Light Reading Turns to Infinite Conferencing, Gets Happy Ending with Phone Conferencing Benefits
By Sarah Smith
As Internet services continue to develop, companies are increasingly building their entire business models around the Web. The New York-based news and analysis company Light Reading is very much one of these kinds of businesses, hosting on average five webinars per week, with anywhere from 100 to 600 people listening in on a given call.
For Light Reading, it only makes sense. It’s a firm specifically focused on all the goings-on of the telecommunications industry—everything from data center consolidation to voice-over-cable to storage security services.
The online publisher’s site serves as a "one-stop" aggregator for all kinds of telecom news, analysis and research, and hosts webinars in order to educate those in the industry, as well as to help companies network with each other.
"The webinars cover any advancements and changes in the field, or whatever the hot topic in the telecom industry might be," says Amy Wenning, the Light Reading marketing professional who’s responsible for running the webinars. "We also try to target what our sponsors might be suggesting."
The sponsors are usually hardware or software vendors, while the people listening in on the calls are often their potential customers.
Wenning says Light Reading previously used a phone conferencing company that didn’t provide satisfactory service, so the Light Reading staff began looking around for another conferencing service provider that could provide better phone conferencing benefits.
The telecom news service switched to Infinite Conferencing, finding the Millburn, N.J., -based service to be the most attentive, Wenning says.
Light Reading now uses Infinite Conferencing’s services for the two Reservationless rehearsal calls necessary for each webinar, as well as for the Operator-Assisted calls for live events. There are often at least three Reservationless calls a day.
The reasons for Light Reading choosing Infinite Conferencing are clear, says Danielle Hudzinski, the Infinite Conferencing account executive who works with the company.
"Their previous vendor could not handle their scheduling needs and was not providing a high level of satisfaction," she explains. "They often have calls that need to be re-scheduled, and their previous provider's flexibility was lacking. Infinite stated that they could be flexible without charging for cancellations or rescheduling last minute."
Light Reading’s staff has expressed its great satisfaction with Infinite Conferencing’s services. "We like how we always have the same operators, like one of three operators every time we have an Operator-Assisted call," Wenning says. “We really like how they know exactly who we are when we’re calling in."
This happens because Infinite Conferencing will assign a team of operators—with one lead operator—for clients doing multiple calls per month, explains Hudzinski. "By assigning a team of operators to a client, the operators become experts in knowing all the dos and don'ts for these clients."
Light Reading’s webinar sessions open with the reading of a script. According to Wenning, the previous conferencing company Light Reading engaged often had operators who stumbled over the words of the script. "If people can read, it’s a plus," she jokes.
It also helps that the Infinite Conferencing operators work so well with Light Reading’s clients, Wenning says. "They’re very professional with our sponsors, and that’s appreciated as well because we’re trying to please them, so it helps that the people we’re working with are professional."
The transition from the previous conferencing company to Infinite Conferencing’s services went well, she adds. "We basically had a system that we used with our last [company] that we didn’t want to change too much, we just wanted to make it better, and [our sales rep] was just really helpful and accommodating to what we wanted."
Wenning says Infinite Conferencing also comes in handy for corporate calls—as the company has offices in such disparate places as England, Colorado and California. "We use them for live events, and for all of those rehearsals as well," she says. "We’ll use them as much as our calls require as our business grows."
About the Author
Sarah Smith is a contributor to ConferencingNews. Based in Los Angeles, Sarah has reported and written for leading telecommunications and technology publications. She may be reached at sarah.s@betuitive.com.
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Dave Kott, President
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dkott@infiniteconferencing.com
