Category: international conference calling

International Conference Calls for Talent Management

Obviously, you can’t manage talent until you’ve acquired it. Global conferencing can play an important role in the recruiting process.

International Conference Calling for Talent ManagementToday’s talent pool is wider than ever. Whether you’re recruiting workers from overseas or need a convenient communications method to connect with a global team, international conference calls are an affordable choice.

Below is a quick overview of what global conferencing is along with a few ideas for using international conference calls as a talent management tool at various stages of the talent management process.

What is Global Conferencing

Global conference calls are much like the conference calls you make domestically in that each participant dials an access number and joins the teleconference by entering its unique PIN code. International conference calls open up the teleconference to callers from around the world. These callers are typically shut out of domestic conference calls due to dialing restrictions or excessive costs. With global conferencing, each participant dials a local phone number (or a local toll free number) which is then routed to the conference call.

Recruiting International Talent

Obviously, you can’t manage talent until you’ve acquired it. Global conferencing can play an important role in the recruiting process. Not only can you use international conference calls to collaborate with human resources managers located in regional offices around the world, your human resources team can hold group interviews with international applicants in a global conference call.

Using international conference calls to prescreen international candidates is also a smart choice as far as controlling costs goes. For example, if you have numerous applicants from around the world, you could fly each applicant in to your main office for a formal, face-to-face interview. However, that approach is extremely expensive. By holding an international conference call, your entire hiring team can have the opportunity to get acquainted with each applicant before deciding which candidates they should to meet in person.

In addition, it’s possible to record each international conference call. If one of your colleagues was unable to attend the group interview in person, he or she could simply listen to the MP3 recording after the fact.

You could also use global conferencing to hold informational meetings where candidates could find out more about the position before applying for it. This can reduce the volume of individual phone calls your HR team receives as well as provide candidates with a forum for getting their questions answered. It also can narrow the field of applicants as they will have the chance to gauge whether or not the position is a good fit for them. If you use international conference calls for this purpose, consider recording the call and making it available to future applicants.

Training

Attracting talent is just the beginning of any talent management strategy. After attracting and hiring the best people, you need to retain them. Companies often use training and professional development as part of their talent retention strategies. While you’ll likely use a number of training methods including live trainers, Web-based training, and training videos, you can also deliver some training using international conference calls.

For example, you could hold a live session led by a motivational speaker using global conferencing. All participants, including the speaker, would join the conference by calling an access number and entering the conference’s PIN code. Depending on your preferences and how you structure the call, the speaker could deliver the training with all other lines muted or he or she could open the lines so that participants could ask questions as needed.

Since the speaker can call in from virtually anywhere in the world, you may be able to negotiate a reduced fee. After all, the speaker will not need to travel to your office or incur related expenses. Again (unless your contract with the speaker forbids it), you can record the global conference call, allowing future employees to benefit from the training.

Talent Evaluation

Nurturing and evaluating talent are also important. Whether several managers from various countries need to provide feedback during the evaluation process or a key team member is overseas on business, global conferencing allows everyone involved to contribute to the conversation no matter where in the world they may be at the time. International conference calls are easy to schedule both in advance or as needed. Plus, there’s no special equipment needed to collaborate.

International Talent Outreach

Many companies take a long term approach to talent development by sponsoring schools or educational programs. Whether your company wants to ensure that today’s students have the skills you expect tomorrow’s workers to need or want to help a struggling nation improve its future, international conference calls can help you coordinate your efforts. You can use global conferencing to coordinate local seminars as well as a means of delivering educational content.

With a wide, diverse, and global talent pool, talent management professionals need a convenient communications method to attract, hire, train, and retain a talented workforce. Global conferencing is one such method. Not only is it affordable on its own, it can help to reduce hiring and training costs.

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International Conference Calls and Emergency Preparedness

International Conference Calls and Emergency PreparednessInternational Conference Calls and Emergency Preparedness

Whether you’re concerned about an earthquake in Haiti, a super typhoon in the Philippines, or an epidemic in Africa, global disasters are a fact of life. Some strike without warning while others are predictable. In either case, emergency preparedness can save lives and reduce losses. Whether you are involved in a non-profit organization or are serving on an international emergency preparedness planning committee, international conference calling can be used to communicate with others around the world before, during, and after an event.

Using International Conference Calls Before an Emergency

As with any major undertaking, a successful emergency response often results from extensive pre-emergency planning. While you have many communication and collaboration tools available in the emergency preparedness planning phase, global conference calls are an affordable, real-time choice that do not require any special technology or equipment. In fact, you can get no contract, pay-as-you-go access to exceptional international conference calling services.

