Conference Call Savings

Is There Really Such a Thing As Free Conferencing?

Free conference calls sound so good, especially if you are a small business or charitable organization. The problem is that free conference calls are never truly free. These services must find a way to make money somehow to pay for the cost of running the business.

How Do Free Conference Call Services Make Money?

“Free” conference call services are financed in three main ways. They make money by displaying advertisements during a conference, selling professional service packages, or they are simply long-distance phone companies using “free” conferencing in order to get your long-distance phone dollars.

What About Free Trials?

In some cases, a free trial is truly free. You may end up paying some small fees if your usage goes over the free allotted time or dollar amount offered in the promotion. Free trials are a great way to try out a conferencing provider and get comfortable before you pay anything. If a free trial gives you conferencing but wants you to pay for any other attached service, it may not be the best “free” offer for you.

What About Call Quality?

Some conferencing providers offer dependable service, but with very limited capabilities. While the call quality is good, these providers encourage you to upgrade to professional services at every turn, often at a premium price. Sites that are funded only through advertising have very slim margins and small technology budgets. For this reason, calls on advertising-funded networks may suffer from poor call quality, with echoes and sound distortions. These networks cannot afford dedicated IPs for the conferencing services, sending audio signals over the same line as other Internet connections. This disrupts the signal and causes problems with call quality.

Customer Service and Support

You are more likely to get good service and support from a provider that offers a free, scaled-down version of its professional conferencing package. These providers want you to upgrade to paid services, so they are likely to offer good service. Long distance carriers that offer free conferencing can be hit or miss on customer service. It really depends on the company. As far as advertising funded services, customer service is nearly non-existent.

Free conferencing services offer some good opportunities to try new services and find one that fits your needs. As a permanent solution to conferencing, there is no truly “free” conferencing service.