduling During Coronavirus

You know best how often you will need to hold conference calls during these unusual times. But when scheduling your calls, there are a few things to keep in mind. Right now, families are all home together, working and studying remotely. It is important to recognize that your remote workers will be better able to engage with a conference call at some times of the day than others. For most families with school age children, the best time to schedule a call is mid-morning. If you schedule too early, your attendees will be in the middle of feeding children breakfast, and around noon lunch. But mid-morning is likely to be the time children are working on schoolwork, and your remote workers will be able to actively engage in the call.

How to Do a Conference Call

If your conference call is operator managed, your call will begin when all attendees have been dialed and added to the “room.” They will introduce you, and you can then take over the call. If you want to allow Q&A or feedback, the operators will manage this for you. When you are ready to end the call, summarize, give any additional instructions, and end the call.

If you aren’t going to allow attendees to speak during the call, you don’t need to use operators. You can just dial into the “room,” and all attendees will do the same. When you and the other speakers are finished, everyone just ends the call. It is really very simple to use once set up.

Tips to Keep Conference Calls Professional

Everyone is on edge right now, and everyone’s routines have been completely disrupted. Especially with employees staying at home and working remotely, company culture and decorum is starting to slip. It is important to maintain as much normalcy as possible, and that means keeping things as professional as possible. Here are a few tips for keeping teleconferencing professional. If you will be allowing attendees to speak on the call, you might want to share these tips with your entire team.

• Make sure everyone is introduced when they come on the call, either by system automation or by operator.
• Encourage everyone to take the conference call in an otherwise empty room without background noise. This will not always be possible during this time, but hosts who will be doing all or most of the speaking should make an extra effort.
• Keep calls brief. It is very difficult for everyone to focus right now, and some parents may be snatching minutes here and there to handle business. The shorter you can keep the call the better it will be for everyone.
• Always keep your phone on mute unless you are actively speaking to eliminate background noise. This is especially important right now with kids at home with remote workers.
• Have an agenda and stick to it. Distribute the agenda to attendees in advance so that everyone knows what to expect.

If you and your attendees follow these tips for professionalism, it will go a long way toward keeping teleconferencing efforts productive and engaging.

Why You Shouldn’t Wait

In this crisis, every day is an opportunity to make a difference in your bottom line. The longer it takes you to set things up to manage remote workers, the harder hit your business will be by the pandemic. If you need assistance setting up your team for remote success, contact us today.

Guide for Conference Calling During Coronavirus

With the coronavirus sweeping the globe, conference calling will be a key tool in maintaining vital communications among company associates, stakeholders, and external customers and suppliers. The Center for Disease Control is recommending social distancing, working remotely whenever possible, and avoiding large gatherings to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 illness. For many businesses, having most or all employees work from home can cause a major disruption in work culture and daily flow.

Fortunately, we at 24Conference provide teleconferencing technology that can enable a functional and thriving collaborative workforce, even in the midst of these turbulent times.

While many still consider face-to-face interactions to be superior to teleconferencing, that is increasingly no longer the case. Particularly in the face of a highly contagious virus, teleconferencing provides two key benefits over face-to-face business interactions, especially when it’s implemented strategically:

1. Protect Yourself, Your Employees, and Your Family From COVID-19
The best way to prevent the spread of the coronavirus is to avoid exposure, and the best way to avoid exposure to the virus is to limit contact with other people. Especially since the World Health Organization (WHO) is still working to fully understand the transmission method and rate of COVID-19, it’s the current best practice to implement social distancing, or essentially isolating yourself to avoid exposure.

Teleconferencing allows for collaboration between employees, business-to-business interactions, and even international communication while all participants remain safely isolated in their own homes. Preliminary data from the WHO suggests that unlike seasonal influenza which is often transmitted through children, COVID-19 is more frequently spread between adults and from adults to children. Based on this information, working from home wherever possible is one of the key ways to combat the spread of the disease throughout the population. Since ceasing all work for the duration of the pandemic is not an economically feasible option, teleconferencing while working from home is the safest and most productive alternative.

The majority of COVID-19 cases present as asymptomatic or with only mild symptoms, but it can become a critical or even deadly illness in older adults or for those with underlying health conditions. Even if you and your coworkers are low-risk, it’s important to mitigate the spread of the disease to avoid unintentionally spreading it to older relatives or high-risk individuals with whom you interact regularly.