Once you’ve signed up for an international conference calling plan, collaborating with other emergency response coordinators around the globe is a simple matter of dialing into a “conference room.” Each participant dials a phone number that’s local to their specific countries to access the global conference call. Depending on how your particular international conference calling plan works and your preferences, these international access numbers might even be toll free numbers. From there, each participant is prompted to enter the conference’s PIN number which then connects them to the call.

One of the benefits of using international conference calling is that you can record the calls and make them available to other participants afterward. For example, if a key team member can’t attend the call at the time, he could listen to it after the fact and receive the same information the rest of the team received earlier.

During the planning phase, you can use global conference calls for any number of purposes including:

  • Committee meetings
  • Volunteer orientation and training sessions
  • Coordinating shipments of supplies before an emergency
  • Conferencing with government officials
  • Conferencing with first responders
  • Conferencing with nonprofit organizations

Using International Conference Calls During an Emergency

While high winds, driving rain, floodwaters, and other perils wreak havoc on an area, it soon becomes apparent that it’s time to implement your plan. Unless you’re in the midst of the catastrophe, you can begin to mobilize your team by using international conference calling services.

In the case of a hurricane or typhoon where there’s usually a few days’ warning, you may want to schedule your global conference calls in advance to check in with the team periodically and start taking action.

In other cases, your global conference calls will need to take place on an impromptu basis. This is where an international conference calling service’s “moderator dial out” or automated dialing feature comes in handy. These features allow you to preprogram a group of participants and their phone numbers into the international conference calling system. When you need to hold an emergency conference call, there’s no need to send out email invitations and hope your participants receive the message and are able to dial into the call at the last minute. Instead, you initiate the global conference call and the system automatically dials each participant at the phone number you’ve already programmed in.

As with your earlier global conference calls, you can record your teleconference and make the recording available to other team members who missed the live call. Use international conference calling during an emergency to:

  • Inform your team that an emergency has occurred
  • Share information
  • Strategize
  • Delegate tasks
  • Coordinate relief efforts with other first responders, nonprofits, or governmental agencies

Using International Conference Calls After an Emergency

Global conference calls are also useful in the aftermath of an emergency as many of your team members will be traveling to and from the disaster site. In fact, some of your team members may find themselves in countries with substandard telecommunications networks or excessive international long distance costs during an airport layover. Not only can you issue these team members local or toll free numbers to use to access your global conference call from these countries, their calls will be routed over your international conference calling service provider’s reliable, high quality telecommunications network.

Use international conference calls after an emergency to:

  • Stay in touch with your team
  • Share new information
  • Coordinate shipments
  • Hold global press conferences
  • Connect international experts to locals on the ground

It’s important to note that international conference calling works with all types of phones including satellite phones. If the local telecommunications infrastructure is damaged, as it often is, satellite phones are a must. If you are on a humanitarian mission, you may even want to use your satellite phone in conjunction with international conference calling to help local survivors call their family members around the world.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of International Conference Calls

Many international collaborators rely on email for corresponding with others due to time zone differences. While email gets the job done, there’s often a large lag time.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of International Conference Calls The Advantages and Disadvantages of International Conference Calls

International conferencing provides business professionals, entrepreneurs, investors, celebrities, journalists, and other individuals with international contacts a cost-effective means of collaborating with their associates in other countries.

Using an international conferencing service provider allows for feature-rich collaboration, low per minute calling rates, and crystal clear connections. Whether you need to host international conferencing events on a regular basis or periodically, you can receive numerous benefits when you start holding conference calls.

As with most everything, a few downsides exist. However, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages of international conference calls.

The Advantages of International Conferencing

Less Time Traveling – More Time Collaborating: While meeting in person is certainly desirable, it’s not always practical. With international conferencing, you can interact with your global contacts in a group environment without having to leave the country. Instead of spending a good portion of your business week in airports, on international flights, and in expensive hotel rooms, pick up the phone, hold your teleconference, and get to the heart of the matter. Your call can last as long as you need it to last. Even if you spend eight full hours in a teleconference, you’ll still be ahead of the game thanks to the ability to make the call from your office.

Dramatically Lower Collaboration Costs: Obviously, eliminating international travel also eliminates international travel costs, making international conferencing economically appealing. In addition to cutting your own travel expenses, you won’t need to rent meeting room space to accommodate attendees. Everyone simply dials into the international conference call from their own offices, homes, or other locations.

Review and Share Your Teleconference: You can record your international conference call with just a button click. Use the MP3 file to review the conference later or share it with colleagues who were unable to attend the call at its scheduled time. Depending on the nature of the call, you might even want to create a podcast out of it or package it into an informational or coaching product.

