InterCall Takes On the Windy City!

This week, InterCall is headed to the Fall 2011 Channel Partners Conference & Expo in our own backyard – Chicago!

InterCall kicks off the event on Wednesday afternoon with an exclusive agent partner presentation highlighting our Unified Communications services. Later that evening, we’re celebrating the HOT combination of Smoothstone and InterCall at the Chicago Firehouse for an evening of appetizers, cocktails and a drawing for an Apple iPad. The excitement continues on Thursday as InterCall’s Joe Berger participates in the What’s Next in Collaboration: Virtual Meetings, UC-Style  panel presentation at 10:00 AM, followed by a Smoothstone vendor presentation  at 2:00 PM.

Be sure to stop by InterCall’s booth #1331 to learn about our industry-leading channel program offering:

• Broad product portfolio
• Quick implementations
• Competitive commission plans

To schedule time with InterCall while at the show or to attend any of our InterCall sponsored events, please contact your channel manager or email us at wsinfo@intercall.com.

If you are interested in becoming a channel partner, visit www.intercall.com/wholesale.

Sara Steele is an associate marketing manager at InterCall responsible for various corporate communication initiatives; including social media and channel marketing efforts. Sara began working with InterCall after graduating from the University of Colorado in 2006. In her free time, she enjoys running, skiing, and spending time with family and friends.

Can't Get Enough of Vegas

We just can't get enough of Vegas, so we're sticking around this week after the Channel Partners Conference & Expo for great networking with InterCall's channel partners. Are you planning to attend the Comptel Plus Convention & Expo March 20-23 at the Venetian Resort & Casino? Please join InterCall’s wholesale team for a VIP cocktail reception on Sunday, March 20, from 6:00 - 8:30 PM. Enjoy an evening of appetizers, cocktails and networking with InterCall's dynamic sales team and other VIP guests.

Win an Apple iPad
By attending our event, you'll be entered into our grand prize drawing for an iPad and a chance to win other great prizes. You won't want to miss out.

For more information, email wsinfo@intercall.com.

Sara Steele is an associate marketing manager at InterCall responsible for various corporate communication initiatives; including social media and channel marketing efforts. Sara began working with InterCall after graduating from the University of Colorado in 2006. In her free time, she enjoys running, skiing, and spending time with family and friends.

Who Can’t Use an iPad?

Have you ever thought about how you’d get things done if you couldn’t communicate? You could probably list a whole slew of things that wouldn’t be happening without the Internet, email, your phone or even snail mail.

InterCall’s all about enabling those conversations and we’re committed to offering quality audio conferencing and online meeting solutions, as well as tips and strategies for using those services to more effectively communicate.

We’re using another conversation avenue to get the word out—Twitter. Every day we’re sharing ideas about how to use conferencing to improve communication. Now, you can join the conversation and automatically be entered into a sweepstakes for a chance to win a free iPad!

Here’s how you can enter the sweepstakes:

1. Follow @InterCall on Twitter.
2. Tweet the following message:

I #JoinedTheConversation with @InterCall for a chance to win an iPad! You can too: http://ow.ly/3PC68  See rules: http://ow.ly/3OU13

    3.  You're automatically entered in a sweepstakes for a chance to win a free iPad!

Joining the conversation has never been easier!

Be sure to check out our blog, follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook so you can get the latest tips and trends.

Mike Zuccato is the senior Internet marketing manager at InterCall responsible for various online marketing strategy development and ecommerce programs. Mike has over 15 years of online marketing expertise having worked previously in the financial services and media industries. In his free time, he enjoys participating in sports leagues and spending time with his wife and two sons.

3 Steps to Corporate Success

As featured in Smart Business Chicago | October 2010

Scott Etzler joined InterCall as president in 1998 when the company had less than $50 million in revenue. He has since led the company through double-digit sales growth each year to 2009 revenue of more than $1 billion. In this time, he has grown InterCall’s product suite from solely offering operator assisted calls to providing and managing advanced audio, web, video, event and now Unified Communications services.

