Voice broadcasting is a technology that allows you to send a prerecorded phone call usually in a mp3 format to thousands of people at the same time. This has been used by politicians, NGOs, and businesses for years. But with the complexity of the technology and the industry as a whole there comes many ways you can be taken advantage of. This article while provide a simple explanation and checklist of what you need to look out for when searching for a voice broadcasting service provider.

1. Reseller or Direct Provider - This industry is full of resellers and agents just like any other market. Knowing whether you are signing up with a reseller vs a direct provider (owner of dialer equipment) will benefit you in the long run. Direct providers can offer lower prices and more importantly they can offer direct troubleshooting and control over the system. That is something that resellers cannot do.

2. Type of telephony connectivity - This is how the system connects to the PSTN or the public switch telephone network. This can either be analog lines, digital lines (T1 circuits), VOIP, or VOIP direct PSTN connect. Analog, digital, and VOIP direct connect provide for the best call sound quality but analog and digital are costly and expensive to expand which means higher costs passed on to you the customer. VOIP can be cheaper but sound quality can be sacrificed. VOIP direct connect is the best of both worlds. Low cost, expandability, and good quality.

3. Billing type - This can be per minute, per call, per message delivered, or per transfer (press 1). Per minute is the best way because you pay the way the provider pays and you don't pay for disconnected numbers and no answers. Per call is expensive unless your phone list is high quality because you pay for each dial attempt, including bad numbers. Per message is good if you have a long message to play, but per minute is better because people hang up on the messages frequently. Per transfer sounds good in a sales pitch but more than half of those who press 1 hang up or yell at you, so keep that in mind.

4. Per Minute Billing increments - Marketers offer low per minute rates to get you in the door but then bill you in 1 minute increments which is bad. The industry standard is 6 second increments. This means you only pay for 6 seconds worth if someone hangs up right away. Also make sure that providers who offer low rates aren't also charging you per transfer or per message.

5. Capacity - Depending on how many numbers you have to call and how fast you may need thousands of phone lines (channels) to use. Many providers simple do not have systems large enough to handle this. Make sure your provider can handle a large capacity job. You may have to pay more for dedicated capacity but it's worth it.

6. User Interface - How easy and feature rich is there user interface. Do they even have one? Make sure you demo the user interface because you are going to have to use it.

7. Customer technical support - Do they offer full time tech support? This is a big deal when you hit a dead-end and need help to hit a deadline.