International Conferencing Allows for Real-Time Collaboration

Many international collaborators rely on email for corresponding with others due to time zone differences. While email gets the job done, there’s often a large lag time. Using international conferencing, you can collaborate with others in real-time. Unfortunately, this is also one of the cons of international conferencing in that some participants may need to participate in the call outside of their normal business hours.

Teleconferencing Allows for More Personal Interactions: Being able to communicate with others over the phone allows for more personal interactions. Not only can you break the ice and get to know one another over the phone, you can hear each other’s voice inflections. Voice calls result in fewer misunderstandings than email.

The Cons of International Conferencing

Clearly, international conferencing is an excellent choice for anyone who regularly communicates with international contacts. However, there are a few disadvantages you should be aware of. Fortunately, these disadvantages of international conferencing can be overcome.

Since there are nearly 230 countries in the world, no conference call company can provide a local access number everywhere worldwide.  That said, if your global conference call plan has a worldwide dial-out feature, the chairperson can easily call the participant through the international bridge and instantly add that guest to the call.

All that’s required is the participant’s international phone number, landline or mobile to dial-out to.

Below are the toll-free and local access number countries offered with the Expanded International Conference Call plan.

This plan also includes the global dial-out feature so there is never a reason to be concerned about whether an access number is available in a country because the moderator can always dial-out to any country.

View more details about the Expanded Global Conference Call Plan here

Time Differences Can Make Scheduling a Conference Call Challenging: If you’re in Los Angeles and the people you need to meet with are in London, Australia, Japan, and India, scheduling international conferencing is going to be challenging. Some attendees will need to call into the teleconference at a time that is outside of their normal business hours. However, attendees do not need to remain in their offices late at night in order to participate. They can call from any phone, anywhere they may be.

Dialing Conventions Vary from Country to Country: Your international collaborators are used to dialing phone numbers a certain way. Giving them an international phone number to call can cause confusion, require operator assistance, and potentially deter participation due to cost concerns. You can overcome this disadvantage by using an international conferencing service that issues local access numbers or local toll free numbers. Each participant will be given a phone number local to their country. Opt for toll free access if you do not want your participants to pay to participate in the conference.

Calling Rates are High for Some Countries: As the host of an international toll free conference call, you’re right to be concerned about the per minute calling rates for some countries. You may be used to paying less than a nickel per minute for long distance calls and be shocked at some of the rates for other countries. Check the rates for the countries involved in your teleconference and highlight those that you consider too high. For those, use the moderator dial-out feature instead of having those participants call your toll free number. Moderator dial-out means you will call them (and you’ll pay quite a bit less as a result). You can pre-program moderator dial-out so that you do not need to scramble at the last minute to gather everyone into your teleconference.

International Conferencing Can Get Loud: Imagine a conference call with 20 people, all with co-workers chatting, phones ringing, or dogs barking in the background. That call  would indeed get noisy. Fortunately, mute and unmute features are easy to use and teach to the group. If any users fail to mute their lines when not speaking, the moderator can mute those lines individually.

As you can see, the advantages of international conferencing definitely outweigh the disadvantages. Plus, the disadvantages are easy to workaround with the right international conferencing plan.

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Coaching Calls Using International Conferencing

If you intend to share the conference call recording with others, keep confidentiality in mind. For example, if the call is between you and an employee who is struggling, that call should not be shared.

International Coaching CallsCoaching employees or counseling clients who have hired you as a coach doesn’t always require face-to-face meetings.

In fact, you can use international conferencing to deliver some coaching sessions over the phone.

Not only can your international conference call sessions help others develop their skills immediately, you could even record your sessions and help others do the same in the future. Of course, you’ll need to respect the confidentiality of your coachees if you do so. If you’re thinking about using international conferencing for coaching, these tips are for you.

Integrating International Conferencing into Your Coaching or Counseling Program

First, determine which sessions lend themselves to an international conferencing environment. For example, you might hold several training sessions at a live event and then follow up with monthly coaching calls via international conferencing.

Another option is to offer access to international coaching calls as an upsell to attendees at a seminar. Some coaches use conference calls exclusively for delivering coaching classes.

What types of coaching sessions lend themselves to international conferencing? Any session that does not require physical interaction or visual demonstrations is a good candidate for international conferencing. For example, if you are a fitness coach who needs to demonstrate how to perform certain exercises or stretches, international conferencing isn’t a good choice. However, if you are coaching other personal trainers on how to grow their businesses, then holding an international conference call could be effective.

Corporate trainers can also deliver personal development coaching sessions to employees as a general group. Smaller private coaching groups are also an option. For example, you could hold a coaching call for all regional sales managers around the world or you might invite only newly promoted managers to a call. The possibilities are endless.

