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.