Posts Tagged ‘Attendees’

Go Green with Conference Calls

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

It is fantastic that companies are trying to go green these days and conference calls offer an easy way to reduce your carbon footprint and increase your productivity.  So how do you use conference calls to go green?  Some areas may may seem obvious but here are a few of the ways that using conferencing can help your company go green.

  • Reduce Car Travel – Naturally the use of travel to attend a meeting is one of the biggest ways to reduce your use of resources through the use of conference calls.  Usually if there is a meeting there will also be a number of attendees so the reduction in car travel is compounded by the number of attendees.  And not everyone drives a Eco-friendly vehicle so the amount of emissions saved can be astounding.
  • Reduce Air Travel – Now take that reduction in car travel and multiply by ten.  If you have to travel by plane to a meeting you are not just taking part in the emissions from the air plane but the car resources to get to the airport and then to the meeting and everything in between.  Audio conferencing eliminates the need to travel to your meeting.
  • Reduce Office Resource Use – Even though the office your business is in is probably open whether you show up or not you won’t be contributing to the use of resources in the office when you are there.  Just your body heat requires that much more air conditioning or heating.  The lights in your office if you are in a private office can be turned off and so forth.
  • Reduce Use of Office Supplies – If you do more meeting remotely you will find yourself doing more electronically.  When you do a presentation using web conferencing you can still have hand outs but doing them electronically saves the paper, ink and electricity to print them.  In offices there are also a lot of non-renewable waste like a coffee cup you get on the way to the office for instance.  If you are home you are apt to use a coffee mug that will simply be washed and reused.

The reality is that conferencing technology has gotten to where you can hold a remote meeting with all of the resources you would use in an in person meeting including a video connection for much less than than the cost of a regular meeting.  So if you simply think twice about whether your meeting is necessary to be attended in person or not you can really reduce the resources you use and save money and increase productivity while you do it.

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Increase your Productivity with Conference Calls

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

If you are like most companies you are trying to get more done with fewer resources than ever before. It is simply the nature of business these days. There is no easier more cost effective way to increase your productivity than by using conference calls as part of your company’s communications plan.  Here are some ideas on how conference calls increase your productivity.

  • Save Travel Time – One of the biggest wastes of time for anyone in business is travel time.  Going to and from meetings can eat up a large amount of time.  Even when the meeting is in your own office you still have to get to a conference room and wait for the meeting to start and then get back to your desk when the meeting is over.  With conference calls you can sit at your desk and continue to be productive until the meeting starts and then get right back to the work at end when the conference call is over.
  • Multi-Task – Depending on your role in the meeting you may be able to get other work done during the meeting while on a conference call.  As long as you put your phone on mute you can continue to work on other things without disturbing the meeting.  Many people who host meeting don’t like this about conference calls but the fact is you get more participation from attendees that don’t have the time to attend an in person meeting and all you have to do is engage people when necessary and you can have a productive meeting.
  • Collaborate – Certainly one of the benefits of conference calls is the same with an in person meeting.  You get people to collaborate on a project.  Ultimately bringing additional participants into the process will help move the project along and improve over all communications.

And in case you aren’t sure what activities you can do with conference calls here are a few common applications that you can easily do with a conference call.

  • Sales Meetings – Sales teams are famous for getting together on conference calls.  Many times the sales team is spread over a great distance and it would not only cost a great deal to pull everyone together but think of all the lost productivity.  It is just not practical to get together physically so a conference call is a natural.
  • Company Announcements – If you need to make a company announcement you can easily do it on a conference call without having to pull everyone off their jobs to do it.  Depending on your business you are also saving any travel involved and at the same time making sure everyone gets the message timely and first hand.
  • Project updates – Project management would be difficult without conference calls.  Keeping vendors and employees up to date on a project and making sure dates are met can only be done with regular communication and many times would be impossible without conference calls.

With the low cost of conference calls these days there is no excuse not to incorporate conference calls into your communications plan and you will find your productivity increase along the way.

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Aren’t all Conference Call Providers the Same?

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

As prices have fallen for conference call services over the past 15 years, conference call providers offering a discount price were able to grab market share from price alone. Now that the prices for conference call services have reached the bottom there is a renewed need to look closer at conference call providers. Because conference call providers are not all the same. If you should line up 10 conference call providers and actually look at what is going on behind the scenes you will find some pretty big differences in the services they offer, the quality and reliability of those services and the level of support you can expect. Here are some of the things you should be looking at in conference call providers after you look at the price and before you decide.

  • Services – Not all conference call providers offer the same set of services.  Make sure that the conference call providers you are looking at have the services you are used to and also services you may need in the future.  You don’t want to select a conference call provider and then have to switch later down the road.  Capacity is an important area to consider.  Zip Conferencing enables you to have up to 300 participants on a conference call at one time.  Many conference call providers limit the number of attendees.  Do they offer web conferencing?  You may not use web conferencing today but more than likely you will want to use this services in the future.
  • Features – Did you know that not all conference call providers offer the same set of features?  Many discount conference call providers use inferior equipment that has a limited set of features.  You may not want to record your conference call every time you use the service but you may want to use this valuable feature at some point so you should make sure they offer it.  Zip Conferencing is a full feature provider and even provides you the ability to customize the features on your conference call through your online account interface.
  • Quality – Many discount conference call providers cut corners on the equipment and network they place the conference call equipment on to save money.  Zip Conferencing has used the latest equipment available and connected it directly to major telecommunications providers to ensure a high quality connection for our customers every time.
  • Reliability – Conference call providers will also cut corners on their back up systems in order to save money.  Zip Conferencing has back up conference call equipment connected to its network in order to provide seamless service in the event of an equipment failure.  In addition, we have generator and battery back ups for power insurance and redundant network connections to multiple providers for consistent network connectivity.
  • Support – Not all conference call providers have a full service and support process in place.  You will find limited support and in many cases no help from within your conference call.  Zip Conferencing has 24/7 service and will even join you on your conference call if you need assistance.  Whenever you reach out for assistance you will find us ready and eager to help with your conference call needs.

