Best Conference Call Services For Business

Online meetings and web conferences aren’t just for large corporations anymore. Video conferencing enable communication between just a few people to literally thousands. Currently there is a whole host of extremely capable and polished VoIP applications available offering free calls pc to pc and very cheap calls pc to landlines and cell phones. Here is the list of application/software that enables you to make free conference calls/video conferencing anywhere in the world. 

What are your favorite VOIP or conference call services (for calls, not necessarily video/meetings) and why?

The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with City, the YEC recently launched #Startup Lab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

 FreeConferencePro

In addition to providing free conference calls, this company will record a custom greeting for you for free. And when clients and partners dial into your conference line, they’ll hear your company name instead of a generic greeting.

- Pete Kennedy, Main Street ROI

Grasshopper

We love Grasshopper given its ease of use, low cost and excellent customer service support. I travel all over the world and like the fact that the calls are routed well with no issues whatsoever. - Derek Capo, Next Step China

UberConference

I love UberConference. - Peter Awad, GoodBlogs

Well-designed interface with excellent visual caller management; limited to only ten call participants on the free plan.

PROS

Excellent visual display for easy call management

Integrated social media functionality

Call muting and ‘earmuff’ feature for private conversations

Built-in document sharing for real time collaboration

Post call analytics

Operates on desktop browsers with no software downloads required

Smart phone app for iPhone, iPad and Android devices

CONS

Free subscription is limited to ten call participants

No BlackBerry app currently available

Designed by the tech wizards behind Google Voice, UberConference presents something of a revolution in free voice conferencing. The beauty of UberConference is in its visual interface that lets you know who is connected to the call, and identifies who is speaking at any time.

Photos of callers are presented in your display and small icons indicate their status. You can also break out of the conference for a private talk with a single participant with the ‘earmuff’ feature and mute any of the callers to eliminate a noisy line or turf a rogue participant.

Particularly strong is UberConference’s integration with document sharing services Evernote and Box. This allows you to share documents in call and collaborate with your call participants in real time in what is a truly interactive conference call.

Another excellent feature is the social media integration that is built into each caller’s profile you see on your display screen. Simply click on the appropriate icon during a call to reveal a participant’s career background via LinkedIn or their latest Twitter comments in real time. As part of the free subscription, you also receive call analytics at the end of the call, and as the system is compatible with most desktop browsers, there’s no need to download any software to get started.

The major limitation of the free service is that it’s restricted to just ten call participants.  On the plus side, the Pro subscription is well priced at just $10 per month and allows up to 100 call participants. You also get a local phone number with a user-specified area code, a call recording service and outbound dialing.

 Flowroute

When I was shopping around for VOIP for calls, I was most impressed with Flowroute. - John Hall, Influence & Co.

Join.me

It combines screen-sharing, chat, multi-monitor functions, recording, annotating and more to provide a meeting tool that is very accessible and intuitive. - Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

FreeConferenceCall.com

It also doesn’t hurt that it’s free, with upgrades available of course.
- Andy Karuza, Brandbuddee

Host up to 96 call participants for free; poor visual call management and limited features.

PROS

Host up to 96 call participants for free

Free call recording, plus a call playback feature

Free iPhone and Android smartphone apps

Operates on desktop browsers with no software downloads required

CONS

Poor visual management of callers

Outdated user interface

No in-call document sharing or collaboration

Limited features

The big benefit here is that you can host up to 96 call participants for up to six hours at a time, for free. This far exceeds the free caller limits of other service providers and if volume is important to your business, then FreeConferenceCall is ideal.

You also get free call recording — your calls can be download in WAV or MP3 formats and call participants can also access call recordings by call a playback number. And free iPhone and Android smartphone apps make it easy to take your conference calls mobile.

The visual interface is well behind other free conference call service providers and offers no real way to visually manage your callers – which can quickly become a problem when you’re hosting very large conference calls.

Navigation feels prehistoric compared with other platforms available, and you also miss out on a lot of the more sophisticated features that you get with other service providers, such as efficient document sharing, easy real-time collaboration and social media integration.

