6 Easy Ways to Improve Your Conference Call Quality

Conference calls are a necessary evil for most entrepreneurs. Email is a remarkably efficient mode of communication, but it lacks the conversational nature of a conference call. Individual discussions would be better, but at the same time, you need to have everyone contributing at once for the most ideally productive discussion. You could simply meet in person, but in most cases, you’ll need to connect with people from multiple areas.

Hypothetically, conference calls are technologically advanced and universally productive. The problem is, most conference calls end up being a chaotic, frustrating waste of time.

Key Areas of Conference Call Inefficiency

It helps to identify the key, broad areas of conference call inefficiency:

? Technical problems. Technical problems are problems with phones or carriers, which prevent effective voice transmission.

? Medium-specific challenges. Conference calls, by nature, do not include body language, which can be prohibitive to effective discourse.

? Disorganization. Sometimes the problem has nothing to do with the call, and everything to do with how the organizer has arranged or led the call.

How to Improve Conference Call Quality

Fortunately, there are some easy strategies you can use to improve conference call quality:

1. Be selective about who you include. One of the biggest problems with conference calls is the complexity added by including multiple participants. Every voice is another voice to potentially talk over, and another field of white noise to filter out. You can easily cut back on this complexity by being more selective with who you include. Instead of inviting everyone who has an interest in a given topic, only invite people who will have something meaningful to contribute to the conversation.

2. Choose a better VOIP provider. If you’re frequently experiencing technical issues or delays in your voice transmission, you should consider enlisting the help of a better VOIP provider. There are hundreds of options for businesses, each with different plans, pricing, and benefits to offer, so do your research and experiment with different options.

3. Troubleshoot dropped calls or problematic calls. If and when you experience dropped calls or other problematic calls, try troubleshooting the call to determine the root of the issue. Most VOIP providers and conference call apps offer troubleshooting features that can pinpoint the root cause. This will help you determine whether the issue was because of a participant’s own device, or if it’s a problem with your network or provider. No call tech will ever be perfect, but it pays to know how yours works (and any vulnerabilities it might have).

4. Enter each call with an agenda. Before dialing in, or even sending the invitation for the call, make sure there’s a clear agenda for the conference. Who’s going to attend? What’s the main goal? What are the main talking points? What are your participants going to bring to the meeting? In addition, someone on the call needs to take point on ensuring the participants adhere to the agenda, remaining as productive and goal-focused as possible.

5. Take measures to prevent talking over each other. Most conference call veterans will attest that the most annoying feature of these group calls is the inevitability of two or more people talking over each other. There’s no body language to read and, oftentimes, at least a slight delay in voice processing, so it’s only a matter of time before conversation threads collide and the call is thrown into chaos. Fortunately, you can take control of these instances by carefully guiding the conversation to different individuals, one at a time, and asking participants to mute until they’re prepared to speak.

6. Incorporate manageable follow-ups. Conference calls are notorious for being hard to follow, and even harder to enforce; most people on conference calls are multitasking or simply not paying attention. Due to the limitations of the medium, there isn’t much you can do about this predicament, but you can ensure better after-call results, and help people follow the course of the meeting by providing manageable follow-ups, with key takeaways and action items for your team to review. Send out an email to all participants that summarizes the meeting (as well as what needs to happen next).

You should also remember that conference calls aren’t the only tools in your communicative arsenal. Sometimes, an in-person meeting or a chat over email is the better option. Learn to use these mediums to their greatest advantage, and encourage your employees to do the same; it’s going to save you significant time in the long run.

 

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