Recently, I experienced an issue with a company that I was dealing with on a personal level. This company was a fairly reputable company, and I had purchased some items for future delivery. When the items failed to show up as promised, I called in again.  Apparently, there was a delay.  It would be three weeks later.  When I asked for the charge on my credit card to be reversed until that time, I was told that it would be done that day.  After two days and no credit issued, I called again.  This time, I was told that I would receive a call from a manager that morning.  After 2:00PM that day, I called back and asked to speak to a manager again.  This time, I was told that I would be called back in thirty minutes.  Finally, the head of the store called.  Once I had him on the phone, I explained my situation (quite upset by this time) and he assured me that he would personally take care of it.  After about fifteen minutes, he called back and informed me that he had personally contacted the supplier and taken care of setting up delivery for our items the following week.

Dealing with our salesman, his manager, the other manager, and the “office manager” had yielded no results. Dealing with the store manager had the issue taken care of very quickly. With one phone call to the supplier, he was able to do what none of the others had been able to do in a week.  Why is it that we have to yell and scream until we get to the top of the chain before we finally get what we need???

As I was pondering this, I remembered why AccuConference strove to be different from these other companies. The service. AccuConference staffs customer service for 20 hours a day, and also weekends – not just business hours.  AccuConference employees are both knowledgeable and helpful, with each being completely empowered to make a decision to help any customer at any time.  No more “let me get my manager’s approval”…  AccuConference customer service are fully capable of handling any situation – and if they don’t know the answer, they can find out and will make good on their promises to call back.

Last week, I was given a decision for a major supplier for our company. In one hand was the big company that could give us a good price. They had been around for a long time, but it seems that every time we speak to one of their people, they have to get with someone and then get with someone else before calling me back.  Every time I call, the person that I was previously speaking with is no longer with the company.

In contrast, we were looking at another, smaller and newer supplier. This company was slightly more expensive than the big company, but we had been dealing with their people on another product for years. Their team is top-notch.  Whenever we have an issue, it gets resolved quickly.  They always answer their phones, and I have the cell phone numbers for their top support people on speed dial.  They don’t mind dropping what they are doing to help us, and have been a rock for our company for many, many years.

Despite the slightly increased price, the service made the decision easy to choose the smaller company with the good people. We are given a quality product, and an excellent support team that makes our business function better and easier.  This is what AccuConference is all about, and why we continue to deliver a top quality product day-in and day-out.

web conferencing is a new product specifically designed to enhance the conferencing experience for AccuConference audio accountholders by allowing you to share PowerPoint presentations over the web. It has been demonstrated that including a PowerPoint presentation with your audio conference significantly increases the attention span of your participants.

Web Conferencing light is included in all audio conferencing accounts at no extra charge. It’s time to take advantage of this service and add an exciting new element to your conferences!

During a conference call, there is generally nothing worse than hearing echo being introduced into a call.  Participants will hear what sounds like good quality audio, but twice (or more) as a result of this.  Conference call hardware generally has two classes of equipment: those with "echo cancellation" or without.  The quality of the call can be significantly degraded on systems without the echo cancellation.

AccuConference uses state of the art DSP technology (Digital Signal Processors) that employ an echo cancellation algorithm.  The result is that echo is significantly reduced during a conference call.  There are always things that will introduce echo no matter what, such as putting a phone in the same room as another phone in the conference call.  Telephone microphones are very sensitive and even the slightest sound can be picked up and echoed to the other phone and amplified.  Cellular phones are notorious for this, as there is an inherent delay introduced with a wireless network.  As a result, AccuConference recommends never having two participants in the same room, unless both are muted.  The result is that the quality of the call will be the highest possible.

AccuConference provides superior technology that virtually eliminates the problems associated with bridging large numbers of participants onto a single call. Our bridges regularly handle calls up to 1000 participants, and have the capability of handling much more when necessary. As a result, customers can rest assured that the quality of the call will not be affected by adding more callers to the conference. Each caller will hear the highest possible quality signal from the speaker, whether it is a 3 person conference, or a 300 person conference.

We highly recommend that customers utilize the *5 lecture mode for more than 10 participants on a conference. This allows the speakers and moderators to better control the people that speak into a call. Without it, a call could have any number of the problems listed above introduced, since the number of potential problems increases with the number of phones connected.

AccuConference also provides a unique feature known as “Live Queued Q&A”. This feature allows the participants on a large call to speak one-at-a-time into the conference. The moderator simply announces that the call is now open for questions and answers (Q&A) and instructs participants to press *1 to ask a question. Via the live web-based conference screen, a moderator can see who has asked a question, how many questions are remaining, and where the callers are calling from. To take a question, the moderator simply clicks on the “Take Next Question” link. The participant hears a message instructing them to “Please ask your question now.” They are then unmuted automatically, and allowed to speak into the conference. Once the question has been answered by the speakers, the “Take Next Question” link can be clicked again, muting the first question and allowing the next one to speak. This feature is very popular on large conferences, allowing individuals to participate in the call, without introducing noise or quality issues.