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We’re all busy. That makes it very tough sometimes to remember that all important conference call. What day is it? What time is it? What’s the conference number to dial…and darn it, which conference code do I use?
I’ve asked myself that same question many times. And too often, the sponsor of the call hasn’t helped. They send one instruction, sometimes a week or more, before the call.
Help your audience attend. Send them at least 3 reminders. Here’s the schedule we recommend.
You’ll include the instructions when you announce your call or when your audience registers for your call. Then,
7 days before your conference call
Send your first reminder one week before the conference call. That gives your audience plenty of time to shuffle their schedule if need be, put your conference call on their calendar or confirm they did this promptly when they first heard of your conference call.
The day before your conference call
Ooops! I forgot! Tomorrow’s the conference call….This reminder does a fine job of making this experience productive for your callers, not painful.
The day of your conference call
The daily fire(s) needs extinguishing. And your guests rise to that occasion. This reminder brings them back to your conference call.
Remind your guests. They will thank you. Your attendance figures will improve. You’ll look like an organizing genius. That’s because you are a genius when you follow these simple steps.
Well begun is half done. And the best way to start a conference call is prepare your audience before they arrive. Manage their expectations of each step in the conference call.
That starts with a clear explanation of what they will experience throughout the call from the date and time of your conference call, to the conference dial-in number, what they will hear when they reach the conference call, what’s expected of them/what they need to do, the agenda, how long the call will last and any follow-up or homework assignments, afterwards.
* Date and Time. We rarely receive calls from our customers or their guests on this issue. We do recommend our customers remind their audience 3 times in the week before a call: 1 week before, the day before and the day of the call. Everyone’s busy. Make it easy for your audience to remember your important call.
* The conference dial-in number. See above. The instructions to reach your conference call should be included
* What they will hear when they reach the conference call. Too many times we field calls from customers or their guests who are confused by what they experience when they arrive at a conference call. The most common sources are the music-on-hold feature and the high-touch operator-assisted call.
The music-on-hold feature is a great security feature that minimizes the chance for unproductive, disruptive dialogues prior to the start of the conference call. But the music remains for your guests until the host arrives using the host conference code. Difficulties arrive when the host uses the guest code for convenience and the music…just won’t go away…
Operator-assisted calls are answered, assisted, with a live operator. A live operator greets each caller. That requires the caller to identify which call they want to attend. Oftentimes our customers don’t help their audience by providing them a consistent, simple, identifying title to use with the operators. Or they fail to tell their guests that with such a large audience expected for this call, please plan to arrive 10-15 minutes prior to the start of the call. You may experience a moment of silence when you reach the conference as our operators personally greet each caller. Callers, or our customers, panic, calling us about the problem…
* The agenda. We’ve written about this in the past. But a prepared agenda, delivered prior to the call, keeps the host organized and the guests. It’s really a sign that the host respects the time of their audience. And this agenda should be included with each reminder of the call sent to your guests.
* Follow-up or homework assignments. That’s part of the agenda, really. Make your audience clear on what’s expected of them after the call. That helps them prioritize their attention-span during your call.
We’ll talk more about each of these in the coming weeks. But bottomline, for the best conference call be sure to Prepare Your Audience.
Theresa and Cindy, our Customer Service Mavens, host their 3rd podcast in their series called A Day In the Life. They discuss the importance of being prepared when you host a conference call. Some of the points they cover include:
Arrive on time. That means at least 5 minutes before the start of the conference call.
Know the features*. Each conference call service has a number of different features that allow a host to insure the quality and quantity of interaction on their conference call.
Know how to use these features.
You can listen to their discussion here in MP3.
You can subscribe to this podcast series with this link.
* Contact Cindy or Theresa at Customer Service for a list of the features with your service:
Phone: 877-227-0611, ext. 3
Email: customerservice@conferencecallsunlimited.com
We recently had a reader email me this question:
Do you have any tips for speakers to make sure they speak clearly and loud enough to be heard by our guest participants?
Here’s what I answered:
It sounds like you’re dealing with a regular flow of different guest speakers. You’re faced with regularly repeating the same experience without a solution.
Here’s what I’d recommend:
TEST BEFORE THE CALL. Ask each new guest speaker to join you on the conference call 10-15 minutes BEFORE guests start arriving. You’ll be on ‘the bridge’ with just the guest speaker and you can make sure their phone settings are appropriate. And there’s enough time to take corrective action if needed.
You can sell this added step as a favor to them. You want to insure their message, their presentation, is delivered with the highest quality sound. And to do that, you ask them to call in a few minutes before the guest callers arrive to test their phone’s settings. They should appreciate that attention to their time and needs.