Recording a Coaching Call

Most international conferencing plans include a call recording feature, allowing you to record the call for later. If you intend to record a call, you’ll want to be aware of some privacy issues first. Make sure to announce that the call will be recorded. Do this both when inviting attendees as well as at the beginning of the call.

If you intend to share the recording with others, keep confidentiality in mind. For example, if the call is between you and an employee who is struggling, that call should not be shared. On the other hand, a call where you discuss the latest sales techniques to a passive audience wouldn’t infringe on anyone’s privacy.

Another potential issue can occur when you have a guest or co-host on the coaching call. If you will be distributing the recording or using it for any other purpose other than for personal uses, it’s wise to have the other person sign a release form.

Holding an International Coaching or Counseling Call

Whether you’re holding a coaching call with a group of international employees or clients who have signed up to receive expert coaching from you, if you will be holding a coaching call using international conferencing, you’ll need to set up and plan the call.

Setting up international conferencing requires signing up with an international conferencing service provider. International conferencing plans make it easy for all participants to join the conference using phone numbers that are local to their countries. You can also set up the teleconference so that callers dial a toll free phone number that’s local to their countries. This eliminates confusion and concerns about calling internationally.

Since the coaching call will take place with participants from around the world, scheduling is going to be tricky. Use world time zone maps to figure out which times would work best for most participants. When you communicate the date and time of the coaching call, include the date in time in each participant’s local time to minimize confusion. If you have a small group, you could communicate this information with participants individually. For larger groups, you might include a master list of times by country and instruct participants to refer to the list for local call-in times.

Next, prepare a detailed agenda for the coaching call and distribute it to attendees. This is another opportunity to remind participants of the call’s time and date, access numbers, and other details. It is also a great way to reinforce your value as a coach and help your participants prepare for the call. By sending an agenda, they’ll know what to expect and how much time to allot for the conference.

Finally, hold the coaching session. Remember to remind participants if the call is being recorded and then follow your agenda. Do your absolute best to keep the call within its allotted time so that your coachees will realize that you respect their time. They’ll be more likely to participate in future coaching sessions via international conferencing if they know that your sessions are well-run.

International conferencing is a terrific medium for communicating with others around the world. It’s also a cost-effective alternative to holding face-to-face sessions.

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International Conference Calling Best Practices

International conferencing is notoriously difficult to coordinate, and you may be asked to call in at an unusual time of day.

International Conferencing Best Practices
International Conferencing

International Conference Calling Best Practices

Whether you will be hosting international conferencing calls or have been invited to one, an international conference call’s success depends in large part on how it’s been planned and organized as well as on the etiquette of its attendees. If you are a host, avoid holding a poorly planned teleconference by following these best practices for international conferencing hosts. If you are a participant, use the best practices tips for international conferencing attendees to ensure that you can contribute to the call’s success.

Best Practices for International Conferencing Hosts

Choose a high quality international conferencing service provider. Not all international conferencing services use high quality telecommunications networks. Poor connections, noise on the line, echoes, and other sound quality issues will adversely affect your global conference call. If the sound quality is bad enough, attendees will struggle to hear, or worse, abandon the meeting.

Schedule the international conferencing with convenience in mind. This isn’t always possible, but it should be attempted when possible. Use a world time zone map or world meeting planning tool to determine which block of time falls within business hours for most attendees.

Determine who needs to attend the call in real time. Not all international conferencing participants need to actively participate in real time. Consider who will be asked to speak and whether there will be an opportunity for questions and answers or other interactive exchanges. For example, you may decide that you want your regional sales managers present so that they can provide input and get their questions answered; however, their sales teams may not need to participate in the live call and could benefit by listening to a recording at their leisure. By limiting the call this way, you could reduce the number of participants on the call while offering them a more convenient means of obtaining the information that was discussed. This also reduces the overall cost of the call.

Treat international conferencing as you would treat a meeting. It’s helpful to create an agenda for the call and to actively monitor the call as it progresses. If you’ve allotted ten minutes to discuss a new regulation, for example, and fifteen minutes have passed, your call will likely run longer than expected unless you take action to keep the meeting on track. As the host of the call, it is your duty to keep the meeting on track.

Get familiar with the international conferencing tools available to you. For example, do you know how to mute a noisy phone line if the participant is unaware of the excess noise being blasted to the group? Do you know how to quickly and discreetly get operator assistance while running an international conference call? Do you know how to record your conference call? You may even want to practice using your international conferencing plan with a friend or colleague before you go live for the first time.

Best Practices for International Conferencing Attendees

As a conference call attendee, your duties are less involved than that of the host. However, you do play a role in the success of the call. Below are a few best practices for participants.

