Attendees 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.