Conference calling has become a pretty universal component of conducting day-to-day business in all kinds of different fields. From education and medicine to finance and politics, and even areas which are more typically associated with real, live action like sports and musical concerts.

Really, it isn’t a question of if conference calling is useful to your professional life, but rather of just how useful it can be. And one of the things which could help a lot of businesses in just a matter of seconds is switching to genuinely free conference calls, rather than paying for monthly subscriptions or pricey per-call services.

After all, with teleconferences being so beneficial, the expenses can really start piling up. In fact, WHYPAY? saved its customers nearly £1,000,000 just in the month of July by providing totally free teleconferencing. That’s a seriously impressive amount, and there’s very little to stop you from getting a piece of the pie! Simply head to the WHYPAY? homepage and hit the button to create a free telephone conference. You’ll get your very own secure conference call room, along with a secret PIN and room number needed to access it, guaranteeing your calls’ privacy. But how can something so easy (and free!) be so useful?

Save money

But your savings will go even further than just directly cutting out the cost of paying for expensive conference call providers. By using teleconferences, you can expect to see your business’s expenses go down in other areas too. For example, you won’t need to pay for employees’ or clients’ travel to meetings, or for things like parking and accommodation when they arrive wherever they’re going. You’ll also notice little savings, like how frequently you need to restock the shared office kitchen, and how much electricity and water bills are coming to each month.

Be green – and make your competitors green!

Then there’s the less financial sense of the word ‘saving’, as in saving the world. By integrating free conference calling into your business schedule and therefore reducing commutes, you’ll be making your company a much greener one. This also brings the added benefit of boosting public perception of your business, making it more attractive to consumers and employees alike!

Similarly, by taking a more flexible approach to working (something which is facilitated by the ease of direct communication provided by teleconferencing), you’ll find that you have a much happier and more productive workforce. And again, showing that you really care about your employees’ needs and wellbeing, and that you understand the importance of balancing their work commitments with their lives, will really make a difference to how they view you as an employer. It’ll strengthen their bond to the business, multiplying the morale-boosting effects that come with flexible working. This too can do wonders for your reputation in the public eye. By highlighting the environmental and social benefits which your use of teleconferencing has, you can gain a serious edge over your competitors and attract customers and applicants who might otherwise have chosen them.

Widen your reach

Teleconferencing also allows you to cast a much wider net when it comes to filling a position in the company. By conducting telephone interviews you’ll be able to talk to applicants from all over the country, or even the world. And if you find someone perfect who isn’t keen to relocate, they might even be able to carry out most (if not all) of their work remotely. That means that you can really find the absolute best of the best, undoubtedly helping your company to succeed.

Similarly, you’ll be able to meet with loads more investors and clients from much further reaches. Not only is the geographical obstacle removed, but you also become much more flexible in terms of time. After all, it’s definitely a lot easier to carve out half an hour to make  a call than it is to give up a day to travel to an actual meeting and back. Plus, it can really help to eliminate difficulties surrounding time zones.

Faster action

If any problems should ever arise which need a quick solution, conference calling is the best tool to use. It’s far, far faster than trying to get the whole team into the office at short notice. Even if they’re present, it allows you to bring on board other specialists you might need, like web developers or a PR team. Crucially, it means that you can get a lot of heads together to tackle the problem from all kinds of different angles and tap into a bigger pool of expertise, in a matter of minutes. It’s also a much clearer way to communicate than a group email or instant message, which means that you’ll avoid the pitfall of getting muddled in the panic and confusion of words and actually making things worse.

Consider your options

It’s pretty clear that teleconferencing comes with a whole host of benefits, but there are still a lot of things to think about when it comes to picking out your conference call provider.

You need to really hone in on your own needs, and those of the people who will be participating in the calls. How tech-savvy are they? In other words, how easy and simple does the service need to be? WHYPAY? offers really straightforward use, and conference call rooms can be accessed from any kind of mobile or landline phone in the UK (crucially free of charge!).

But there’s everything that comes after joining the call, too. Consider what you’re hoping to achieve in virtual meetings, and if voice calling will be the best way to get it done. If there are a lot of visual aspects to what your company, like in an architectural firm or business focused on design, you might find that you need a few more tools to maintain your productivity remotely. And that’s OK! You can still access these without having to break the bank – there are a number of free online meeting tools available – pick out the one that suits your company’s needs and budget. That way you’ll gain access to great features like screen sharing and document presentation, which can make virtual meetings even more useful than face-to-face ones!

Whatever you decide, there’s no doubt that teleconferencing can work wonders for your business, from employee satisfaction, to public perception, to business efficiency.