Prepare for the conference call. If the host has distributed an agenda or outline for the call, take a look at it a few days in advance. Think about the topic and how it applies to you. What do you expect to learn from the call? What ideas do you have that you might be able to contribute? What questions do you want to ask if the host doesn’t address them? If you’ve been asked to speak during the call, gather any supporting documents you may need (such as sales reports, study results, customer satisfaction ratings, etc.) and prepare your statements. Ask for clarification if you are unsure about what’s expected. For example, if you’ve been asked to discuss customer satisfaction ratings but weren’t told how much time you’ve been allotted to speak, ask the host how much time you have.

Be on time. International conferencing is notoriously difficult to coordinate, and you may be asked to call in at an unusual time of day. Even if you’re expected to call in at midnight, you should be prompt and ready to contribute.

Use a landline if possible. In some countries, the per minute cost of a call is dramatically higher for calls made using mobile phones. While the host may provide you with a toll free number, if you have access to a landline, using it instead of a mobile phone is a courteous gesture that can reduce the cost of the call for the host.

Find out how to mute and unmute your phone line. With potentially dozens of participants on an international conference call at once, background noise is a major problem. Each participant is expected to know how to mute their phone line when not speaking and then unmute it when it’s their turn to speak. It’s usually a simple matter of pressing *6 on your phone’s keypad.

Be respectful of the group. Most international conference calls are scheduled with an agenda that leaves room for questions at the end of the call. Write your questions down and  wait until the end to ask them. While it would be nice to be able to go through your list of questions one after another, make sure to give other people the chance to ask their questions as well. Because time is limited and you may not be able to ask all of your questions, determine which questions are the most urgent and ask those questions first.

International conferencing is a group effort. Whether you’re the host or an attendee, do your part to make the call a success.

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Using International Conferencing for Overseas Vendor Collaboration and Status

Using International Conferencing for Overseas Vendor Collaboration and Status

Overseas Vendor CcollaborationUsing International Conferencing for Overseas Vendor Collaboration and Status

With vendors located all over the globe, international conferencing becomes a vital tool in your supply chain management process. While numerous communications methods exist, being able to speak with multiple parties at once can ensure that nothing is overlooked or left to chance. At the same time, being able to hear each other’s tone of voice can prevent misunderstandings and lead to more personal relationships.

Why Use International Conferencing for Vendor Collaboration and Status?

If you only need to speak with one vendor located in another country, using a traditional phone will do the job. However, when other parties such as other vendors, trade consultants, freight forwarders, brokers, and regional team members need to join the call, a traditional phone system may not be the best choice. For starters, your phone system may not be able to support more than a handful of callers at once. In addition, your vendors may face hurdles or restrictions in dialing an international phone number.

An international conference call can overcome these problems. With an international conferencing plan, you can host low-cost global conference calls with as many participants as you would like.

International conferencing overcomes international dialing problems by offering local and toll free numbers for hundreds of countries around the world. This means that your vendors will dial either a local or a toll free number (depending on how you set up the call) that is local to their countries. If you opt for toll free international conferencing, you will be charged per minute, per participant based on each participant’s countries’ calling rates. Alternately, you could set up the international conferencing system to automatically dial each participant’s phone number at the scheduled time. This option works well when calling costs are high as it usually results in a lower per minute rate.

Not only does international conferencing overcome many dialing issues, using a teleconference to collaborate with vendors allows for real-time discussions in an engaging, productive environment. For example, if you need to solve a problem within your supply chain, a teleconference is perfect for asking questions, getting answers, clarifying expectations, and providing guidance.  It can also ensure that everyone is on the same page as well as prevent you from having to repeat yourself to multiple participants. You can also record your international conference calls to share with involved parties who might not have been able to participate in person.

Holding More Productive Vendor Meetings with International Conferencing

While international conferencing is easy to set up and use, your time, and the time of your vendors, is valuable. In addition to being respectful of time, holding more productive vendor teleconferences can reduce your international conferencing costs. Though international conferencing is a low-cost alternative to travel, you will incur costs with each conference call you host. Since you pay by the minute per participant, running an efficient teleconference can make a bigger difference than you may realize.

Start by determining the answers to the following questions:

▪ What is the purpose of the call? What is the desired outcome of the call?

▪ Who should attend? Will there be language barriers? Is a translator available?

▪ Will others need time to speak to the group? For example, an engineer may be better able to explain a component’s specs to a manufacturer than you would. If so, it makes sense to invite the engineer to address the vendors during the conference call.

▪ What questions do you need answered?

▪ Which tasks will be assigned and to whom?

▪ What supporting documents should be distributed prior to the call?

▪ How much time should the call last and is this sufficient for the call’s purpose?

▪ What countries are involved? What time zones? What time and date is the most practical for those involved?

▪ Would a recording of the teleconference be helpful to attendees after the fact?