So, what are his secrets to success? In an interview with Smart Business Online, Scott  
details his strategic decision making process towards InterCall’s growth opportunities in the global conferencing and collaboration market. Here’s a look at what he has to say:

1. Listen to the Market - The ability to identify opportunities begins with understanding the marketplace. This means listening to your customers and employees and evaluating industry trends—all of which can provide valuable perspectives.
2. Assess the Potential - Once you identify opportunity in the marketplace, you need to assess the potential.  Basically, you need to determine how badly customers want it and what internal processes it will take to provide it. Use your customers to test the need in the marketplace as well as the potential revenue it could bring.
3. Keep Questioning - Continue communicating with customers in your pipeline to keep gauging the need. That communication shouldn’t stop post launch. You need to keep monitoring and keep questioning the information you receive to ensure your timing and execution is on target!

This technique has proved successful for Scott Etzler and the entire InterCall organization, but is just one of the many perspectives. Read more about how Scott evaluates growth opportunities at InterCall and tell us what drives your business success.

Sara Steele is a Marketing Coordinator at InterCall.

Intercall Makes Unified Communications More Accessible

Unified Communications is the next step toward a global workplace. But what exactly is Unified Communications? And can you afford it?

Unified Communications integrates real-time communication services with non-real time communication services in one unified user interface across multiple devices and media. In other words, UC gives you the ability to operate and manage the following business processes together:

• Audio
• Video
• Web conferencing
• Email
• Instant messaging (chat)
• Voice mail
• SMS (Text)
• Call center
• VoIP
• Network and Infrastructure

It may sound complicated, but it’s actually a process designed to simplify and integrate communications. That means faster project turn-around times, improved customer service, and more productivity across the board. Now that InterCall hosts UC solutions, UC has gotten even easier—and less expensive.

Unified Communications and InterCall Collaboration

InterCall recently partnered with CallTower to offer InterCall Hosted Unified Communications. You may have heard of Software as a Service (SaaS), where your software applications reside on the Internet, speeding up processing speed, eliminating hardware installations or upgrades, and cutting costs. Hosted UC, or UCaaS offers the same benefits, with InterCall’s renowned training and 24-hour customer support behind the service.

But InterCall’s Unified Communications and collaboration offers more than just integrated phone, text and messaging. The robust package, with custom options available, includes central hosting and management of:

• Microsoft Exchange
• Office Communicator
• SharePoint
• Active Directory
• Cisco UC Manager (IP PBX)
• IP phones
• Data and telephony services

How Can Unified Communications and Collaboration Improve Productivity?

Hosted UC can make projects run more smoothly and collaborations—even across thousands of miles—go faster. For instance, InterCall Hosted Unified Communications lets you quickly escalate an IM between project team members into a full-fledged Web video conference, complete with virtual whiteboard and shared browsing capabilities.

Schedule audio, video and web meetings with a few touches using any communications device and, through InterCall’s Mobile Assistant, team members can sign on from any location in just one easy step. The Connect2Meeting function delivers automated reminders to participants e-mail inboxes through UC, which can reach them anywhere they are. Never start a meeting late again!

The Future of Business Lives on the Web

As more and more businesses rely on the Internet and smartphones for the bulk of their communications and collaboration, UCaaS hosted by InterCall makes it easy, at a price affordable to nearly any size business.

Technology blogger Charlene O’Hanlon said it best when she speculated, “The question is whether your organization is ready to embrace that level of change and attenuated innovation or sit back and watch somebody else eat your company’s lunch because they put in the time and effort to reinvent their business processes.”

It may sound harsh, but it’s true. Technology is advancing quickly, and only developers have a hint of what’s next on the horizon. By taking the next step into UCaaS, with a trusted company that will walk you through the sometimes-confusing process, you’ll be that much further ahead of the curve than your competitors, and prepared to offer the advanced levels of customer service, project management and production that today’s clients expect.

Have you thought about integrating United Communications into your business communications plan?

Read the press release »

Cambria Vaccaro is the Senior Director, Marketing Communications and our “Industry News” blogger.  Cambria has been in the conferencing industry for nearly fifteen years, and has seen it evolve from a traditional video bridging service to include cool web features and remote communication services.  She is an avid runner, cook, wife and mother of two gorgeous girls.

Teleconferencing from Anywhere Just Got Easier

Conference calls offer the convenience of attending meetings from anywhere—your home, your office or on the road through your cell phone. If you have a smartphone, including a Blackberry or Apple iPhone, not only can you attend conference calls, but you can enjoy full-featured teleconferencing through Mobile Assistant from InterCall.

