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 Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, 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.
1. FreeConferencePro
As a startup, it can be challenging to project a professional image on a shoestring budget.FreeConferencePro makes it easy. 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
2. 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. I also like the administrative side where you can upload voicemail greetings, menu options and so many other features.
- Derek Capo, Next Step China
3. UberConference
I love UberConference. It gives you a visual way to know who is talking. There is no more asking, “Is that you, Jim?†It also provides you with stats after the call that show who spoke the most, who spoke the least and who had the longest monologue. All in all, it is an excellent service!
- Peter Awad, GoodBlogs
4. Flowroute
When I was shopping around for VOIP for calls, I was most impressed with Flowroute. They had the lowest prices and seemed to have the fastest speeds compared to other providers.
- John Hall, Influence & Co.
5. Join.me
At Poshly, we love 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. It is a clean and professional interface that we can use with ease to get in front of clients and onboard them or present our work to existing customers.
- Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.
6. FreeConferenceCall.com
FreeConferenceCall.com is simple and easy to use with no web setup necessary. Almost everybody I’ve worked with knows what the service is and are comfortable with it. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s free, with upgrades available of course.
- Andy Karuza, Brandbuddee
7. GoToMeeting
We have used several services, but we end up going back to GoToMeeting. It’s very easy for our clients to use, and there seems to be the least amount of technical difficulties. Once or twice a year we’ll test something else out that has better features, but they usually end up falling flat.
- Phil Laboon, Clear Sky SEO
8. 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
9. 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. Hangouts are the only video conferencing tool I know that lets you put mustaches and funny hats on your team!
- Adam Lieb, Duxter
10. Skype
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
