Businesses today are global with employees, vendors, and partners scattered across the globe. While the occasional business trip is unavoidable, collaboration using a simple, international conference call allows participants to stay put and avoid the hassles and expenses of international travel. Whether you’re working on a large-scale project with team members located in diverse locations around the world or part of a smaller team needing to collaborate with a few colleagues in different countries, the simplicity of an international conference call remains one of the best ways to share ideas.

The Importance of Conference Call Quality
One of the biggest challenges of hosting an international conference call is one of the oldest: getting everyone connected with a good, clear connection. While VoIP is becoming more reliable, it hasn’t fully reached its potential. Plus, depending on where your colleagues are located, VoIP may not even be an option. In addition, with so many workers using mobile phones, mobile users will need to be able to call into the teleconference via cellular networks. With these considerations in mind, a traditional phone line is the most accessible and reliable option.

The Importance of Conference Call Coordination
Another challenge involves coordinating the phone call. After all, your international conference call may occur in the middle of the night for some participants. While you can ask participants to call into the central phone number at a specific time, time zone confusion and human nature often lead to late callers (or worse, conference call no shows). To avoid time zone confusion, use a world clock tool to convert the international conference call time to local time for each participant. This ensures that each participant knows exactly what time, in local time, to call in.

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Additionally, consider using a service that allows you to dial participants directly. The ability to call participants allows you to catch anyone who may have forgotten about the scheduled teleconference as well as reach participants in countries that do not support calling into toll free numbers in the United States.

The Importance of Conference Call Recordings
Once you have all participants on the line, your international collaboration begins. If you’ll be collaborating with others who speak a different language, consider recording the teleconference. By recording the call, you can later share the recording with each participant or have the conversation transcribed and translated. This can help participants in several ways. For those who speak your language as a second language, listening to the phone call again or reading a translated transcription helps ensure that key points haven’t been missed. Recordings are also useful for participants who want to review the teleconference later or share it with other team members. Not only that, if a participant missed the phone call, having a recording available is invaluable.   

If you plan on recording the conference call, let the other participants know that the call is being recorded and how they can download a copy of the recording. Knowing that the phone call has been recorded frees participants from taking overly detailed notes during the call, allowing them to participate in the discussion more fully. If the recording is confidential, make sure to make it clear that it is confidential and not to be shared with anyone. Doing so avoids any misunderstandings and reiterates the importance of confidentiality.

If recording the call is important to you, look for an international conference call service that offers built-in MP3 recordings and session downloads. For example, American International Telephonics offers international conference calls with free MP3 session downloads as well as an emailed attendance report detailing who attended the conference call.

Collaborating across borders is a simple matter of choosing a time, communicating that time to teleconference participants (preferably expressed in local time), and conducting an international conference call with your team members.

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