2. Reduce Fear, Anxiety, and Distractions in the Workplace
In the current climate of uncertainty and fear of a contagious illness, it can be difficult for employees to focus. Between washing their hands the recommended every 30 minutes, flinching every time someone in the office coughs or sneezes, and scrambling to find childcare for school-age children who may now unexpectedly have several weeks off from school, there is little time and energy left to accomplish actual work.

Teleconferencing allows parents to be home with their children as schools and daycares close for the foreseeable future, and have peace of mind that they aren’t potentially being exposed to COVID-19 each day when they go to work. Although working from home can certainly be a culture shock, it allays fear of infection and stress over childcare while still allowing employees to earn their regular paychecks.

So, what is the best way to implement teleconferencing for your company? Follow a few simple steps to make the switch to teleconferencing easy and stress-free:

1. Ensure That All Employees Have the Necessary Equipment
Depending on your company’s scope and function, the necessary equipment can be as simple as a cell phone to dial in to a conference call, or it can include items like a computer, reliable internet connection, and functional webcam for video calls. Investing in these basics for your employees ensures that work can continue relatively uninterrupted while keeping everyone safe from COVID-19.

2. Invest in Teleconferencing Technology
Our conference calling service allows you and your employees to schedule virtual meetings by emailing the participants with the time, date, phone number, and passcode to join the call. If your company is large or has multiple divisions, you can set up sub-accounts so that each department has a unique passcode. You can also opt to receive metrics from us, such as which departments are using the service, how long their calls are, and how many people attend each call.

3. Organize Your Teams and Share Effective Teleconferencing Strategies
Once your teleconferencing service is in place and you have sub-accounts for each department as necessary, give your employees and particularly team leaders guidance on new protocols and how to effectively use teleconferencing. It may be necessary to supplement conference calls with group instant messaging to provide real-time updates to team members in between calls, or for quick and informal conversations. Instant messaging can also be used in conjunction during a conference call for side conversations or questions that do not demand the attention of the entire group.

If you find that your employees are not fully engaged in conference calls (i.e. they mute themselves the whole time, multitask, or do not contribute to the conversation), consider switching to video conferencing. The added visual aspect provides a stronger connection between team members and increased accountability.

What kind of teleconferencing services are available?
No matter your virtual meeting needs, we at 24Conference have a suitable conference call option available for you:

Pay-As-You-Go Teleconferencing
Our popular per-minute plan is free to set up and there are no cancellation fees or monthly minimums. Simply pay for what you use, on a per-person per-minute basis, which is billed after the call has been completed. We provide free online conference call monitoring, emailed reports with links to call recordings immediately after each call, and live customer service. Participants can mute themselves as needed and with our online Live Conference Viewer, you can switch between lecture mode and conversational mode with just one click.

Operator-Managed Teleconferencing
To increase the level of professionalism in your conference call, we have trained operators who can help your calls run smoothly. Operators will dial each participant so they just have to answer the phone instead of calling in, and then introduce each new person that joins the call. Operators can manage question and answer sessions as well to avoid having multiple people speaking at once and keep the call organized and on schedule.

This service is particularly well-suited for high-level calls such as legal conferences or sales presentations, and we can also arrange for multiple parties on the call to be billed separately.

Local Access Teleconferencing
Our local access conference calling service can be used in many US and Canadian cities for a toll-free virtual meeting. No reservations are required since our conference bridges are open all the time.

International Teleconferencing
We also offer international conference calling services. You can provide toll-free numbers to participants in 90 countries, or have one of our professional operators dial out to your meeting attendees. As with our other services, no reservations are required and you can pay as you go.

Flat Rate Teleconferencing
Our flat rate conference calling service allows you to make unlimited calls, with the monthly rate depending on how many conference lines you need for your business. For larger companies and in times like this with the coronavirus pandemic forcing nearly all business interactions to be virtual, this package can save you significant amounts of money. The flat rate option also makes budgeting easier, since you will know in advance how much the service will cost you per month instead of being billed by the minute after each call.

Video Teleconferencing
Our video teleconferencing service does not require any special software or equipment. With a computer, internet connection, and webcam, you can bring your conference calls to life. Share your desktop or presentation slides to everyone on the call for visual aids or just make a call more engaging and personal by video chatting.

This service is packed with helpful features like file sharing, chat, polling, and built-in audio and recording. You can use either the VOIP audio feature or ensure crystal clear audio by using our conference calling service in conjunction with the video service. The program works with any computer operating system that can run Adobe Flash Player so that all your employees can easily access the service.

As with our audio-only teleconferencing service, you have three payment options: a flat rate for unlimited usage, a pay-as-you-go plan, or a professionally hosted conference with one of our trained operators, which has a base fee plus a per-person per-minute cost.

