Dave Erickson's telecommunications company is small, but giant in its industry. Freeconferencecall.com is the world's largest provider of free conference calling services and one of the largest providers of conference calling services overall. The industry and Erickson are predicting growth, with the majority of jobs related to customer service. Long Beach, April 4, 2014. (Brittany Murray / Staff Photographer)
LONG BEACH >> Dave Erickson’s company is tackling the communications version of a David vs. Goliath battle.
Freeconferencecall.com, the conference call service provider that Ericsson launched in 2001, has 78 employees, 58 of them working out of a 10,000-square-foot office in Traffic Circle, but has grown to become the world's largest provider of free conference call services and one of the largest providers of conference call services overall, according to industry estimates.
The company also has an impressive list of clients, including Fortune 500 companies such as Bank of America, GM, Starbucks, and Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 presidential election campaigns. It is available in over 50 countries, including Japan, the UK, Mexico, France, and Germany.
Ericsson said its crystal clear connections and stable network infrastructure with minimal dropped calls has helped it compete well in the domestic and global markets against telecom giants such as InterCall, Verizon and AT&T.
While some of Ericsson's larger competitors charge the conference call host a fee, Ericsson takes a cut of each long-distance call made by each participant in the conference call — a few cents a minute, but with thousands of calls and millions of minutes, the total adds up.
For example, Ericsson expects its revenue to reach $50 million in 2014, which would be a 25% increase compared to 2013.
“Our service gives you the freedom to do conference calls from home or wherever you are, even if you're traveling,” Erickson said. “You don't have to travel. You don't have to be physically in the meeting. That saves you time and money. And that's what drives revenue,” he said. “You're going to see more and more of this.”
Distant Future
Industry data backs up Ericsson's prediction.
In 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, overall conference calling revenues increased 6.3 percent, equating to $8.65 billion in total revenues.
According to 2012 data, audio conference calling was the leading revenue generating category, accounting for 47%.
A. Michael Noll, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism, said video conferencing, which Ericsson also offers, is popular but not as popular as audio conferencing with many corporate customers.
“There's no doubt about the importance of audio conferencing. Many say video is trendy because you can see the other person's face, but how many business people want to show themselves on video? That's where interest wanes. You also need a venue that is equipped to accommodate video conferencing.”
“Audio is always important when communicating. The human voice communicates a lot,” Noll says. “If you want to lie or deceive, you're going to have a better chance of doing so in person or over a video conference.”
Communications consultant Elliot Gold, who has watched the industry for more than 30 years, said he expects audio conferencing usage and revenue to continue growing over the next few years as more companies adopt telecommuting and mobile offices.
“We've found that when you allow employees to work from anywhere, whether it's from home or a child's activity, they work longer hours and work harder than employees who come into the office,” Gold says. “Mobile employees don't need to call home to check in on how things are going.
“If employers allow more workers to move around, the industry will continue to grow,” he said.
Thousands of people participated
Erickson expects his company's hiring to grow, but mostly in sales and customer service. By next year, he wants to triple his customer service staff from 23 and grow his sales staff tenfold to 50.
In Los Angeles County, the state Employment Development Department projects a 12.5% increase in telecommunications employment between 2010 and 2020, equivalent to 1,730 jobs.
About 600 of those jobs are expected to include telecommunications installers and repairers, who will install and repair telephone and television cables, including fiber optics and equipment for transmitting messages and television programs.
The remaining 1,130 are expected to be facilities workers, who will install, relocate and remove switches and dialing equipment used in the central office, and may also perform maintenance on telephone sets and other communications equipment, as well as install equipment, wiring and telephone jacks in buildings under construction, the report said.
Maruf Lamidi, a member of Mountain of Fire Ministries with locations around the world, became a customer in January after other services couldn't cope with the high volume of connections he was receiving.
Based in Minneapolis, Lamidi plans and runs two conference calls a day, with up to 6,000 participants in each.
“When we reached 1,000 participants, the calls started dropping. We needed more bandwidth,” said Lamidi, adding that Freeconference call.com is very user-friendly and easy to navigate.
“I no longer miss calls,” he said.
Connie Kitson, national sales director for Mary Kay Cosmetics, has been a Freeconferencecall.com customer for more than 10 years. Kitson was spending $1,000 a year with her last conference call company.
Kittson uses Freeconferencecall.com for a variety of services, including recording and archiving calls and hosting meetings for 75 to 100 people.
“It's easy to use and it's free,” she says. “The customer service is great and it's easy to contact a representative. Whereas other places you have to answer 15 phone prompts. Who has time for that?”
Freeconferencecall.com expects to add 120,000 new accounts and 40 million connections each month in 2014, an increase of about 25 percent over 2013, Erickson said.
The company also plans to expand its services, including screen sharing, which allows users to view spreadsheets or PowerPoint presentations during a call, and video conferencing, as well as various accessories such as greetings and hold music, Ericsson said.
“Dave is one of the pioneers of teleconferencing,” Gold says. “He's probably going to revolutionize the way virtual meetings are conducted.”
“People can pick up their phone and join a virtual meeting with anyone in the world, see them, see the PowerPoint,” Gold said. “We're witnessing this revolution right now.”
Contact Phillip Zonkel at 562-714-2098.