GoToMeeting

- Phil Laboon, Clear Sky SEO

Lync

Lync is Microsoft’s new Office 365 WebEx replacement. While normally a loyal Apple fan, I think that this new conference service from Microsoft is good. It makes it easy to have your entire team on the same page through chat, audio, video and presentations. And because both Lync and Skype are Microsoft products, they work together seamlessly.
- Michael Costigan, Youth Leadership Specialist

Google Hangouts

We typically use Google Hangouts for conference calls regardless of whether or not they have a video component. The service is free and reliable, and everyone trusts Google. The app works great on mobile devices and has no issues with international participants. - Adam Lieb, Duxter

 Skype

Skype is a free VOIP (voice over IP – which means you talk through the internet). You can easily join Skype, download their software onto your computer, and invite others to join.  Skype also provides low-cost unlimited calling plans to landlines and cell phones around the world. Skype is free and easy to use with anybody. With this service, I can connect with anybody over the world with relative ease for free. If I want to upgrade, the options are there.
- Russ Oja, Seattle Windows and Construction, LLC

2. GOTOMEETING Goto meeting is a online free call conference tool that allows you to meet online rather than in a conference room. Phone conferencing and VoIP is included. You can go for  Free Trial 30 days of unlimited meetings with up to 15 attendees. Go to meeting conference call software is compatible for both mac and pc .

3. SIGHTSPEED Sightspeed brings you the world’s best video and voice calling service for both Mac and PCs, unlimited free PC – PC video calls. Reduced rates for PC – landline / cell phone calls.  Mac users can connect with full quality to Windows users, and vice versa.

4. FREE CONFERENCE CALLING Host free conference calls with a conferencing service equipped for 500 callers per conference call. Time period is up to six hours of conference time for each call. It also provides free Recording of your conference call for easy reference and playback via MP3.  Listen, download and podcast easily.

5. DIMDIM Dimdim conference call service is an easy, open, affordable online meetings and webinars. Mac, Windows, or Linux. Video conferencing is very easy to start-up. No installation required.With one-click audio, video and screen sharing and instant meeting capabilities.You can use the Free Trialthat lasts for 30 days.



6. TOKBOX Group video conferencing made simple. Connect face to face with 2 to 200 people. No download. 20 to 25 people on the video conferencing is recommended. Tokbox aims itself clearly at the free consumer videoconferencing market.



7. MYMEETING123 It is Fast and easy, requires no extra equipment to host. MyMeeting123 offers both live web meetings and conference calling for users. They offer multiple plans to fit your needs, a 14-day money back guarantee, You can go for Free Trial: 14 days of unlimited meetings restricted to the plan you choose.

8.  PALTALK Scene SuperIMTM allows you to make free video calls with up to 10 friends on Paltalk, AIM, ICQ and Yahoo Messenger. MEGAMEETING Mega meeting provides Web and video conferencing software for online meetings that helps to reduce travel related costs, extends your marketing reach, browser based and offers online conferencing with true VoIP audio, text chat and no long term contracts, it  is compatible with : Windows, Mac, Linux. You can go for Free Trialthat lasts for 30 days.

10. FUZE MEETING offers online meetings in HD, login and upload your content in order to start a meeting. This conference call service has a great video tool that can display a variety of video file types including HD video. Video can be forwarded and backed up, you can also zoom in and add text, arrows, shapes and notes to the video. This service can display FLV, MOV, WMV and MP4 type video files.

11. FREE AUDIO CONFERENCING Free Audio Conferencing  service provides free conference calls and offers toll-free conferencing for participants at 7.9 cents per minute.Signing up is easy Just enter your name and email addressand start using the service.

12. EASY CONFERENCE Easy Conference is one of the largest free teleconference services in the world! For businesses, organizations and individuals!FREE telephone conference calls for groups from 2-125.

13. GIZMO CALL allows you to Make Phone Call from your Internet Browser.Cheap Phone Calls · Cheap Voip Phone Calls , free call and FREE conference Calls.

14. TOTALLY FREE CONFERENCE Totally Free conference calling service has no contracts, Free Replay lines and Recording allow you to be heard from anywhere. Totally free conference calling service has been giving away Free Conference Calling for over 5 years.

Source : chamberconsultant.com,  smallbiztechnology.com, fitsmallbusiness.com