The answers to these questions should guide you in designing an agenda for the call and scheduling it. By defining the purpose and expected outcome in advance, you can then create a focused agenda that moves the teleconference strategically from one key point to the next.

Once you’ve identified who should attend the teleconference, determine if their attendance is absolutely necessary. This can help you in scheduling the call around the most important participants’ schedules and time zones. For example, if you have several vendors in China who absolutely must attend and a warehouse supervisor in Long Beach whose attendance would be nice but not mandatory, you may want to coordinate timing with the vendors in China first to ensure a workable time period for the teleconference. For those secondary individuals who may not need to attend the call in person, consider sending them an MP3 recording of the call to listen to later.

Using international conferencing to communicate with vendors overseas

It is a great way to collaborate and build stronger working relationships. It is also an affordable choice that does not require any travel or specialized equipment. By spending some time planning your international conferencing agenda, you can guide the group through the meeting with focus and purpose.

In addition, a well-planned teleconference respects everyone’s time and keeps international conferencing costs within your desired budget. Make sure everyone is on the same page by using international conferencing regularly for overseas vendor collaboration and status.

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International Conferencing and the Legal Industry

Not only can you host conference calls with numerous participants from around the world, you can do so without overseas travel.

International Conferencing and the Legal IndustryLegal Industry Conference Calls

International phone conferencing provides attorneys with a robust communications solution to costly international flights. If you need to fly in an expert witness from another country or travel to another nation to negotiate a contract, consider using an international conferencing service instead. Not only can you communicate with numerous participants from around the world in a teleconference, you can do so without the hassles of international travel.

Types of Events Suitable for International Conference Calls

Teleconferencing is an excellent choice for busy attorneys who want to conserve both time and resources. Many routine meetings can be handled via an international conference call including the following:

  • Client meetings – If your firm has clients located around the world, clients who travel frequently, or attorneys who travel frequently, international conferencing allows for group phone calls with all involved parties no matter where they may be located. Whether you have a new client located in France, an attorney on vacation in Belize, and a senior partner working out of New York City, everyone can gather together in a private teleconference at the appointed time.
  • Expert witnesses – Need to interview an expert witness from Europe as you build your case in the United States? Using international conferencing is an affordable choice that does not require any special equipment on anyone’s part. Each participant uses a standard or mobile telephone, dials the access number, and is joined into the conference call. You and your colleagues can ask questions, get clarification, and get a feel for the witness’s tone of voice and demeanor without having to travel. In addition, you can record the call or even have a court reporter present.
  • Audio depositions – Can’t wait until a witness returns from an overseas trip to hold the deposition? Consider using an international conference call to hold an audio deposition. Again, you, the deponent, a court reporter, and other attorneys may be located in different countries. However, by using international conferencing, you can also speak to one another in a group conference call.
  • Contract negotiations – If you need to be involved in multiparty contract negotiations, you may be able to accomplish a great deal of work in an international conference call. Not only can everyone involved join in the call from whichever country they may be in at the time, you can record the call for later as well as have the MP3 recording of the call transcribed if desired.

Meetings, interviews, depositions, and contract negotiations are just a few of the many ways that you can use international conferencing in your law firm. Other possibilities include collaboration with senior partners and overseas vendors, training and motivational sessions, strategy planning sessions, and even sales meetings with prospective clients. The options are virtually endless!

The Benefits of Using International Conferencing

You can hold any number of group interactions using a global conference call. Doing so can lead to numerous benefits including the following:

▪Less travel – Less travel means reduced travel expenses and increased productivity. For example, if you need to fly across the ocean once a month to meet with a VIP client living abroad, international conferencing can save your firm thousands of dollars each month in travel expenses. In addition, since you won’t be spending several days in transit each month, you will have more hours available for other clients. Reduce costs and increase billable hours by choosing international conferencing as often as possible.

▪Easy international dialing – With international conferencing, participants can dial unique phone numbers to reach your teleconference. What makes these numbers so special? They are specific to the callers’ countries. For example, a caller in Spain can dial a toll free number that adhere’s to Spain’s dialing conventions while a caller in the United States might dial a U.S. 1-800 number to connect to the same teleconference. This is especially helpful in addressing qualms about international calling costs as well as in helping callers connect to a conference call without needing operator assistance.

▪Easy MP3 recordings – Recording an international conference call is simple if your calling plan supports MP3 recordings. Having a recording of the call allows attorneys to review the call later or get the call transcribed if desired.

