While on Twitter yesterday, I ran across a company touting their free conferencing services. It made me think…why do we pay for conferencing services when we can get them for free? Free services offer a very important benefit — there’s no cost involved. But is it really true?
Customer Service
Let’s say you are Web conferencing with an important customer in Asia at 2am and your slides aren’t loading into the system properly. It would be unacceptable if you were not able to contact customer support and request immediate assistance. With many free services there is limited or no customer support. It would be very expensive in the long run if you were not able access an informed, properly trained, 24/7 customer service team when you most needed support.
Reliability and Scalability
We can also consider reliability and scalability. It is important to have a conferencing company with a proven track record and solid technology when communicating with your customers and employees, your most important assets. Scalability, the ability to add more people to your conference, is essential in a good conferencing product. Most free services allow a very limited number of participants on a conference call. Paid services, on the other hand, allow you to have thousands of participants on a call.
Security
And what about security? These days many companies are conducting investor relations events, board meetings, and executive conferences, using conferencing technologies. It would certainly be costly if this highly privileged information were leaked or stolen. Paying for your conferencing services can give you confidence that you will have protection against these occurrences.
In these instances of free versus paid, it is best to weigh your options and decide what makes the most sense for your company. Different users have different needs and the ones listed here are just the tip of the iceberg. Have you tried both paid and free conferencing tools? When it comes to functionality and features, what’s your experience? Share your comments and thoughts with me at jill.sciulli@premiereglobal.com.
Funny cow picture! I couldn't resist.
Tags: free audio conference, free audio conferencing, free conference call, free conference calling, free web conferencing
