With Zip Conferencing, like many conference call service providers today, you can add a lot of options to your conference calls. But, like most things, it may be best to just keep it simple.
Let’s take the way the conference call is set to start. With Zip Conferencing, the default setting says that participants can speak to each other before the Moderator or Host of the conference call joins the conference call. For most meetings this is preferable and participants are not left wondering where everyone is while they wait for the Host to join the conference call. The other way to run the start of a conference call is to have the participants listen to music until the Host joins the conference call. If the Host does not join the conference call the participants are left wondering what is happening. So, for smaller meetings I would suggest you go with the open meeting approach which mirrors a regular in person meeting.
Now that you have the participants on the call most people like to know who is on the conference call and at least know when someone joins the conference call. This can be accomplished a couple of different ways. The easiest is to allow a tone to play when a participants joins or leaves the conference call. The tone is short and unobtrusive if there are not too many participants and if the participants are generally on time. Another way to handle this is to have the participants name play in the conference call when they join or leave the conference. But depending on how their name recording goes, this method can be a little disruptive during a conference call in my opinion.
Another setting that can be troublesome if you are not careful is when a conference call is set to disconnect all participants when the Host leaves the conference call. I think that many Hosts will tell you that the idea of this is good, but in practice the participants may want to carry on the conversation at the end of the meeting after the Host has disconnected. If the Host enables this feature the participants are left to try to contact each other another way if the Host leaves the call.
I find that the use of too many of these bells and whistles only complicate things and can actually make what should be a simple thing, holding a conference call, complex and annoying. So, my suggestion, like many things in life, keep it simple and you will probably be better served.
