First of all, let me offer my most sincere condolences to all in Haiti who have lost loved ones in this terrible earthquake. I know that the US and the rest of the world is working as fast as they can speed help to that country and I wish them all the best in this difficult time. Certainly in a disaster like this many resources have to be pulled together to muster the kind of support necessary to attack the problem. And a great deal of coordination needs to happen to have all of the resources work effectively together to speed the recovery process. Conference calls are an excellent way to pull together the various people and agencies to coordinate their efforts.
A major disaster like the one in Haiti does not happen every day, thankfully, but it is easy to see how communication is important to help provide the kind of coordination necessary between the various agencies. Conference calls allow people to connect without the need to be in person and in this case across the world. Since conference calls are accessible from around the world there is no limit to the where the people are located on the conference calls. Participants from various countries can even get together to help coordinate their efforts.
As a small business owner the ability to coordinate global efforts using conference calls probably won’t apply to you. But having a conference call service ready in case of a disaster for your company is a really good idea. Emergencies in your business could happen at any time and being able to communicate with the rest of your staff and do it quickly can sometimes mean the difference between a small inconvenience and a total disaster.
Take for example the case of the wrong price being put into a flyer for your business. You just figured out that the price that is about to be distributed says $9.99 when it should be $99.99. Pulling together the Marketing department, the printer and distributor on a conference call may give you an opportunity to head off the distribution before it goes out and determine a good course of action to rectify the situation. If you had to make separate phone calls instead of pulling together all the parties on a conference call you will lose valuable time. And in that time you might miss the window of opportunity to head off the distribution of the ad. This is but one example of an issue that could be dealt with more easily with a conference call.
Whatever business you are in you may at one point experience an emergency that you need to deal with. Being prepared for that emergency is key because time is short and dealing with the emergency expeditiously can mean the difference between a small issue and a huge emergency. It costs nothing to get a set of conference call information and keep it at hand for just such an emergency. Because when time is critical, a conference call can help reduce the time it takes to respond in an emergency situation.