So no, all conference call providers are not the same.  If you look closely you can see the differences and you will see Zip Conferencing looking better than ever.

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Hosting a successful Conference Call

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

What This Guide Provides

This guide was designed to walk you through the steps to coordinating and hosting a successful conference call.
 
INVITE YOUR PARTICIPANTS
Send your guests, via email, fax, or word of mouth, the information listed below. All of the conference codes and Dial-In numbers can be found online by accessing your account.
 
Design an Invitation:
Date/Time of conference – you may want to include an agenda.
It is recommended that you inform your Guests to log into the conference no less than 5 minutes prior to start time. Guests joining the meeting prior to the Host will be placed on hold listening to music until the Host activates the conference.
 
Audio Conference Dial-In Info:
·          Instruct guests to dial into the Audio Conference approximately 5 minutes prior to the conference
·          Provide Dial-In phone number
·          Provide Guest Code
·          Require attendees to refrain form putting the call on hold, as some companies have hold music that would disrupt the conference. 

PRE-CONFERENCE PREPARATIONS

·          Set an agenda for the meeting.
·          If possible, send the agenda to all meeting participants.
·          Send out a reminder to participants for calls scheduled far in advance.
·          Make sure you are in a quiet location where you will not be disturbed
ACTIVATE THE CONFERENCE CALL
 
·          Be on time! It helps if the host or chairperson dials into the conference a few minutes early. This avoids confusion if guests dial-in early.
·          Turn off call-waiting. Most call-waiting features can be deactivated by dialing 70# before dialing into the conference.
·          Dial into the call using either the Toll Free or Direct Dial-In number provided. You will be prompted to enter your passcode.
·          Conduct a roll call to find out who has joined your conference.
·          Remind attendees to refrain form putting the call on hold, as some companies have hold music that would disrupt the conference.           Instruct everyone to state their names when speaking to avoid confusion. For example, “This is Karen, and I’d like to see…”
 
 
DURING THE CONFERENCE CALL
 
·          Ask for feedback from specific participants instead of from the entire group.
·          Postpone any discussions that are not relevant to the conference for another date and time.
·          Promptly deal with any noise or distractions.
·          Summarize the issues discussed and recap any action items resulting from the call.
·          Clearly state when you are ending the conference. Often a guest can be left on the line not realizing that the conference has ended.
www.zipconferencing.com

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Conference Calls – The Basics

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

I take it for granted that people have done conference calls before, but if you believe the analysts the market for conference calling services is only penetrated at a rate of 58%.  That means that 42% of the possible customers for conference calling are not using the services today.  Which means that many of you have never done a conference call.  Here is a simple guide to holding a successful conference call.

INVITE YOUR PARTICIPANTS
Send your guests, via email, fax, or word of mouth, the information listed below. All of the conference call codes and Dial-In numbers can be found online by accessing your account when you sign up for Zip Conferencing.
 
Design an Invitation:
Date/Time of conference call – you may want to include an agenda.
It is recommended that you inform your Guests to log into the conference call no less than 5 minutes prior to start time.  Your guests can speak together prior to you joining the call.  You can change that by accessing conference call options in your account and change it so that the guests listen to music and can not speak prior to you joining.
 
Audio Conference Dial-In Info:
·          Instruct guests to dial into the Audio Conference approximately 5 minutes prior to the conference
·          Provide Dial-In phone number
·          Provide Guest Code
·          Require attendees to refrain form putting the call on hold, as some companies have hold music that would disrupt the conference. 

PRE-CONFERENCE PREPARATIONS

·          Set an agenda for the meeting.
·          If possible, send the agenda to all meeting participants.
·          Send out a reminder to participants for calls scheduled far in advance.
·          Make sure you are in a quiet location where you will not be disturbed
ACTIVATE THE CONFERENCE CALL
 
·          Be on time! It helps if the host or chairperson dials into the conference a few minutes early. This avoids confusion if guests dial-in early.
·          Turn off call-waiting. Most call-waiting features can be deactivated by dialing 70# before dialing into the conference.
·          Dial into the call using either the Toll Free or Direct Dial-In conference call number provided. You will be prompted to enter your passcode.
·          Conduct a roll call to find out who has joined your conference.
·          Remind attendees to refrain from putting the call on hold, as some companies have hold music that would disrupt the conference.           Instruct everyone to state their names when speaking to avoid confusion. For example, “This is Karen, and I’d like to see…”
 
 
DURING THE CONFERENCE CALL
 
·          Ask for feedback from specific participants instead of from the entire group.
·          Postpone any discussions that are not relevant to the conference for another date and time.
·          Promptly deal with any noise or distractions.
·          Summarize the issues discussed and recap any action items resulting from the call.
·          Clearly state when you are ending the conference. Often a guest can be left on the line not realizing that the conference has ended.
You will find that if you treat the conference call just like an in-person meeting you will get the same results.
www.zipconferencing.com

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