Posts Tagged ‘Control’
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
If you are the organizer of a meeting, you are responsible for the meeting’s success. When the meeting is a conference call there are a few things you can do to make sure you have an effective meeting. Just like in a face to face meeting you need to establish control of the meeting right up front so that everyone knows you are in charge and what the ground rules are going to be. Here are some ways to take control of the conference call if you are the host.
- Be on Time - Especially as the Host of the conference call it is important that you are on time and that the participants know that the meeting will start on time. This is respectful of the time of your participants and you will find that over time you will get better participation if they know the conference call will start and end on time.
- Have an Agenda - Even if it is a skeletal outline of what is to be discussed, an agenda distributed ahead of the conference call will give the participants an opportunity to prepare for the meeting. Participants are much more likely to participate if they are comfortable with the material being discussed and are ready for the topics.
- Establish and Hold to a time frame - Make sure that you end the conference call on time. Many times participants have back to back meetings and ending on time or ahead of schedule will encourage ongoing participation on the conference call.
- Eliminate or reduce any noise - With so many conference call participants joining the conference call by using a cell phone these days it is almost impossible for someone to not introduce noise into the conference call. As a conference call Host you can mute all of the participants if there is no need for active participation in the beginning of your conference call and then open up all of the lines for discussion later in the conference call. This will eliminate the introduction of any noise into the conference call. Or you should make sure that participants know to mute themselves unless they are speaking in order to eliminate any introduction of noise into the conference call.
- Encourage orderly participation - Ask your participants to introduce themselves when they are speaking so that all of the participants on the conference call know who is speaking. And, as Host it is your job to act as gate keeper for who is speaking as well.
- Review the Action Items and Next Steps - At the end of the call you should review what was discussed, review any actions items and who is responsible for them and then make sure everyone knows when the next conference call is if necessary.
As Host of the conference call you can ensure your success by taking charge of your meetings.
www.zipconferencing.com
Tags: Agenda, Ahead, Cell Phone, Conference Call, Control, Effective Meeting, Hosting, Organizer, Participants, Participation, Skeletal Outline, Time Frame
Posted in Conference Call | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
Web conferencing has been adopted by sales organizations around the world as a way to do a presentation for a prospect from your desktop, greatly reducing travel expenses and increasing productivity. It is also widely recognized for its remote training abilities which allows participants to take a training class without the costly need to travel to a central location. But another application for web conferencing that is being used, but maybe not as widely known is for the support of customers and employees remotely to troubleshoot software on their desktops.
Since web conferencing allows participants to see each other’s computer screens regardless of the application that is running. It allows a technical support person to view the PC of a customer or employee which assists them in more easily diagnosing an issue. A remote participant does not need to try to describe the issue they are having because the technician will be able to see exactly what they are talking about on the web conference. And if the participant allows it, the technician can even take control of the remote user’s PC and fix the problem while the participant sits back and watches them do the work.
Needless to say, this application for web conferencing is a win-win for the company supporting the product and the customer, since the problem is fixed easily and quickly and any interpretation errors on exactly what the issue is are avoided because the technician is actually viewing the PC themselves. Like all of the conference call services, the web conferencing in this application saves any travel costs that may have been associated with the service and makes the technician that much more productive since they can handle many of these types of service calls using web conferencing instead of travelling to customer locations. In many cases, if you are selling your product across the country or around the world, travelling to customer locations to support your product is not even practical. Especially for a small business that is trying to support their product, web conferencing offers a way to provide their customers an excellent level of service without spending a lot of money. Supporting your customers using web conferencing just makes good business sense.
www.zipconferencing.com
Tags: Central Location, Computer Screens, Conference Call Services, Control, Control Remote, Customer Locations, Desktops, Increasing Productivity, Interpretation Errors, Participant, Participants, Presentation, Sales Organizations, Support Web, Technical Support Person, Travel Costs, Travel Expenses, Travelling, Web Conference, Web Conferencing
Posted in Web Conferencing | No Comments »
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
The big buzz word these days in the news is security, so I thought it might be appropriate to spend a little time to discuss conference call security. In general conference calls are pretty secure. It israther difficult to tap into a conference call from the conference call service provider side of things. The conference call equipment is located in a secure environment, its directly connected to carrier networks and each piece of conference call service equipment has thousands of participants on hundreds of calls. It would be pretty difficult to tap into a piece of conference call service equipment unless you are an operator for the conference call service company and listen in on a particular conference call. That having been said, there are some people who want to make sure that their conference call is secure so here are some options on making a conference call even more secure.
- Change the conference call passcode frequently - Many people use the same conference call pass code for all of their conference calls. Like any password you have it is good practice to regularly change the passcode so that it cannot be compromised.
- Add a PIN number to the conference call passcode - With some conference call service companies you can add an additional PIN number for each participant that requires them to input in order to join the conference call. This adds a layer of security and identifies them on the conference call.
- Lock the conference call - Most conference call service companies allow you to lock the conference call so that additional participants cannot enter the conference call after it is locked. This feature usually locks out any operators from the conference call service company as well.
- Monitor the conference call from your PC - Some conference call service companies provide a feature that allows you to monitor and control your conference call through a web interface on your PC. That way you can see the participants and make sure that only the participants you have invited are on the conference call.
