Best Practices to Improve Your Conference Calls

In our April 24th blog, we discussed conference call techniques for meeting managers, where we emphasized knowing your conference call provider's features and options. This will help you manage your calls more effectively. Last week's blog (June 24th) on conferencing etiquette provided guidelines for the moderators and participants. This week we want to add more ways for improving your conference calls.

We would recommend having your conference calls at a regular, recurring time. The conference call can be scheduled daily, weekly or monthly. The key, however, is to schedule the conference call at a consistent day and time. This allows your team members to plan their schedules and emphasizes the value you place on the participant's input. Having this fixed schedule shows respect and helps to maximize the success of your conference meeting for all involved.

Send out an agenda before the conference call to all participants to provide focus for the meeting as well as allowing participants to prepare. Keep the agenda simple and straightforward. It is important to limit the number of agenda topics to allow for discussion and input in the time scheduled. If you will need certain information from the participants during the conference call, let them know in advance. This allows participants to prepare and will avoid delays during the call or the need for a follow-up after the meeting.

For discussion purposes, limiting the number of participants can be beneficial for information sharing. One conferencing call authority suggests limiting the number of participants from seven to ten for optimal discussion. During the call itself, activate the name announce feature which provides the moderator with procedural control during the call. This feature allows all attendees to know who has joined or left the conference call.

Familiarizing yourself with conferencing features while planning ahead for the conference call can help make your conference meeting a big success. Successful conference calls result in increased efficiencies and better decision making. Effective conferencing maximizes your business potential!

We would like to hear your stories of your most effective conference calls.