Conferencing Services

Conferencing Services: Reducing the Need for In-Person Meetings

Today's businesses need to communicate with employees, partners, customers and suppliers around the globe. Even companies that don't do business globally may have regional offices, satellite offices and employees working from home. You need an efficient method of bringing these diverse people and locations together to collaborate.

With conferencing services, you can reduce travel expenses while empowering people across locations to meet any time, from virtually anywhere.

Improve productivity with audio conferencing

Audio conference services from AT&T can be a productive, cost-effective alternative to in-person meetings, training sessions and presentations. You can work with customers, suppliers and partners wherever they are located, broadening your reach, and tapping into new markets. The AT&T Global IP Network provides a scalable, reliable experience for audio conferencing customers from AT&T.

Dependable conferencing services help you focus on your meeting, not the tools you're using to communicate. Conferencing is easy to use, and is available 24x7 to help you:

• Reach beyond office walls to create a meeting space at your existing location
• Meet for a quick catch up or on a recurring basis
• Reduce travel and meeting room costs
• Bring key players together in real time

Make your business more efficient with audio conferencing

Conferencing services can:

• Reduce disruptions caused by weather emergencies
• Decrease office space costs by promoting telecommuting
• Support remote workers by providing a simple method to participate in recurring meetings
• Provide an efficient and cost-effective method for training remote employees
• Save executive travel time with live company-wide broadcasts, available for later playback

Learn more about unified communications services backed by the global reach, scalability and reliability of the AT&T Global IP Network.

For more advanced conferencing needs, please see AT&T Connect Web Conferencing and Telepresence Video Conferencing Services.

Audio Conferencing Considerations

When you're planning to use audio conferencing services in your organization, here are some things to consider:

Do you need to communicate globally?

AT&T Conferencing Service Global option offers a solution for customers with international presence. In-country dial-in access numbers are available in over 140 countries worldwide, each with the capability of connecting to the same conference call.

Reservations, customer care and technical support are available 24X7. Reduce expenses with in-country access numbers from AT&T, which eliminate the need for international participants to dial a long distance US-based access number.

Will you need advanced capabilities?

Audio conferencing services from AT&T can help you communicate with customers and partners worldwide. This seamless network-based audio conferencing solution includes enhanced features, optimized call flows, strengthened reliability, advanced web-based tools and integration with web-based collaboration applications.

Do you need to track and charge costs to specific projects?

Audio conferencing services from AT&T can provide you with itemized bills and account codes for each call, allowing you to keep track of project numbers and internal billing.

Would you like to simplify your process for making conference reservations?

Audio conferencing services from AT&T offer a reservationless service that creates permanently-assigned toll-free and caller-paid dial-in numbers and access codes. To host a call, simply give participants the number to call and the code - no reservations needed.

Alternatively, the reservation-based service allows you to reserve calls by contacting AT&T Customer Care or using the Internet Reservations System.

Do you need to host large teleconferences and high-profile events, such as press conferences and employee broadcasts?

The conferencing services executive option from AT&T makes it easy for you to arrange, plan and conduct high profile virtual meetings. Take advantage of this communications tool to bring your participants together nearly anytime, anywhere.

Are you concerned about the environment?

Using conferencing services to schedule regular virtual meetings can reduce your dependency on business travel and support efforts to reduce your company's carbon footprint.

Designing Your Teleconferencing Service

AT&T will work with you to design a conferencing services solution that works for you. We will review your core business applications and existing equipment to:

• Build a comprehensive strategy
• Design a clear roadmap to help manage expectations and project schedules
• Define a deployment model

For a helpful resource, see our paper Five Best Practices for Unified Communications [PDF, 734kb].

Service Delivery for Conferencing Services

The AT&T TeleConference Services team will assist with your conferencing services installation. AT&T helps to ensure that you get the solution optimally designed for your business.

Conferencing Services Customer Support

AT&T manages and maintains the infrastructure for your AT&T audio conference service and provides an easy-to-use Web-based portal so you can manage your billing online. The portal, which is part of AT&T BusinessDirect®, allows you to:

• View current and prior bills online with complete invoice details
• Analyze spending with standard or custom reports
• Pay bills online conveniently and more securely
• Dispute questionable items on your bill and track resolution progress online

The help desk provides support when you have questions on administration.

Get instant access to AT&T Conference Service support resources, such as software downloads, administrator resources, documentation and FAQs. You can also submit support requests and view service alerts.

To find out more about AT&T Conferencing Services, contact us today.