A major part of any conference call is participant participation. You ask them to call in, enter in codes, give up personal information for identification purposes, and have them listen or speak as needed. It doesn’t always have to be this way. Well, your participants will always need to listen or speak, but you can take care of everything else.

Outdialing is a simple, impressive, and underused feature of conference calling. Basically, while you are in a conference, you can hit *1 to open a separate line for just you, leaving everyone else in your original call. From there, you dial the number of who you want to talk to. When you get them on the line, all you have to do is press *2 and both of you are put back into the conference call. Thinking ahead, there is a provision for if you get a wrong number, a machine, or simply don’t like the person. To return to the conference call by yourself, simply press *3.

Other than simply bringing someone into the conference, outdialing has a special role. It can help you help people easily join the conversation - especially those who are new to conference calls. You can save some money by outdialing to participants in other countries. Best of all, it can be quite dramatic when you say, "Well, let's pause for a second while I bring in an expert to give us some insight."