Recently released for the iPhone and available for free download from the iTunes store, InterCall Mobile Assistant lets you manage your conferencing on the go. How does it work?

After you install InterCall's free Mobile Assistant application on your phone, every time you open the app you’ll see a user-friendly, intuitive screen. Join a call—as a participant or a leader—with one touch.

Once your conference information (up to 256 different profiles) is loaded into the phone, you can start or join your call every time with one click. No need to keep track of multiple dial-in numbers and conference codes or worry about booting up your computer to look up the number for that important mobile conference call while you're on the go.

You can edit, add or delete your conference profiles easily at any time. Have a weekly meeting? Keep the information in your phone for easy access. A one-time presentation with a big client, but you know you’ll be on the road during the meeting? Set up a profile and then delete it when you’re done.

We’ve all been there—we had an important teleconference and left the information at our desk, in the hotel room or on our laptop—which, of course, was not with us at the moment.

InterCall Mobile Assistant makes mobile conferencing easy, convenient and as portable as our iPhone or Blackberry.

Have you ever been in the situation where you had to hunt down access codes or call-in numbers for an important teleconference? What happened?

Cambria Vaccaro is the Senior Director, Marketing Communications and our “Industry News” blogger.  Cambria has been in the conferencing industry for nearly fifteen years, and has seen it evolve from a traditional video bridging service to include cool web features and remote communication services.  She is an avid runner, cook, wife and mother of two gorgeous girls.

Incorporating the Right Technologies For Today's Challenges

Gone are the days of switching off the computer and leaving work at the office. Chances are, you are wi-fied, plugged in and synced up to your work email and corporate Rolodex, no matter the time of day or where you go. If so, the findings in a recent U.S. survey probably won’t surprise you.

The struggling economy and a weak job market keep us motivated to do more with less. Our commitment and availability is being challenged, as employers shift to a leaner mindset, cutting corners and slashing budgets. A quarter of those surveyed report that their job security is partially dependent on their supervisor seeing they are connected to work even after hours and one-third of respondent feel the need to stay connected 24/7.

Not a pretty picture, but let’s face it—it’s part of the current landscape. To survive, we have to adapt. Incorporating the right resources and tools, like conferencing services offered by InterCall, can limit the stress of having to be ‘always on.’ Schedule and manage your meetings via email using business communication tools compatible with Microsoft® Outlook and Lotus Notes. You can now even host and participate in a web conference using just a smartphone.

So, take that much needed vacation and enjoy your weekends. No doubt, you deserve it. But rest assured, if you need to ‘be there,’ you have the right technologies to keep you connected.

Do you feel the pressures of being ‘on-call’ around the clock? What technologies have you incorporated to maintain your work/life balance?

See what others have to say about the survey or read the results for yourself.

Maribeth Brown is an Associate Marketing Manager for InterCall. She has been with InterCall for 8 years. She lives in Auburn, Alabama with her two daughters.

How Will You Celebrate Earth Week?

The green business community has begun celebrating Earth Week 2010, from April 18 - 25. As a green business (after all, “using conferencing tools to cut back on travel” is the biggest step the green business community has taken to reduce its carbon footprint) InterCall has celebrated Earth Week with fun, environmentally-friendly activities every year. And 2010 is no different.

Last year, InterCall permitted its employees to work from home one day that week, on a rotating basis. Those who didn't work from home carpooled, took mass transit—and even rode bicycles to work.

InterCall also scheduled after-hours Earth Week activities, with employees participating in clean-up efforts within their communities. Employees switched to re-usable (rather than disposable) coffee mugs, and received a free re-usable canvas shopping bag courtesy of InterCall.

Earth Week Ideas for Your Green Business

If you pride yourself on running a green business—or would like to join the green business community in 2010—here are some ways you can reduce your company's carbon footprint and contribute to preserving the environment.

• Schedule a community clean-up day with employees in a local park
• Plant trees on your office property
• Plant a small vegetable garden behind your office building. Employees can take turns caring for it throughout the season and everyone can enjoy the harvest in the break room
• Switch to reusable coffee mugs
• Print on both sides of paper for in-office documents
• Recycle paper, plastic and glass
• Let employees telecommute for one day—or the whole week. Stay in touch through web meetings.
• Skip just one business trip each month—use InterCall's Unified Meeting service to host a full-featured web conference instead.

