How Can AT&T Conference Call Improve Your Business

It doesn’t have to be an AT&T version to bridge your conference call but if your local telephone company is an AT&T or SBC, then their local service will help you.

Consider bundling with different calling plans, and even ask if there are preferential treatment to receive advertising spot for their local Yellowpages.

Often times telephone companies run promotions to include bundle of services together. Good thing about going with a company like AT&T is that because they are a publicly traded company and they spend time about reputation, every customer who deals with them will be treated fairly. It’s rare you’ll be the only business that will get “ripped off” by it.

With conference calls, you can connect not only the local businesses, but your counter parts far and wide, even international callers can join in a bridged call.

Finding the Best AT&T Conference Calling Plan For Your Business

Whichever plan you end up signing up, be sure to remember that AT&T charges not only fee for minute, but also for every connection.

If you’re having a conference call with everyone you know, go for the “Reservationless” Conference Calling plan. You pay $0.10 for everyone you know and regardless of what time everyone connects to the call, everyone gets in as they arrive.

If you’re holding a call that’ll involve many callers that you don’t personally know, you might hire an AT&T employee to introduce them to the conference line. The cost of hiring an operator is twice as much at $0.24 per call, per connection.

Web Meeting is something you must employ if you’re doing any type of web conference calling. However, for Web Meeting, you might consider googling for competitive services that only specialize in Web Meeting conference calls.

AT&T’s version of Web Meeting is $0.25 per minute per call. It’s reasonable but certainly not the cheapest. Since you have no trying out to experience the need for your call prior to the use, you end up receiving recommendation by their sales reps who may not accurately understand your business environment.

If you use Web Meeting, you’re able to not only record the detail of the call but with screen capture software, such as Camtasia or Microsoft Powerpoint, you’ll be able to broadcast your presentation during a conference call and record it for future use.

Before attempting to connect to a conference call for the first time, be sure to check your PC’s capability to display screen, sound and visual aids. Check this prior to a meeting so that you don’t get billed and end up nothing to show because of your inability to prevent technical difficulty.

With AT&T’s calling plan, each caller gets connected and you get billed for each connection.

In other words, if the caller plan charges you $0.14 per call and per connection, a conference with 10 callers will cost you $1.40 every minute you bridge the call.

It may be a good idea to hold meeting in a conference room and have a speaker phone ready so that you won’t have to hold multiple lines for each and every call you connect.

You can look for a discounted and used conference call equipment at ebay or simply ask your local telephone company for discontinued inventory of such equipment. Often they’ll give a great deal on something that was never used.

If in doubt, reach a AT&T rep by calling toll free 866-800-8480 Monday through Friday 9am to 7pm EST.

Additional Points to Consider Are:

Before signing up for a service, shop around with local and smaller competitor for better deals.
Ask for referrals from businesses in the same industry as yours, who they use and what plan they’re on.
Get a hold of your IT guy and have him check on the phone’s requirement for holding a conference call.
See if you sign up for a longer term, you qualify for better deals for other services offered by AT&T.
Find out if they offer a trial agreement that has no strings attached.