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Here are some of the most annoying and embarrasing habits of Video conference calling. Make sure you don’t get caught out!

The Mute Button

It’s important to remember whether your mute button is on or off. As a facilitator, you must give the respondent time to take the mute off and answer.
The responders must use the mute button when not speaking and remember to put the sound on when necessary. Don’t mutter into the microphone or talk to yourself. Always assume they can hear you. Limit sidebar conversations within the room and pay attention to the speaker.

Gestures

Be aware of every single gesture you make. Talking with your hands might be acceptable when in the room with other people, but watching it on video can make others nervous or dizzy.

This is especially true when lagging video may only catch a few movements and makes the image at the other end of the conference jumpy and disjointed. Gestures may also give someone a bad impression of you, so try to isolate any bad habits, like scratching your nose, ahead of time to keep them from creeping into the video conference.

Forgetting Introductions

You may not see everyone at all times during a video conference. Introductions make people feel more like they know who is talking. Make nameplates with at least 4 cm letters for easy reference.

When more than one location is involved, make a plate with that name, also. Address everyone directly when asking questions. “Mike, did you have those numbers?” “Susan, can you tell me…?”

Something Else in Your Mouth
Food, gum, or other items that might otherwise occupy your mouth are a definitely no-no during video conferencing. While you might not always have the camera on you in some larger meetings, no one wants to look over at you and see your jaw working.

The kindest assumption they can make is you’re attempting to talk and not being heard. At worst, they see your open mouth and what occupies it during their possibly lagging connection.

Time

Begin and end all video conferences on time. This is respectful to all attendees, because they definitely have other work to do even if they are not scheduled for another meeting.

It also lets them know what to expect. If someone constantly drags meetings from a half hour scheduled to two hours actual time, no one wants to go and their attention wanders. Adults are alert for 30 to 45 minutes at a time; schedule appropriately.

In today’s fast paced business environment, speed, efficiency and cost effectiveness are central to establishing and maintaining competitive advantage. Technology has made many of the perennial expenses of the business operation dissolve. The days of the door to door salesman strike us as almost primitive up against the social media networks that are presently all the rage. Conducting business meetings via video conferencing calls is gradually making traveling an obsolete requirement. The future of video conferencing has all the characteristics to suggest its inevitability as a staple product of business innovation.
As strictly a matter of saving time, the benefits of video conferencing are virtually irrefutable. A click of a few buttons versus all the exigencies related to travel give video conferencing a natural advantage over traveling. In the same manner, the constraint on finances is clearly mitigated with video conferencing. The exorbitant cost of traveling far exceeds the cost of investing in a reliable system to conduct the video calls. An elaborate cost-benefit analysis isn’t needed to prove the validity of choosing the one over the other.

Accessibility is yet still another benefit derived from video conferencing. This is particularly true for a business’ client base, which tends to value ease of access without removing the advantages of face to face meetings. Also, as a way to streamline one’s business operations into a more fluid and dynamic system, video conferencing provides a unique tool. Whether it is clients, partners, associates or co-workers, both the small and medium sized business and the transnational business gain by utilizing the video conferencing option.

The expenses saved in time and money by using video conferencing transpire into the more collective interest of protecting the environment against the unnecessary strain that the prodigious amounts of business travelling places on it. As more businesses adopt video conferencing capabilities, a pattern of business practice can be instituted that will serve to enhance their role in being socially responsible stewards of society.

Video conferencing is the 21st century response to many of the challenges facing businesses as they try to gain greater participation in the global market and remain competitive. Saving time and money, creating ease of access and facility of operations and protecting the environment are all achieved in this one simple solution.

Conference calls are at large, very convenient since you can hold important meetings while doing other work. This way, you don’t have to sit in a board room. However, the biggest downfall with conference calls is usually some kind of awful background noise and you don’t usually know where it’s coming from.

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The most poplar background noise is the buzz. You sometimes here this on podcasts or through chat messenger software like Skype. This buzzing is more than likely due to somebody talking on a cell phone, as cell phones often carry an annoying buzzing sound that can be easily heard on the other line, while the cell phone user isn’t aware of any problem. If you participate in a conference call, it’s best to avoid using a cell phone or a cordless phone with bad reception to call in. You should also be sure wherever you are calling in from is not too noisy, such as a busy area in a building, at home with screaming kids, a busy restaurant, or driving in the car since all everyone will hear is wind.

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Bear in mind that since conference calls are usually recorded, there can be an echoing sound. For this reason, you want to make sure that when you talk, if you hear your own voice, don’t get confused and lose your train of thought. Just pull the ear piece as far away from your ear as possible and just talk normally into the phone.

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Audibility is also a major pet hate of conference calls. Sometimes, the speaker cannot be heard at all because they are talking so low. Always make sure to speak loud and clear so that you don’t frustrate others in the meeting. This also saves time because people don’t have to ask you to repeat what you said.

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Another pet hate regarding conference calls and cell phones is reception can be lost. This happens very frequently, and it is a huge annoyance for the people in the meeting. If they are trying to ask you a question and realize later you are not there, they must wait for you to come back. If you have to call in from a cell phone, try to stay in one quiet spot where you know you’ll have good reception throughout the entire call, and also ensure that your battery has enough life.

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The biggest frustration for people calling into a conference meeting is waiting on hold for the host. If you plan on hosting a conference call, it is very important that you be the first to call in, or at the very least, make sure you call in at the scheduled time. Don’t be late or else everyone that had to wait on hold for you would have lost valuable time out of their busy days and are less likely to want to actively participate in your conference call.

Remember the good old days when you would fly out to meet a customer and try and close the sale or assist the customer with a technical issue on product you just sold them? If your company is still living in the good old days and flying personnel all over the globe to do business then it may be time to introduce you to the idea of doing business by conference call. It used to be that a conference call was the least preferred way to carry out an official meeting but with the rising cost of travel it has become widely accepted to hold official business meetings via conference calls, and with the advances in technology, and the widely accepted presence of the internet in most companies these days, there are ways you can do most of your business without ever leaving the building.

These days a conference call meeting for routine issues is widely accepted, and with the right conference call company you can have access to the features necessary to make any meeting easy for all the participants to be involved in. Features include the option of leaving messages for people in the meeting and even getting a recording or transcript of the meeting for later reference. There are conference call companies that can help you sync up an internet presentation with your conference call and that allows you to add visuals and graphics to your presentation. With this kind of ability it is no wonder that more people are using conference calling than ever before.

You can also use teleconference calling to do your important meetings where face to face contact is essential. With the right video teleconferencing service you can see and hear all of the meeting participants regardless of where in the world they are at the time. Technology such as this allows meetings between parties from all over the world to happen without spending money on airfares, rental cars, hotels, and meals. The savings to your company would be astronomical.

Small to medium sized companies are embracing conference calling for the savings it brings in doing business by not just reducing the need for travel but eliminating it completely. Technical issues can sometimes be solved by teleconferencing where your technician can actually see the customer’s issue and help solve it without ever leaving the building. It is savings that any company can appreciate in a difficult economy.