Join us over the next few days in celebration of Earth Week.

Cambria Vaccaro is the Senior Director, Marketing Communications and our “Industry News” blogger.  Cambria has been in the conferencing industry for nearly fifteen years, and has seen it evolve from a traditional video bridging service to include cool web features and remote communication services.  She is an avid runner, cook, wife and mother of two gorgeous girls.

InterCall Earns Frost & Sullivan Award for International Conference Call Services

InterCall has been making such significant strides in the past year as a full-service, international conferencing company, it's easy to forget we've been maintaining this growth pace for several years.

It's true that in 2009 to 2010 we introduced our popular Mobile Assistant smart phone application (previously available for Blackberry and mobile phones) to iPhone users and started rocking the InterCall Lounge with the coolest hold music you can find on the web.

For our innovation and growth in the challenging economy, we’ve been recognized as leaders in the industry in 2009 with the Frost & Sullivan North American Conferencing Services Growth Excellence of the Year Award for our:

• Exceptional performance in a year of severe challenges.
• Demonstration of the organizational prowess to ride out the challenging economy.
• Enormous agility in addressing strategic market shifts and changes in end-user preferences.

We don't like to brag so we'll let Frost & Sullivan research analyst Subha Rama share more about why the global growth consulting company selected InterCall for this honor: “A comprehensive product portfolio built through a combination of innovation and acquisitions, strong technology, global footprint, a vast pool of high-value multi-national clients, and powerful marketing and sales strategies have helped InterCall become the largest provider of conferencing services globally. The company has consistently proven its ability to compete with incumbent service providers in a number of global markets and extend its leadership position in the conferencing services industry."

InterCall in 2010

We are going to stay the course and continue to:

• Continue to build upon our solid proprietary online meeting service, InterCall Unified Meeting, to create a solid, yet simple, meeting experience.
• Further our strategic partnerships with key companies like IBM, Adobe, Microsoft and Cisco to provide more services to our customers.
• Keep the convergence of communications technologies at the forefront of our minds as we enhance our video and web conferencing services to keep pace with what today's business owners need.
• Offer more than 400,000 conferencing ports and 150,000 IP conference ports available globally for superior international conference call service.
• Provide 24/7 customer support for your international conferencing needs.
• Offer a number of extra services in addition to international conferencing, including event planning to being a turnkey audio, video and web conference service provider for businesses of every size.

Cambria Vaccaro is the Senior Director, Marketing Communications and our “Industry News” blogger.  Cambria has been in the conferencing industry for nearly fifteen years, and has seen it evolve from a traditional video bridging service to include cool web features and remote communication services.  She is an avid runner, cook, wife and mother of two gorgeous girls.

InterCall Continues Quest for the Best Hold Music in Town

We could say that the new tunes available in the InterCall Lounge are “not your father's hold music,” but that would be boring and uncreative—and the InterCall Lounge is anything but!

InterCall Listens

It all began when InterCall received user feedback about our audio conferencing systems. Users loved nearly everything about the conference experience—but they said the hold music could use some improvement.

We joined forces with Inspire, a leading music and branding company, with the goal of providing the best hold music available anywhere.

The hold music for our audio conferencing systems now includes top hits from cutting-edge artists at top record labels. We knew audio conference attendees would like it so much, they'd want to listen to it in between calls, too. So we launched the InterCall Lounge, where visitors can download free music in MP3 format from six featured artists.

InterCall Lounge, Volume 2

The second volume of InterCall Lounge can be heard right now and includes tunes from American Idol finalist Anne Marie and five other up-and-coming artists. A favorite of mine has been Trevor Hall. If you haven’t downloaded the free tracks yet, get them soon. We’ll be announcing Volume 3 in the coming weeks.

We know musical tastes differ, so we've aimed for a mix of pop, rock, country and even reggae. But all the music we've selected has one thing in common: it's designed to inspire our conference participants to new heights of creativity.

Because we care about what our customers think (you asked, so we changed our hold music just for you), we want your feedback. Listen to the music in our lounge, then take our quick survey and let us know if we really do have the best hold music around.

Jill Huselton is a Senior Marketing Manager at InterCall