Additional Benefits of Teleconferencing and Working From Home
Many companies have been making the transition to have their employees work from home over the last few years, even before COVID-19 became a threat. This is because there are many benefits to both businesses as well as to employees, such as:

Employees Are More Satisfied and Less Likely to Quit
Commuting to work is often a big factor in job dissatisfaction. There’s nothing worse than wasting hours each day sitting in traffic, and when employees can work from home, they have more free time, spend less on fuel, and reduce their carbon footprints significantly, which helps contribute to a positive outlook towards their job.

It’s Better For the Bottom Line
When employees work from home, there is no need to allocate a huge chunk of a business’s funding to renting or buying an office space. Since there are fewer people commuting to work, it reduces strain on city infrastructure and alleviates traffic, which benefits everyone. As such, many states even offer grants and other incentives to companies who make the switch to having employees work from home.

Productivity Increases
When employees work from home, there are often less distractions than in an office setting. Employees can also save money and be healthier by making and eating meals at home during their breaks instead of going out to eat or filling up on doughnuts in the break room. Additionally, when employees are already set up to work from home, it can help decrease interruptions to the flow of business when someone has a minor illness or injury that would have prevented them from coming into an office, but is not so severe that they can’t still get some work done while recovering at home.

How to Ensure a Smooth Transition to Working From Home and Teleconferencing
It’s possible that many of your employees have never worked from home and are unfamiliar with the technology and etiquette necessary to successfully make the transition. By providing clear instructions and tutorials on how to use our teleconferencing service and a set of expectations for things like timeliness and dress codes while working from home, you can clear up any confusion and uncertainty and make the transition easier. Some specific items to cover with your employees include:

Instructions For How To Use The Teleconferencing Service
You can disseminate this information in a variety of ways, whether you have an in-person training before making the switch to working from home, or you send out a video tutorial or step-by-step instructions for success. At 24Conference, our services are designed to be super simple and easy to use to make this stage as painless as possible.

Send Out Conference Call Information In Advance
The pre-conference call email should include the time and date of the call (including time zone conversions if necessary), the number to call and any codes needed, and whether the call will be audio-only or also include video. Send out any supplemental materials and an agenda of what needs to be covered in the call so that employees can prepare their material in advance for the meeting and deliver it succinctly to the group.

Announce a time limit for the call so employees can plan out their days, and then stick to the time limit. Build in time for questions and comments at the end of the call, and record the whole meeting so that anyone who missed it or who needs to review the information can have access to it. Send out a reminder email just before the call to ensure everyone is on time.

Set Conduct Expectations for Working From Home
These can include guidelines like what an acceptable response time is for company emails, dress code expectations for video calls, and other relevant details that may be different from what is expected in an office setting.

Overall, the pandemic could usher in a new era for businesses and organizations. It will be a time of transition of processes and cultures. But in the right context, the new systems could become a turning point in how companies increase productivity, improve employee morale, and add to profits while keeping everyone in a safer and healthier environment. Give us a call at 877-254-2424 and we’ll do our best to help you navigate these unchartered waters.

Teleconferencing During Coronavirus: Protect Health and Profits

Coronavirus: 2 Important Tools You’ll Need to Work-at-Home

There are two important tools you’ll need to work at home during the coronavirus pandemic — conference calling services and Internet connectivity.  Both involve communications which will be the key ingredient in maintaining business operations and continuity.

As the contagion spreads and efforts to contain the coronavirus continue to mount, more and more companies are considering the idea of having employees work at home.  It could be the most convenient and practical method to stay out of harm’s way.  In fact, the virus has already caused thousands in Europe and Asia to stay home to help combat the virus.  Is the United States next?

As best practices, these communication services need to be at the top of your priority list when it comes to transferring any work from traditional offices to homes.

Conference calling services:  Companies need to provide employees the ability to communicate with colleagues, associates and customers, instantly and on-demand.  The best way to achieve this is for companies to establish a conference call service and obtain a number of separate sub-accounts that will allow for the distribution of conference passcodes for different divisions, departments, offices and even individuals.

For example, let’s say a company has 500 employees divided into 20 different departments.  Say about half will be working from home.  Your company could easily and quickly obtain 20 sets of conference passcodes to provide the 20 different departments.  Each department could alert its members of their unique passcodes that could be used at anytime.

If an employee working from home needs to confer with three other colleagues, the employee can email the date and time of the call to the colleagues, along with the guest passcode.  Then, everyone can can at the appointed time and enter the conference to complete the business at hand.

The company can also receive reports on what department is using the service and the duration of the calls, as long as the number of people on each conference call.