Here’s a few standard procedures we encourage our customers to follow:
START WITH HOUSEKEEPING REMINDERS. We encourage all our customer hosts to include a housekeeping or listener reminders that include basic operation details including: the length of the call, how Q&A (if any) will be handled, expected follow-up steps after the call and courtesy tips including:
GUESTS MUTE THEIR INDIVIDUAL LINES. Remind your callers to mute their individual lines to help insure there’s no distracting noise from their location heard by the other guests. All phones are very good at picking and sharing surrounding sounds.
HOST SHOULD MUTE ALL GUEST LINES. You, as the host, have the ability to mute all guest lines. We recommend that prior to the guest speaker’s presentation you mute all guest lines to minimize any background distractions. Guest often forget and put their lines on hold or they don’t realize the dog barking in the background is heard by all. Mute all guest lines prior to the start of the presentation.
ADJUST THE VOLUME: Remind your guests at the start of your conference call each listener can adjust their listening volume to fit their needs.
I hope this helps. And if we can help in any way with your conference calling needs, please let us know.
Before your first or hundredth web conference remember the tried and true rule: practice makes perfect.
Practice logging on to the webconference service as Host. On the day of your presentation you’ll be nervous, likely distracted with the usual fires to put out. You don’t want to be unfamiliar with the simple login steps, and then arrive at your important presentation frazzled, frenzied and frustrated.
Practice uploading your presentation documents before you’re live in a presentation. Ideally, you’ll arrive prior to its start with enough time to upload your documents needed before any guests arrive.
Practice moving through your presentation documents before your live presentation.
Practice with any features that offer real-time collaboration: chat or polling, to name a few.
Practice making a guest into a host, with all the controls, prior to doing this in a real-time presentation. It’s simple; it’s easy. But…nervous hosts can often forget.
Practice, so you’re not nervous.
Practice makes perfect.
We’re here to be your study buddies. Call us. 877-227-0611, ext. 3. We’ll help you pass your exams.
You’re heard the saying…garbage in, garbage out? It applies to creating recordings of your conference calls as well. Follow these rules and you’ll change that phrase to Gold in, gold out. We can’t make you a rock star, much less earn you a Grammy, but we can increase the quality of your recordings to keep your audience coming back for more and more. Just follow a few steps we list here:
1. EQUIPMENT
Use a good headset. The better the headset, the greater opportunity you have to deliver a quality voice signal for the recording.
Due to directional nature of the microphone, you are less likely to have echo and/or ambient sound being recorded, than when you use a hand-held piece.
Positioning of the microphone is a small step with great impact. Position the microphone below or a little to the side of your mouth. This will cut down on the likelihood hard consonants or your breathing will be over-amplified in your recording.
2. USE A LAND LINE CONNECTION.
Use your standard office telephone line, the one that has a line going from your phone to the outlet in your wall and then over copper or fiberlines.
DO NOT use VOIP (Voice Over IP, voice over the internet) or cell phones to conduct your call. Cell phones and VOIP transmits your call in digital format and the bridge records in analog format. Translation? Hissing and clicks, dropped words or vowels or letters can appear in your recording. Ever notice how web pages can sometimes display in a seeming erratic manner? Well, they handle the digital components of your voice like that on occasion. Frankly, we sense that as the importance of your call recording rises, so does the risk that a VOIP connection will handle your voice in the same manner as a website slow to load.
DO NOT use a speaker phone. A speaker phone will pickup ALL sound. Even the ones you may not notice like someone tapping the table with their fingers or a pen, typing on a computer, doors opening and closing, echoes from the walls just to name a few.
3. SETTING.
Pick an office or a room where you will not be interrupted. Let people know that you are not to be disturbed.
Mute all phones and/or other electronic equipment in the room.
Pick a room that has wall coverings. This will break up the reflection of sound and lessen the chance of echoes.
A small room is better than a larger conference room. A smaller room has less delay in sound reflection and any echoes that happen will be of such a short delay that they will probably not be noticeable.
Limit the number of people in the same room with you. Make sure each person has their own headset to use with a separate connection for your call recording. ( Yes, having a separate connection raises the price. But, this insures the highest quality input for our equipment to record.)
One expert advised us that he recorded his calls sitting in his car, in his garage, with the windows rolled up. Now, THAT’s quiet!
4. OTHER FACTORS
Brief all your speakers on the above points. A call recording still suffers if only one speaker has an echo or hissing and cracking and a few consonants dropped.
Mute all other lines. This will prevent the other participants from inadvertently making noises that would degrade the quality of the recording.
Inform your participants when you unmute their lines for follow-up Q & A, question and answer, sessions. We can always edit this statement out.
Treat your call as if you were recording a symphony performed by an orchestra.
5. CONVERTING FROM .WAV to MP3.
The higher the processing speed in Kilobytes, the higher the quality of recording. A conversion speed of 4Kb is NOT going to produce a quality recording. A speed of 256Kb will. Reminder: if you recorded the sound of trucks driving by…your audience will clearly identify them as a truck driving by with a higher quality recording created in converting a .wav file to mp3 format using a higher processing speed. But if you’ve created a memorable moment for your listeners, a higher processing speed will insure it’s duplicated for future listeners.
