Half the battle of keeping your team productive is finding an easy, accessible platform to communicate on. Email chains often become confusing, and in-person meetings can be tedious and uncomfortable. So, what’s a modern team to do in order to circumvent these issues and maximize its productivity? Online conferencing tools are a good place to start.
Using video conferencing software allows you to connect with team members all over the world with no extra costs via HD video and audio feeds hosted completely online.
Forget the old landline conference calls, endless email chains, and audio-only services. Here’s how video conferencing makes for a more productive team overall.
Less Time Spent Setting Up
We’ve all been a part of a conference call via a phone that took an extra twenty minutes just to set up. Online conferencing tools offer a bit more of a convenient approach to conference calls, with tools like calendar integration to remind everyone when the meeting starts. Additionally, you can troubleshoot any potential problems before your call starts. With a landline, you pretty much don’t know there’s a problem until there’s a problem.
Video conferencing software for teams is designed to be accessible, easy to set up, and easy to use. You’ll spend less time troubleshooting with 24/7 support (offered by most online conferencing services) and can host more personal calls with HD video feeds.
Lower Costs
Lower costs help streamline your business and free up cash flow to invest in other areas of the business itself. You can invest in better marketing, higher salaries for your team, and more with the money you’ll save on landline costs.
Video conferencing services offer a great way to stay in touch and host meetings without long-distance fees, multi-caller fees, equipment set up fees, and more. All you need is a camera feed (which most smartphones already have), a mic, and either the app or access to the online conferencing tools of the service’s website.
There are even free options available, such as Messenger Rooms, Skype, GoToMeeting, and more. You won’t have to pay premium fees, but you’ll be missing out on some key features included in premium plans (such as operator-assisted calls and advanced support and sharing tools).
Video Conferencing Is More Personal
Positive work cultures are more productive overall. In a high-pressure, impersonal work environment, employees are stressed, worried, and don’t perform at their best. A positive, uplifting work culture can actually help reduce healthcare costs associated with anxiety and make for a more productive team.
A positive work environment starts with the basic relationships that form an organization. Relationships between employees can make or break an organization, and what better way to form better relationships than by improving your communication network?
When you can’t meet in person, you can choose a video conferencing tool. It’s as close to “in-person” as you can get without being in the same room, and with social distancing guidelines in place, many businesses need an alternative to audio-only calls.
If you’re working with remote teams, you’ll want to utilize video conferencing services to get to know your team members better. Body language is a huge part of communication, and it’s lost in audio-only calls. Not to mention, seeing someone’s face can help enforce recognition and create a more personalized connection over time.
Revolutionizing Modern Meetings
Meetings are the dread of the office. You’re stuffed into a room with a dozen other people, and if the lack of temperature control in the room isn’t stressful enough, you’ve forgotten your presentation entirely and now have to stand up in front of the group.
Video conferencing can take place anywhere. You’ll find that when your team members are presenting from the comfort of their own home, desk, or other comfortable environment, the stress is much lower than at an in-person meeting.
Meetings should be short, sweet, and productive. With a digital meeting, you can integrate the meeting app with your calendar to ensure punctuality, send files via cloud storage and sharing (not all apps offer this feature), and utilize the mute button when callers become disruptive.
More Control
As the meeting host, you’re responsible for ensuring the meeting remains productive, which can be difficult to do with a room full of people. Once a side conversation starts, it can be challenging to reel in again. Thanks to the mute button and other tools with digital conference rooms, you’ll have much greater control over how your calls go.
Conclusion
Making the switch to video conferencing software can save your company money, time, and make your team more productive. Video conferencing tools are perfect for remote workers who are just getting to know each other or need a better way to communicate. With online conferencing tools, you’ll have more control over your calls, can cover more ground in a shorter period of time, and can host several more callers than traditional phone services.