Posts Tagged ‘Participant’
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
I have spent a lot of time talking about how to host an effective conference call. But what should you do if you are a participant? In order to have a godd conference call it takes a well prepared host and it also takes participants who know how to behave on a conference call. Here are a few tips if you are a participant on a conference call that will help you get the most out of the conference call.
- Be On Time - The first thing you can do as a participant is show up for the conference call on time. When you don’t show up on time you are showing a lack of consideration for the Host and the other participants alike. Because even if the Host starts the conference call on time wihtout you or not you are causing a delay and/or an interruption to the meeting. And you have to assume you were invited to the conference call because you are recognized as a valuable contributor to the conference call. Given that assumption you need to be on time to the meeting and ready to participate.
- Be Prepared - Hopefully the Host sent out an agenda for the conference call ahead of time. At the very least you should have an idea of what the conference call is meant to address and you have a responsibility to be prepared for the meeting. That could mean reviewing related documents or actually being prepared to present during the conference call.
- Mute Your Phone - This is not always necessary, but all participants should be aware that even if you are being quiet the other people on the conference call can hear you. Our conference call service equipment produces a very clear audio connection so even just the typing on your computer is easily picked up by the microphone on your phone and is transmitted across the conference call to all participants. It is always the best idea to simply mute your phone unless you are speaking. Most phones these days have a mute button and if not the conference call service should have a way to enter a command through the phone to mute your line.
- Identify Yourself - On a conference call there is no way for the Host or other participants to identify you unless you do it. The best practice is to state your name when you are going to speak so people know who is spoeaking.
- Participate - It is easy to get distracted on a conference cll because you are usually at your desk and still have access to computers, papers, etc. But you were invited to the meeting because your participation was deemed important and if you were in a face to face meeting you would not even consider answering emails while in the meeting. So on a conference call participate just like you would in a face to face meeting.
If you treat your participation on a conference call just like you would an in person meeting then your conference call participation will be a success.
www.zipconferencing.com
Tags: Address, Agenda, Ahead, Assumption, Conference Call Service, Contributor, Interruption, Lot, Microphone, Mute Button, Participant, Participants, People, Typing
Posted in Conference Call | No Comments »
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
There was a time when you would not even think about running an automated conference call for 20 or more participants. If you were going to run a conference call of that size you would run the conference call with the assistance of an operator. And even today, an Operator Assisted call might be the right conference call solution depending on your application, but the conference call technology has gotten to where running a large automated conference call is manageable if you know a few tricks.
The main problem with running a large conference call is the noise the audience can introduce during the call. It is bad enough when there are just 4 or 5 participants and one of them introduces noise because they are on a cell phone, rustling papers on their desk, talking to people in their room, etc. Just imagine having 100 people on the call. The odds that someone is going to make noise during the conference call are pretty good. In fact, virtually certain. So, what can you do to hold an orderly conference call with a large audience? Here are a few tips to make for a successful large conference call.
- Turn Off any Tones - Most conference call service companies provide tones on the conference clal so you know when a participant joins the call. This is fine when you have 5 people on the conference call, but can be more than a distraction when there are 20 or more.
- Mute All - The conference calling service should provide a way to mute all participants as the Moderator of the conference call.
- Use an online interface if offered - Some conference call service companies offer an online conference call interface that allows you to see the callers and control the audio portion of the conference call. This can be very helpful, especially if you intend to open up to questions from the audience. That way you can see the callers and manage the call easier.
- Use Web Conferencing - In addition to enhancing your conference call with visual presentations, a web conference can allow you to manage a Q&A session better than just using an audio conference. With a Web Conference you are giving your participants a way to raise their hand for questions and a way for you to open up an individual line to allow them to ask their question.
- Practice - The best thing you can do to insure your success with a large conference call is to run a practice session to make sure you are familiiar with all of the conference call controls and how to use them.
If you follow these tips you can run a large conference call successfully without the need to use an expensive Operator Assisted Conference Call.
www.zipconferencing.com
Tags: Audience, Audio Portion, Call Interface, Cell Phone, Conference Call Service, Conference Calling Service, Desk, Distraction, Odds, Operator Assisted Call, Participant, Participants, People, Running, Technology, Visual Presentations, Web Conferencing
Posted in Conference Calls | 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 »
Friday, January 8th, 2010
We are more connected than ever before. Between the email, voice mail and BlackBerry or other PDA it is difficult to escape the endless stream of information from your work and personal life. It just seems to me we are heading to where there is no escaping work and like many of the other modern day work convenience maybe conference calls are getting too convenient.
Let’s face it, you can do a conference call from anywhere. Just like you can talk to people from anywhere, I don’t even want to know all the places that calls are done from, conference calls are as convenient as your next cell phone call. When cell phones first came out the conference call service industry would discourage people from using them on a cell phone because they introduced a lot of noise and the networks were such that a dropped call during the conference call was pretty much a certainty. So, naturally our customers would call us and complain about the conference call service because they were losing participants during the call of there was a lot of noise on the call. And inevitably when our operators would join the conference call we would identify the culprit and most times it was a participant on the conference call on a cell phone. Well that has certainly changed. Now most of the participants on a conference call are probably on a cell phone. With the cell phone networks improvement and better equipment you can join and participate on a conference call from anywhere you can get a cell phone signal. And that is just about anywhere.
And now that people can get you just about anywhere they can also get you just about anytime. People seem to expect that since you have a cell phone than I should be able to reach anytime, anywhere. So, before when you would schedule a conference call with Asia, for instance, the participants would schedule the conference call for a time that was good for all concerned, knowing that people needed to be in the office during normal work hours to conduct the call. But know it seems that people just assume you can get on a call anytime. My wife, for instance, is regularly asked to attend conference calls with other parts of the world at all hours of the night. The other night she had three conference calls from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at night with Australia and Asia. They just don’t seem to think that there are any boundaries since you are always accessible.
So, what do you think? Are conference calls too convenient?
www.zipconferencing.com
Tags: Blackberry, Call Asia, Cell Phone Networks, Cell Phones, Conference Call Service, Convenience, Culprit, Endless Stream, Face, Participant, Participants, Pda, Personal Life, Phone Call, Voice Mail
Posted in Conference Calls | 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
Posted in Conference Call | No Comments »