I hope this helps you.
Dana White
IT Manager Conference Calls Unlimited
641-470-1640 ext. 17
In one of their weekly podcasts, Cindy Whitney and Theresa Chatelle our Customer Service Mavens, talk about the Responsibilities of the Host on a Conference Call. Here’s the MP3 version of their conversation. And you can subscribe with: RSS or ITunes
A few tidbits from their conversation:
* Reminders. Notify all of your guests, participants, of the date and time and the dial-in number and the guest code they’ll use to join the call. Cindy and Theresa suggest 2 reminders: 1 week before and the day before.
* Be on time. Arrive 5-10 minutes before the call. You arrive early for important meetings. That etiquette applies here as well.
* Review the call features. Review them yourself prior to the start of your call. Start your call with a quick review of a few features your guest can use to maximize their experience:
* Mute their own line. As the numbers of guest on your conference call grows, this feature is more important. We suggest you remind your callers to mute their individual line by asking them to press*6.
* Operator-assistance. All of our conference bridges have operators available in the event a problem arises. It’s a private conversation that will not interrupt a presentation. It’s available by pressing *0.
* Use an Assistant. An assistant with you on your conference call can be an invaluable and cost-effective step. The assistant can focus on handling the conference call feature; you can concentrate on delivering a smooth, powerful, focused presentation.
* And More. There’s lots more tips and advice for you, as host of your important conference call, that Cindy and Theresa share on this recording.
Be sure to subscribe to this weekly podcast series from Cindy and Theresa. They offer tips for better conference calls, customer service, stories from serving customers (customer identities always kept secret…SMILE) and stories from their day outside the office.
3-Part Series, Part 2.
Author: Shawn Frey, Industrial Recruiter/Industrial Sales Trainer for Harper Brush Company.
These concepts will make your calls more effective, inspiring, and productive.
In part 1, we discussed these four common mistakes and how to avoid or correct them:
1) Failing to use a good toll-free, reservation-less service.
2) Failing to have an agenda
3) Failing to give each participant a personal reminder
4) Failing to take notes and distribute
Now let’s discuss mistakes 5-8 AND a solution for each.
Mistake # 5 – Failing to pick the right conference call participants.
Solution: Do your homework. Put people on your call that are results oriented. You want motivating calls that inspire and persuade. In order for this to happen you must have participants who will share openly and communicate freely. Let’s be honest, without the right call participants’ sleep is more productive.
Mistake #6 – Failing to elect the “right” facilitator & scribe.
Solution: Elect someone to be the call facilitator that is results oriented and make sure that individual has a high need for immediate results. You want someone that gets complete satisfaction from a job well done. You also need someone who will record, type and distribute the conference call notes. This portion of facilitating can be handed off, but the facilitator needs to have final approval of all notes before they are distributed.
Mistake #7 – Failing to solicit call testimonials.
Solution: Ask your participants for testimonials after they have been on your calls for at least 6 months. Why? Because you want them to be able to articulate what they are getting out of the calls. This will inspire others and further cement their commitment to the conference calls. All great training masters perform this “testimonial exercise”. Why? Because it works. But, you don’t have to take my word for it. Just ask any pastor or priest.
Mistake #8 – Failing to create a conference call decree.
Solution: You have to have rules. A simple list of call conditions and expectations should be distributed to all participants prior to having your first call. Failure to do will result in chaos and calls that are unproductive, lethargic and in fact, a total waste of time.
Now, let’s recap these four solutions:
Pick the right call participants. Be picky here. You can afford to be. So what if it takes a little while longer for to have your first call. Rest assured the right participants will make that first call a great call.
Elect the right facilitator and scribe. Again be picky, if you make a mistake here nothing else really matters. Do it right the first time.
Ask for Testimonials. After 6 months ask for testimonials from your participants. Testimonials work. Ask and you will receive.
Create a conference call decree. The world has rules; you and your call participants’ need them too.
Next time will discuss call timing, where to end, what to leave out and building caller motivation.
Here’s the link to 12 Most Common Mistakes in Conference Calling, Part 1.
Does this YouTube video, Work Conference Call, show the audience on your conference call?
Or does My LM at His Best show your audience on your conference call?
If you think it does, then subscribe to this blog for tips on how to increase the effectiveness of your conference call for yourself and more importantly your guests.
As with so many things in life, it’s the little things with conference calls that can make a big impact.
When you host a conference call, make sure you call from a phone without call-waiting or have that feature deactivated before starting your conference call.
Everything you hear on your telephone is heard on a conference call unless your line is muted individually or by the host. But, as a host …your line can’t be muted.
So if you’re calling from a phone/line where the call-waiting function is active…make sure it’s inactive before the important conference call where you serve as host.
Don’t let this little thing ruin your next very big conference call.