Fortunately, there is no cost to set up a conference service, and there is no cost for the service until it is used.  Pay-as-you-go conference calling only charges you for the time you spend on the conference calls, no more or less.  And your credit card is charged after your call, not before.

From the employees’ point of view, they only need their cell phone to enter the conference call and it enables them to have the best available communication with their fellow workers.  It is also the safest way to conduct business without fear or anxiety of contracting the virus.

In general, conference calling continues to remain a staple of business operations and expanding the service to the work-at-home environment keeps everyone in the loop without loss of time or productivity.

If you are interested in setting up a conference call account with multiple sets of passcodes you can distribute to your work-at-home employees, please go to this page.

We are an established decades-old conference call business that has provided high quality service through thick and thin.  We are “pre-ramped” to handle any demand on our systems and can accommodate emergency requests.  Hopefully, you’ll be prepared enough to avoid last minute emergencies by having your conference call accounts ready to go when you need them.

Internet connectivity:  Companies will need to assure employees they will have online access to data and information working from home.  Internet connectivity will be the key to a successful transition from office to home, and the more bandwidth employees have, the better.  Whether employees are working at home on a desktop, laptop, or pad, there has to be an Internet connection to tie into the same interface employees are used to seeing at work.

Companies need to be very explicit and provide employees, in writing, what the policies are regarding confidentiality, disclosures, privacy and information handling of data at home.

Opportunity in Disguise

While sending employees home to work may come as a bit of a culture shock to your company, the fact remains that over 8 million Americans are already working from home. It’s nothing new and it amounts to over 5% of the work force.  The number of workers at home will continue increase dramatically in future years as companies look to reduce costs and expenses associated with providing employees space in high-rent office complexes.

Emergency situations can also be looked upon as opportunities as well.  Companies may discover that work-at-home employees are actually more productive and can better focus and concentrate on work at home because they are not sidetracked by the usual interruptions and distractions at the office.  Those hour long meetings at work can now be distilled into more useful 15 minute conference calls, especially when you consider the time spent getting to and from meetings and the typical time wasters that are encountered along the way.  And these days, work-at-home productivity can be easily measured.

Conference Calling for Small Business

Running a small business and needing a conference call service? We have offered phone conference calling services for small businesses for over 20 years and our most popular plan is our toll-free pay-as-you-go program.

Here is a quick summary: It’s a professional paid service with no set-up fees, no monthly minimums, 24/7 access, and is formatted on a pay-as-you-go basis. In other words, you only pay for the time you use, when you use it. Your credit card is charged after your conference call.

You are provided a toll-free access number (everyone dials the toll free number) and a set of two passcodes — one for you as the host and another for your all your guests. The rate is 4.9 cents per minute, per person. A 30 minute conference call with 6 people would cost $8.82 plus tax.

Your service also includes free recording if you need to have a verbal record of your conference. You can have your recordings emailed to you.

By using our Instant Activation order page, you can get your call-in number and passcodes in the next 2 minutes. Just fill out the form and once you click Submit you’ll receive an immediate email containing your toll free call-in number and passcodes. If you don’t get it, be sure to check your Junk or Spam folder.

You can use the service over and over again, anytime you want. You don’t have to let us know ahead of time — this is called “reservationless” so there is no need to reserve time on your conference bridge. You have complete and open access to it whenever you need it.

Thousands of clients use this service and it has become the backbone of their internal and external business communications. Here are some of the comments and feedback we receive from business people across the United States and Canada:

“Great set up. When we need to get everyone in the loop and are up against pressing deadlines, a quick conference call enables us to get everyone on the same page. Within minutes we know what the status of any project is and can focus attention on the areas that need the most help. Thank you for a service that has become an important part of our production process.”

“Getting started was quick and easy. We realize conference calling has been around for decades but we just got on board and adopted a more formal and organized system through 24Conference. Rather than everyone taking care of their own department’s needs, we consolidated everything and gave each department their own passcodes under a master account. Now we can monitor our usage and costs more easily and our people aren’t running around at the last minute trying to figure out how to have an emergency conference call. Now everything is “on demand” and associates can use the service any time they want.”

“Thank you — we’ve just reorganized and wanted to cut our office expenses. We evaluated the market and settled on 24Conference because of its rates and customer service. Knowing we can talk to a human who answers the phone in a few seconds was a huge help. Bottom line — we’ve cut our costs 25% and are getting better service. We also like knowing we have access to conference calls that can be managed by a professional operator. Sometimes there are important calls and we need a operator to dial-out to our guests.”