The Conference Coach™

Sometimes I’m downright embarrassed that I was one of the original founders of InterCall.  It seems like this company has become so big and so bulky that they’ve forgotten why they entered the market.   Back in the early 90’s InterCall worked really hard to make it easier to conference.  One of the tenants of their value system was to “be easy to do business with.”

How time has changed that philosophy!
InterCall has bought up just about everyone in the industry, including my former company Raindance, and in my opinion has just about choked to death on the acquisitions.  Most of the people that maintained those customer relationships have been exited from the business.  Once that happens, InterCall has a nasty habit of significantly raising customer rates, believing that these customers won’t go anywhere else because InterCall is just so big and dominant in the industry.

When they have the slightest slip in minutes or growth, they make it up by putting in crazy charges.  This is especially true of the customers that were unlucky enough to be part of an acquisition.  If you use their service take a good look at the invoice.  Rates are probably substantially higher if they bought your prior provider; there are minimum charges and even charges for things that used to be free such as a paper invoice or a post conference email.

And try calling customer service.  You could be delivered to any of a number of far flung operations that don’t really know each other’s services and take forever to answer a simple question.

Now you know why small companies like Copper can compete against the giants like InterCall.  We live our value system – the customer is always first; their needs are always urgent; and we are very easy to do business with!