User:Mrwimby/sandbox/FreeConferenceCall.com

FreeConferenceCall.com is an audio and web conferencing service provider headquartered in Long Beach, California. The company serves millions of customers annually in more than 57 countries around the world. FreeConferenceCall.com was founded by David Erickson in 2001.

FreeConferenceCall.com was recently named the most recognized free conferencing brand in the world by an industry analyst firm. According to Gene Marks, business expert for Forbes.com, “The service has been reliable and extremely popular. In fact, since it started in 2001, the company claims 250 million annual users and more than 800,000 businesses that use the service. Nine billion minutes were logged through FreeConferenceCall.com last year.” The companies’ services were also recently named a top small business tool in a USA Today feature “8 Free Killer Small Business Apps”3 and noted as a top ten way to gain trust with clients by Entrepreneur Magazine4.

The company offers services in more than 55 countries with unlimited use including: free HD audio conferencing, web conferencing and screen sharing, audio and visual recordings, customized greetings, security features, desktop scheduling and mobile applications – supported by 24/7 customer service.2

In March 2015, the company launched FreeConferenceCall.com For Business, a new service aimed at large businesses. The service offers secure and high-quality HD audio and video conference calls with 99.99 percent reliability, white-label corporate branding with a personalized audio greeting, hold music and messaging and PBX integration. FreeConferenceCall.com For Business provides a “much better, flexible, customized interface…all at a lower cost.” 2

History
David Erickson is an entrepreneur who started his career owning and then selling construction, landscaping and insurance businesses. He became interested in the telecommunications industry in 2001 when he hired a computer programmer to help him develop vDesk, a service that allowed users to make voice calls, hold video conferences and share their computer screens with other callers. Unfortunately, few businesses were willing to pay for vDesk because a rival company offered the same service for free. At the time, conference call providers made money by charging customers a fee for the call and by sharing toll revenue collected by the phone companies. Erickson decided not to charge the customer fee.

Starting over with very little start-up capital, Erickson knew his company name would have to serve as its marketing arm to draw in customers. At 3 a.m. Oct. 26, 2001, after hours of agonizing over a name, Erickson thought, "Why not just call it what it is?" He checked Web registrars and FreeConferenceCall.com was available. He purchased the domain for $10 and FreeConferenceCall.com was born.

With an obvious name as his flagship, generating call volume came easy, and the name still drives approximately 80 percent of sign-ups. As his business took off, Erickson served as the only company employee – keeping the books, taking every customer service call and building the web site. Today, despite huge company growth, Erickson never strays from his core business beliefs: build without borrowing, find the most efficient way to do things and listen to customers.5

Additional Features
Meeting Wall – A customizable meeting wall where customers are able to create a personal landing page for call participants. Includes the meeting organizer’s photo or company logo, the meeting title and description, cloud file storage, meeting scheduling, web controls for audio meeting, chat wall, and Radio – the ability to live stream the call for anyone visiting the Meeting Wall URL.1

Studio – Create and stream cloud-based presentation with audio. This feature records anything on screen with audio-on-demand and with unlimited viewing.1

FreeConferenceCall.com For Business After realizing it was supporting thousands of individual business account holders, the company formed FreeConferenceCall.com For Business to address the unique and specific needs of administrating accounts within a large business. With FreeConferenceCall.com For Business, mid-market and enterprise customers can now take advantage of all of FreeConferenceCall.com conferencing and collaboration services in addition to an enterprise account management team, enterprise level billing and customized user analytic reports, employee rollout and training services and white-label services.1

Awards
2012 Stevie® Awards6 1.	People’s Choice for Favorite Telecommunications Company 2.	Gold Award for Best Telecommunications Service of the Year 3.	Bronze Award for Best Telecommunications Provider