A modern business can become dysfunctional if there are less-than-perfect means to collaborate, team up and communicate among the team members. While face to face meetings and round table conferences are not possible in busy schedules, conference calls become a valuable collaboration tool to stick to the work processes. With a good provider, even remotely located people and groups can easily connect and drop into a virtual meeting platform. However, it is necessary to understand that all conference call services haven’t been equally created. Each comes with a unique set of benefits and features. Pricing too gets into the picture when choosing the best providers. Well, here are the top 5 conference call services providers companies to consider.
#1 – Conference Calling:
Among the most popular services, Conference Calling offers the best audio calling quality and teleconferencing capabilities. This is also one of the earliest conference calling platforms and with time, the service has evolved in terms of upgrades to features and plans. Conference Calling supports as many as 300 participants at a time and costs just 2 cents for every minute you spend on a call. The company offers two types of call, namely, operator assisted calls and instant conference.
Operator assisted calls involve a third party setting up the meeting, inviting the participants, back up the bandwidth and even help in the Q&A section of the audio presentation. This is perfect for large businesses and institutions addressing a lot of attendees at a single time. Instant conference however allows you to schedule your own meeting, whenever it’s necessary. Plus, you get features to mute calls, record the, playback and even see call reports.
Operator assisted calls however require paying a little more than 2 cents for every minute for each participant.
#2 – Infinite Conferencing:
Infinite Conferencing too provides both operator assisted calls and instant conferencing. However, while operator assisted calls allow the participation of 1000 attendees; instant conferencing limits the participation to 300. Highly reliable and user friendly service, Instant Conferencing is perfect for both large and small businesses. The service also adds features like feeding your customized greeting message, phone number, participates in polling (hand raising), document sharing and coupled with an excellent customer support.
Reservation less calls on Instant Conferencing costs 3 cents per minute and a little more for operator assisted calls. The service further allows you to call more than 50 countries across the globe.
Also Read: 7 Best VOIP Service Providers for Small & Medium Businesses
#3 – WebEx:
Offering the most advanced in interactive conferencing, WebEx is among the easiest and user-friendly services. WebEx, as many of you would already know isn’t a true conference calling service. It specializes in web meetings and webinars but also supports audio conferencing as a part of the service. A maximum of 100 participants are allowed on a reservation less call but will provide all the functionalities you would expect out of a telephonic meeting. WebEx also provides toll and toll-free numbers that allow dialing from any part of the world. There is no limit to the number of conference calls. Another important feature with WebEx is that you can share the responsibility of the meeting to a set of presenters, who will be presenting the plans, strategies and ideas for the talk. The service also supports recording and playback.
#4 – AccuConference:
Another feature filled conference call provider, AccuConference offers international calling, a user friendly dashboard, file sharing and other interactive features. You even get the option for toll free conferencing from any part of the world. When on a conference call, participants can view the participant list and also go for call recording and playback at a later time. A maximum of 149 participants are allowed in a reservation less call, costing 4 cents per minute. Another important service to mention here would be blocked entry. This requires all participants to have a password to join the call and restricts unwanted participation. As such the meeting is confined between people who are actually authorized.
The customer support with AccuConference is also impressive and features live chat support, email and telephonic customer care.
#5 – ConferenceGenie:
Conference Genie offers a wide set of features that include an easy setup process. The calling comes in three different packages, namely, Go, Plus and Pro. Go is for instant conference wherein you are provided with a PIN and dial in on entering the email address associated with the account. Plus and Pro packages however add more features including seeing live callers, dial out participants, monthly statements on calls and organizing cost management. The Go package of Conference Genie is open to call bombing wherein unknown participants too can drop in but Plus and Pro are more secure and meant for business use.
The maximum participation is limited to 30 and costs a minimum of 4.3p every minute (from landlines) and 12.5p every minute (from mobiles). You will also have to pay a bit extra to opt for the dial-out and similar features. While this may look intimidating for some, the cost of international attendees can be highly cheap with Conference Genie.
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