What to Look for in an International Conferencing Plan when associated with the Legal Profession

As a member of the legal profession, you need a reliable communications method free of advertisements, interference, and expensive long-term contracts. Fortunately, it is possible to get a high quality international conferencing plan that does not require a contract or impose monthly minimum usage requirements. Depending on your intended use, you can either get toll free or local access numbers specific to each user’s country. Keep in mind that rates vary based on the countries involved and that some countries have lower rates than others. If a country’s rates are higher than expected, you can use moderator dial out to call participants in those countries and get a better per minute rate.

International conferencing is a cost-effective way for attorneys to communicate with clients, partners, vendors, other attorneys, and other people located around the world. Whether you need to collaborate, negotiate, or interview witnesses, choosing a pay-as-you-go international conferencing plan provides you with options.

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International Conferencing as a Sales Tool

With a toll free international conference call, each participant is assigned a toll free number to dial from their own country.

International Conferencing as a Sales Tool
International Conferencing as a Sales Tool

International Conferencing as a Sales Tool

Selling products and services to businesses located in other countries, by its nature, is more complicated than selling to a business located closer to home. While you may have the resources to travel occasionally or hire an in-country sales representative, there will be times when you need to pitch a new offer personally or intervene to close the deal from afar. Hopping on an airplane is an option, but it’s a costly one both in terms of money and time. International conferencing is a robust alternative that will save you both.

International conferencing is a teleconferencing service designed specifically to accommodate international participants. Access numbers to the teleconference are either local or toll free to each individual’s country, and call quality is exceptional despite extended geographic distance.

Determining When International Conferencing is Appropriate

Using international conferencing is easy for the moderator and participants alike, and it’s appropriate for any number of sales scenarios.

In general, consider using teleconferencing after you’ve warmed prospects up. In other words, it’s not the best choice for cold calling. Use other methods to warm the prospect up and schedule an extended sales consultation via international conferencing.

Teleconferencing is also suitable for introducing new products and services to existing customers, presenting progress reports, receiving feedback, resolving issues, and holding international focus groups.

You can also use global teleconferencing in conjunction with a face-to-face meeting with local sales rep from your company. For example, if your local representative needs support or additional information, holding international conferencing could be an excellent choice.

Who Needs to Be on the Call?

After determining that international conferencing is an appropriate choice, the next step is to determine who needs to be on the phone call. In the example above, your local sales rep, the customer, and you would come together in an international conference call. Do others need to be available? Are there other decision makers that need to be convinced? Are there other individuals from your company who can better explain your product’s unique features? Would it be helpful to have a translator present?

Take the time to determine exactly who should be present in advance as you will later need to schedule the teleconference around the participants’ hectic schedules. Because of time differences and other factors, some participants may not be able to attend the call live, so identify the key players who absolutely need to attend and those whose presence would be helpful but not essential.

The Importance of Toll Free Conference Call Access

When it comes to international conferencing, you have two choices as far as international access to the teleconference goes: toll free or local access numbers. In a sales environment, toll free access is crucial. Not only does a toll free number reassure your customers and prospects that they will not incur expensive international long distance charges, it looks professional. A toll free number shows that you’re serious about taking care of your customers. It also conveys the feeling that you do not want to inconvenience them.

In addition to providing a no-cost means of attending your international conference call, toll free access also makes it much easier for your international attendees to place the call. As you likely know, dialing conventions vary from one country to the next, making it confusing to place a call to another country. With a toll free international conference call, each participant is assigned a toll free number from their own countries. The number is immediately recognizable as being toll free and it’s familiar looking because it follows that country’s dialing conventions. Attendees do not need to think twice about dialing the call, nor will they need operator assistance.

Coordinating an International Conference Call

Once you have determined the purpose of the call, who needs to attend, and that you want to provide toll free access, it’s time to schedule the actual event. Use your list of participants that you identified earlier and write down which countries they will be calling from. Use a world time zone map or other tool to identify the time zones of each attendee.

Once you have the various countries and their time zones identified, look to see if there’s any particular time that you can schedule the call during business hours for all attendees. In many cases, this will be impossible due to geography, but in some cases it’s doable or nearly doable. Because the call involves a customer or prospect, make sure to schedule the call so that it is most convenient for the customer or prospect.

Ask your customer what time works best out of a short list of suggested times and then schedule the call around the customer’s choice. If this means that you need to set your alarm clock to wake you up at 3:00 AM in order to accommodate an international customer, then that’s what you’ll need to do. Schedule the call, distribute the call’s details to each participant (including time and date in local time, toll free access numbers, and PIN code), and prepare for the teleconference.

Using Your Plan’s Features

Finally, the time has arrived. Use the features of your international conferencing plan to enhance the call. For example, if some of the participants cannot make it to the teleconference, use the plan’s call recording feature to record the call for later.

