Tips for virtual conferences in 2020
This quick adaption, while saving many business operations, also came with learning curves, and technical difficulties. In the early months of 2020, headlines came out about employees unknowingly wearing or saying inappropriate things on video conferences and reports of Zoom fatigue emerged.
While video calls seemed to be the solution to remote collaboration, studies are showing the age-old audio call is a better solution for many large businesses. Branded Bridge Line, a conferencing technology, culminated several studies on business conferencing to identify the challenges and offer best practices for hosting large audio calls in 2020.
Most conferences are ineffective
The most eye-opening stat show only 12% of conference attendees are comfortable using the video feature, yet when in audio-only meetings about the same amount of people (73%) admit to doing other work in meetings and a whopping 91% say that they day dream during meetings.
Branded Bridge Line dove into the causes of these distractions and found background noise and late joiners and responsible for one-third of the negative impact on productivity on calls. On top of that 68% of respondents said time was lost because of poor meeting organisation and 63% said lack of meeting agendas contributed to poorly run meetings.
This can provide costly for organisations with large number of attendees on the call. Studies show it takes an average of 23 minutes to refocus after a distraction so for a call that is an hour long, that can take up nearly one-fourth of the time and take away from agenda items (if there is one) or cause the meeting to run over and disrupt attendees schedules after the conference.
Audio conferencing tips for a virtual 2020
The data shows a need for guidance on hosting conference calls in more effective ways. These nine tips for hosting large audio conference calls will help companies host meetings in 2020 seamlessly and helps employees get the most out of their time in the conference.
- Create an agenda and stick to it
- Provide a local dial-in number without PINs
- Send out detailed instructions
- Send out a reminder shortly before the meeting
- Start your large virtual meeting on time
- Allow time for introductions
- Use the right tools for managing large audio conference calls
- Keep comments brief and to the point
- Record your meetings
The features cites that “while the average conference call is 38 minutes long, 15 minutes are typically lost getting started and dealing with interruptions,” but with a well-organised meeting, even with thousands of attendees, distractions can be reduced or removed completely.
Large conferences go beyond corporations
This could also be true for organisations outside of the corporate world. There are other large groups that could benefit from better run meeting, especially in 2020 where meeting in person is not possible are. Things like religious services, virtual bible studies, communications with healthcare workers, and educational classes.
Companies large and small can use these audio conferencing tips to ensure meetings start and end on time, all agenda items are covered, and attendees get value from the meeting whether they were present in real time, or listen to the recorded version after the meeting.