- Roll Call - Whether using a PC interface or through the telephone you can usually automate a roll call with the participants on a conference call so that you know who is on the call.
- Music on Hold - If you are concerned about the participants being able to speak before the Moderator joins or use the conference call information without the Moderator you can make it so that the conference call will not start without the Moderator and keeps the participants on hold with music.
- End Conference when Moderator Exits - You can also configure a conference call so that when the Moderator exits the conference call ends and hangs up on the remaining participants. This will also prevent the participants from being able to hold a conference call without the Moderator.
Even with all of these options there is no guarantee of security as someone could tap into an individual phone line like any phone conversation, but these conference call security measures will prevent the majority of any security concerns on a conference call. All of these features are available with Zip Conferencing.
www.zipconferencing.com
Tags: Buzz Word, Call Security, Carrier Networks, Conference Call Service, Conference Call Service Provider, Control, Little Time, Participant, Participants, Pin Number, Tap, Web Interface
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Monday, November 9th, 2009
Once you begin to use conference calls in your everyday business you quickly find that they are indispensable. A conference call is able to bring people together who otherwise may be able to meet due to time or distance constraints. And as you begin to rely more and more on a conference call for your meetings you will undoubtedly find yourself in a situation where someone is unable to attend your conference call and it is important that they hear the content of the meeting. In a physical meeting you can usually only rely on someone to take good notes of the meeting to share with the participant who missed the meeting. With a conference call you have another option. You can record the conference call and allow the participant who missed the conference call the opportunity to listen to the actual meeting when they can. With Zip Conferencing there are a couple of ways to provide the recording to the participants who did not attend the live conference call.
- Digital Playback - First, you can record the conference call and then provide anyone who missed the conference call the ability to dial a toll free number and enter a passcode and listen to the meeting when their schedule permits. The advantages of this method are that the participant can dial in from anywhere to listen to the call and control the pace of the recording. You can fast forward, rewind or pause the recording using touch tone commands on the telephone. The recording is available shortly after the completion of the conference call and multiple people can access the recording at the same time.
- CD Copy - You can also order a copy of the conference call on a CD in several formats. The CD is shipped to your location and you can decide who to distribute the CD to and when, controlling the dissemination of the content.
- Transcription - You can also order a complete transcription of a conference call. That way you have a full documentation of the conference call for missing participants or just to retain for your records.
So, if you find yourself in a situation where an important participant is going to miss your conference call there is no need to cancel the meeting. You can simply record the conference call and allow them to hear the entire conference call after it is completed. Now that is a clear advantage to holding a meeting in person!
www.zipconferencing.com
Tags: Cd Copy, Conference Call, Constraints, Control, Digital Playback, Dissemination, Documentation, Fast Forward, Opportunity, Pace, Participant, Participants, Passcode, People, Telephone Recording, Time Cd, Toll Free Number, Touch Tone, Transcription
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Friday, September 11th, 2009
The majority of conference calls are with less than five people and last around 45 minutes. With a small group like that you can simply get on the conference call and talk amongst yourselves like you are in a room together and manage to keep the conversation orderly. With this many participants the only thing you really have to worry about is when one of the participants is introducing outside noise to the conference call like if they are driving in their car with a headset on or outside on a cell phone. And that participant usually knows enough that they will mute themselves during the conference call unless they need to speak and then they can simply un-mute themselves using controls on their cell phone or from within the conference call. But the dynamic changes when you need to have 20, 30 or even 100 people on a conference call at the same time. How do you keep control of the conference call and keep the intrusion to a minimum?
It used to be that if you wanted more than a few people on a conference call at the same time you would need to have an operator help you run the call and you still can do that, but it can get rather expensive. So here are some ideas on how to best manage a large conference call using only a standard conference call.
First, as the Host you need to be extra organized. The planning before the conference call should include an agenda that you follow although you might not distribute to the participants in advance it will keep you on track. You will need to adjust your conference call options to make sure they are set correctly for this type of call. If you normally have tones sound when participants join the call you will want to turn that off as it will interrupt your call when participants join the conference call late. You will also want to have your participants join the conference call and listen to music prior to the Host joining. If participants are allowed to talk before you join there may be noise and confusion among the participants. And you will want to mute all participants when you join the call to make sure that extra noise does not enter the conference call. All of these controls are available to you as host of a conference call with Zip Conferencing through your phone or a web interface whichever you prefer.
Once you are all set you can present your materials or have a discussion with the other hosts on the call and then open it up for comments or questions at the end of the call. If you are going to open up the lines on a large conference call you should instruct participants to mute themselves unless they have something to add as this will also keep any interruptions to a minimum. When the conference call has ended you can set the call to disconnect when the host hangs up which will make sure that all participants are disconnected and you will not incur any charges beyond what you expected during the conference call.
Today it is possible to run a large conference call without the assistance of an operator and much more cost effective too.
www.zipconferencing.com
Tags: 100 People, Audience, Call Options, Cell Phone, Conference Call, Control, Dynamic Changes, Intrusion, Large Conference, Music, Participant, Participants, Small Group, Wanted People
Posted in Conference Call | No Comments »