Another useful feature to be aware of is muting. At the beginning of the call, instruct attendees how to mute and unmute their phones to eliminate distracting background noises. If someone forgets, you can manually mute a line using your live conference management tools. If you need technical help at any point during the teleconference, take advantage of operator assistance as needed. This allows you to return your attention to your customer while the operator assists you or other attendees.

International conference calls can quickly and easily bring together a diverse group for sales presentations, customer feedback, progress reports, focus groups, and other sales scenarios. It’s a cost-effective choice that saves both time and money while allowing you to communicate in a more personable manner.

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Global access numbers for international conference calls

Expanded plan conference call country access
Expanded global access network for international conference calls

Global access numbers for international conference calls

With 100+ country access numbers, international conference calls with participants located in any country is here.

It’s never been easier to host conference calls with attendees in faraway places.

Even somewhat obscure country toll-free conference call access numbers are available such as Latvia, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, Tajikistan, Sri Lanka, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and many more.

This means that the geographical location of your conference call guest is becoming less important because of expanded toll-free and local access number availability worldwide.

View the Legacy Plan 65 Countries – country list and rates

View the Expanded Plan 105+ Countries – country list and rates

Post by American International Telephonics LLC.

How to host Global Conference Calls

Host a Global Conference CallHosting Global Conference Calls

Whether you’re overseas and urgently need to speak with your team back at home or have associates scattered around the world, hosting an international conference call is a fast, affordable way to have a conversation with a group of two or more people.

However, making an international conference call isn’t as simple as making a traditional phone call. Rest assured, it’s still easy, especially if you have a reliable, no-contract-required international conference call plan.

Why Choose a No-Contract international conference call?

Conference calling plans typically come in two flavors: contract-based and no contract plans. With a contract-based plan, you must sign up for a specific time period and pay a monthly fee for a predetermined number of conference calling minutes. With a no contract plan, you are not locked into a plan or required to maintain the plan in any way; you simply pay as you go. If you only need to make one international conference call a year, a no contract plan allows for this without penalizing you. If you need to make a 100 international conference calls a month, you can do that too.

How to Initiate an International Conference Call

Once you have a calling plan, you can either preschedule your international conference call or hold an impromptu one. In either case, your attendees will need to be invited to the call. Start by scheduling the call in your international conference calling plan’s account management dashboard. Once scheduled, you can then email the call’s details to the people you’d like to attend.

These details will include:

  • The call’s date and time
  • The phone number to call in the guests country
  • The conference’s PIN number

Because of the global nature of the international teleconference, many of your attendees will be located in different countries. This brings a few challenges to overcome including: time zone issues and toll free access problems. Thus, you’ll need to address each.

For example, a 2:00pm call originating in Los Angeles will take place at 11:00pm in Rome. To further complicate matters, that same call will occur on a different date if you have participants located on the other side of the International Date Line. For example, it would be scheduled for 5:00am in Singapore. Not only is it important to be aware of these differences, you should provide attendees with the correct time and date for their local time.

The next issue to overcome is the actual phone number itself. If you plan on offering toll free access to the international conference call, you can’t simply give everyone the same American 800 number because that number won’t work internationally. Instead, each country has its own toll free numbers. Therefore, your callers in Rome will dial a different toll free number than your callers in Singapore.

The numbers used to access your teleconference ring into the service providers conference calling bridge. In order to connect your attendees into the correct “conference room,” a PIN or access code is used. Each attendee must tell the conference calling bridge which conference room they want to join; they do so by entering the PIN or access code assigned to your conference when you originally scheduled it.

If this sounds complicated, don’t worry. Your international conference calling plan handles most of this for you. You’ll be given a list of toll free numbers and PINs to share with participants.

Alternately, you could use the automated group dial-out feature to pre-program the phone numbers of your call’s attendees. When it’s time for your conference call to begin, the automated group dial-out tool will automatically call all of your participants and prompt them to join the teleconference.

Recording Your International Conference Call

Many conference call hosts choose to record their calls. Recording calls ensures that attendees have the opportunity to review the call later if desired, and it also allows absentee participants to listen in after the fact. In some cases, call recording is used for documentation purposes whereas in others, it’s used as a training or educational tool.

For example, if your international conference call is intended to provide your team with formal training, it makes sense to record the call and the reuse it later when new team members need to participate in the same training. This can free the facilitator of the training from having to conduct a second (or third, fourth, fifth, etc.,) training session covering the same information. It can also ensure consistency as all team members will hear the same message.

Hosting an international conference call is a great way to stay connected with a globally diverse group of people. Not only is it an affordable option that’s available on a no contract, pay-as-you-go basis, it’s easy to use. Extra features such as auto dial-out and MP3 recording make using an international conference call system even easier and more beneficial.

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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.

Global Conference Call Details…

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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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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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.

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