Civicom — Ask Why We're BetterCivicom is a group of people working together to create value for others. We try to do it exceptionally well because we believe we're creating something important. Read on.

HistoryWhen Civicom was founded in 2000, the company — originally named PlezeCall — cut its teeth on a co-developed next generation SIP/VOIP platform that was the first of its type in the world. Its first service was "Click-to-Call" — you could click a link on a web page or an email to call someone, using regular phones. PlezeCall, with e-z-e in the middle. Get it?

That failed.

But the platform was easily modified for conferencing. So, PlezeCall became an innovator in the new reservationless conferencing industry. We wanted to be the best in the world — partly because we thought the challenge would be fun, but also because we thought that convenience and excellence in communication would be rewarded in the marketplace.

In 2005 the company name was changed to Civicom which better suited for our evolving services and customers.

Civicom soon developed a specialty in serving the Marketing Research industry and began to innovate with new technologies to connect researchers with respondents at a distance. In time that became our largest business.

New serving offerings followed customer needs for transcriptions and data entry. One such request led to the Dial-A-Note business which now serves sales people around the world by entering notes into CRM systems for them. The Dial-A-Note value proposition is compelling — we help large companies reduce costs while enabling their sales people to spend more time selling. Dial-A-Note increases employee satisfaction, dramatically improves institutional memory, and helps sales managers be more effective.

Civicom has acquired or merged with a number of conferencing companies enabling us to serve more customers with more, better services. Most recently, in 2012, Civicom combined with ConferTel, a conferencing company with unique strengths in full service, managed webinars.

Our valuesSustaining a business for the long haul requires honesty, integrity and mutual respect. We not only try to live up to these standards, our managers recite a brief pledge to these principles and "doing the right thing," twice a month. These principles include commitments to:

   Customer service excellence
   Mutual respect
   Personal and intellectual integrity
   A sense of urgency, innovation and constant improvement
   A positive and hopeful attitude
   Enjoying the challenges and hard work of growing a profitable business in a competitive context
   No bureaucracy, no politics, no egos, no surprises, no high school drama, no tolerance
   Giving back in a meaningful way

Buy-it-Forward In 2000, well before the "Corporate Social Responsibility" trend emerged, the founders of Civicom committed the new company to giving 5-10% of profits to worthy causes. They wanted to combine the pursuit of business success with helping people. By making it explicit and permanent, they embedded the principle into the DNA of the company.

This is not just "CSR." A commitment of 5-10% goes well beyond the usual token corporate contribution. More importantly, it wasn't designed to be a marketing ploy; it's more about who we are than something we're doing — a part of the root structure of the tree we wanted to grow, not a grafted-in branch.

Our goal is to supplement corporate donations with matched employee donations to reach the gold standard of 10% of profits. This specific instance of "Buy-It-Forward" is rooted in the age-old principle of a "tithe," or tenth. It applies an idea historically embraced by individuals, to a company.

Over time we discovered other "Buy-It-Forward" companies and came to believe that as a unified concept these companies have set forth a model that could powerfully engage corporations in helping make the world a better place in more significant and authentic ways. This idea is not without controversy. Read more here www.buyforward.org.

Most of Civicom's donations go to "Feathers" www.feathersproject.org. Feathers uses technology to connect distant families and allow direct charity to happen. Corporate volunteer stewards vet family recipients and ensure integrity in the process.

Locations

New York (North & South America) Manila & Cebu (Asia Pacific & Middle East) Missouri (Kansas City) California (San Diego) London (Europe & Africa)

Phone Conferencing You've just stumbled across the best conferencing services on the planet and we'd love to have a chance to tell you why we believe it is so. It starts with valuable features — many offered only by Civicom — delivered with perfect reliability, clarity and customer care excellence. Our unique features include enhanced security and hands-free convenience. Advanced technologies enable all this at a low price so you get the best possible value. Call us at 203-618-1811, or chat, or sign up.

Event Calls Our operators use the most advanced tools in the industry to assist with your unique conferencing needs. This might include a Q&A session, custom greetings, dialout or dialin connections, muting participants, recording the call for playback, polling, and transcriptions.

Web Conferencing With a virtual meeting room you can share presentations, collaborate, chat, share up to eight web cameras, share applications, show a video and do polling. Just send a link to participants. Our service is Flash-based, which means viewers will not be asked for a download or update to start a session.

Managed Webinars When Civicom merged with ConferTel, the result was an industry leader in full service managed webinars — branded for you and customized to your needs. Unique conference keys let you identify attendees and charge for attendance. Our system sends advanced reminders to participants and you'll get periodic updates on how many people have signed up and joined at each step.

Marketing Research Support We facilitate your marketing research — conducted at a distance — using advanced telecom and web technologies: IDIs, focus groups, mobile qualitative (InSitu®), bulletin board feedback (Chatterbox™), and panel recruiting. If you are a marketing researcher, we'll be your support partner and our goal is to help you raise the bar on your client satisfaction.

TranscriptionWing™ Send us an audio file and we'll deliver transcribed documents in a timeframe that suits your schedule and budget — from four hour turn-around rush projects to one week for the budget conscious.

Dial–A–Note™ Dictate meeting notes with your phone and we will enter them into your CRM system. Road warriors can record meeting notes while the memory is fresh — instead of sitting down at a keyboard at the end of a long day of travelling.