InterCall, a subsidiary of West Corporation, is the largest conferencing services provider in the world. Founded in 1991, InterCall offers more ways for businesses to connect with customers and partners, across town or around the world, by offering the broadest range of audio, event, web and video conferencing services.
Like many companies, InterCall is answering the call to practice environmentally friendly policies and work practices:
InterCall marketing educates employees on "working green" through a company-wide weekly newsletter and encourages employees to work with environmental charities.
- Training is 90% remote, conducted through web, video and audio conferencing. Since these solutions reduce corporate travel, businesses are more productive and they save time and money. For example, 1400 trainees per month participate in public customer trainings. If they traveled by car, they would have to visit 350 locations, averaging 35 miles per round trip. With virtual training, there is a savings of 6.6 tons of CO2 emitted into the environment. As a result, there is an increase in customer retention and adoption of services; plus, the average customer usage increased by 50%!
- InterCall is a Platinum sponsor of Climate Action, a joint development of Sustainable Development International and the United Nations Environment Program. Together, InterCall and Climate Action educate businesses, governments and non-profits on how to reduce their carbon footprint and impact on climate change.
- On-site managers sponsor recycling programs for printer ink, aluminum, paper and cardboard, and implements policies on electrical usage like monitor standby and after-hours policies.
- InterCall encourages telecommuting to reduce the carbon emissions from corporate travel. Eight percent of their 2000+ employees telecommute full-time. Another 13% can telecommute part-time.
How InterCall provides green services
Helping customers become green: InterCall customers are integrating conferencing services into their green initiatives with great success. Esurance, a leading auto insurance company in the US, has saved carbon emissions by using conferencing services for interviews, training and more. Listen to this webinar where Esurance discusses their exciting green initiative.
Raising awareness: At GreenConferencing.com, InterCall educates organizations, customers and government on using conferencing and other practices to reduce carbon emissions and operate businesses in a more sustainable manner. This website includes links to educational resources, partner environmental organizations, and a blog on current topics that effect companies' efforts to "work green".
Leading green initiative with conferencing: In a recent survey, when asked about what companies are doing to reduce its carbon footprint, the top response was conferencing tools as a way to cut back on travel (66%).
Giving green rewards: InterCall launched the "Green Rewards" program where customers can cash in "Green Points" for every minute they use their dedicated conferencing account. With these points, customers can do green things like plant trees, buy carbon offsets, and purchase green office products.
How green are you? GreenConferencing.com offers a short quiz as a fun way to see how green you are! InterCall plants a tree for every quiz submission. So far, InterCall planted over 5,000 trees!
Want to learn more?
Go to http://blog.greenconferencing.com and http://blog.intercall.com.
Question for you
What is your company doing to green our planet? Let me know in the comments...
Intercall is very similar to almost all of the other web conferencing solutions in today’s market. It has the same common, audio, video, and web conferencing features that almost every provider now includes in their service. I called Intercall to get some pricing and wow! I could not believe how much it could potentially cost. They want $0.10/min for the teleconferencing portion and $.20/min for the web conferencing. Who wants to pay per a minute per a participant to have a conference? At that rate corporations would be rushing to get off the phone in order to save money. Impressive features but could be pricey. I agree with you though web conferencing is a great way to save money as mentioned and to help the environment rather than having to travel to each individual meeting; it is much more efficient all around.
Posted by: Heather | July 30, 2008 at 12:53 PM
Thank you for your comment, Heather. It's always great to hear from my readers.
Generally, the prices in technology are dropping. For example, in the 80's, only rich people could have afforded a cell phone. Now, you can buy one for $100.00 or less. I believe the same will happen for web conferencing technologies. Right now, they are expensive. But I believe that prices will drop as customer demand increases.
Posted by: Giselle Conyette | July 30, 2008 at 02:26 PM
Seeing that you have been blogging for a while, I was wondering if you were going to be attending the upcoming Blogworld Expo Conference in Las Vegas on Friday, September 19th- Sunday, September 21st. I am going with my company, Cool Conference Live, if you are going we should arrange to meet up. I look forward to your response.
P.s. I couldn’t find an address to email you at
Posted by: Heather | August 05, 2008 at 01:56 PM