Imperial College turns to conference call company

"Our academics have found Powwownow’s service invaluable in assisting them with their research"

Founded in 1907, Imperial College is one of the world’s leading science universities, and has long been a centre for research excellence.

Increasingly, research was being carried out internationally. Stuart Kerr, Telephone Services Manager says, "As an organisation we are very aware of the effect that travel has on the environment. We needed a solution that would allow our academics to have an international presence without increasing our carbon footprint, whilst allowing us to manage our business travel more effectively and reduce costs in this area".

They chose Powwownow’s telephone conferencing service based on a number of factors including ease of use, cost-effectiveness, quality of calls, professionalism and transparency. In particular, Powwownow benefits Imperial College through the clarity of its billing, as each conference call participant only pays the cost of a national rate call, which means that Imperial College’s academic partners know they will not get recharged expensive teleconference call set-up fees.

Stuart Kerr continues, "The real beauty of the Powwownow service is the ease of use. We have a single UK access number that is used by the majority of participants and there are also access numbers in various other countries that allow our overseas participants to access the service and only pay local call charges. There are no set-up fees and the only costs we pay are for the telephone calls to access the service. The fact that it is "always on" means we can conduct conference calls irrespective of the time of day.

"The Powwownow service is used across a range of departments throughout the College which include the Faculties of Medicine, Natural Sciences and Engineering as well as Support Services and the Business School."

Other universities that have benefited from the Powwownow service include University of Hull, University of Wolverhampton, Hull York Medical School and Oxford Said Business School.