Effective communication is at the heart of organizational success. And in today’s increasingly distributed workplaces, conference calls are essential for engaging with clients and colleagues wherever they are on the planet.
The fact is – these calls matter, all of them. They help break down geographical barriers, enable greater productivity, and foster creative thinking.
Of course, none of this is new. According to Gartner, 40 per cent of workplace meetings currently take place via conference calls, and that figure is expected to rise to 75 per cent by 2024.
That’s why it is so critical to choose the right conferencing technology for your business. However, this is easier said than done. In fact, it’s something CIOs have wrestled with for years.
Finding a solution that just works
CIOs and IT teams are under increasing pressure to provide tools that streamline and improve remote communication. The challenge lies in finding something that’s reliable and simple-to-use but which also has powerful features to help improve collaboration and increase meeting productivity.
Ultimately, you want a conferencing tool that anyone in your business can use easily without excessive hand-holding or last-second calls for support 30 seconds before a conference is due to start. A tool that makes joining a meeting for external guests as easy as clicking a link. A tool that transforms how you communicate with clients and colleagues alike.
Let’s face it, anything that is too complex or which requires time-consuming installs or downloads will lead to a poor experience, unnecessary confusion, or embarrassment for all parties on the call.
Ensuring audio you can rely on – every time
Today, audio reliability on conference calls should be non-negotiable. Imagine one of your colleagues hosting an important meeting with your biggest global account only to find participants struggling to understand each other or, worse still, the call drops. When this happens your users will quickly lose faith in the conferencing product because they won’t feel they can rely on it for business-critical meetings.
Making collaboration easy
Of course, a tool combining audio reliability and simplicity is great but in today’s world, it’s not enough. People need to be as productive as possible – meetings are no exception. Tools enabling closer collaboration, such as screen sharing or video, drive productivity and engagement – wasting less time and leading to better meetings.
The real challenge for CIOs is finding a solution combining the features employees need without compromising simplicity or reliability for highly innovative features. One that will transform your remote meeting experience – promoting greater client engagement, bolstering the firm’s reputation, and delivering better business outcomes.
The innovation vs simplicity trade-off
To drive digital transformation in your organisation, you’ll need solutions that are broadly adopted, critically acclaimed, and which you’re proud to champion. Critically, you don’t want to risk implementing a technology that will fail, that your users will hate, or which will put your reputation on the line.
According to Gartner’s 2018 Digital Business Survey, 46 per cent of respondents fear their enterprise’s revenue will suffer as a result of technology-driven disruption. Similarly, CIOs see a significant risk to the customer experience – something you can’t afford to compromise when digital changes are implemented.
Today’s IT leaders must walk the line between driving new ways of working and taking the rest of the organization with them. They risk failure if they’re either too radical or too timid.
Dial-in ease-of-use vs web conferencing sophistication
When it comes to conference calls specifically, you face another dilemma – do you choose dial-in or web conferencing?
On one hand, dial-in conferencing is simple and reliable – something we’re all comfortable with. (Everyone can punch in a number and enter an access code.) Audio reliability is assured as voice is carried over PSTN and not at the mercy of an internet connection or subject to bandwidth problems.
However, dial-in conferencing offers only basic functionality – you can’t turn on video or share your screen. And because you can’t see exactly who is on your call, a dial-in meeting is at a higher risk of a security breach. (LoopUp research found that 50 per cent of frequent conference callers consider it normal not to know who’s on their calls.)
Alternatively there’s web conferencing software offering collaborative features such as screen sharing, video, and meeting controls. Users can present in real time without emailing confidential documents prior to the call and they can turn on video for more engaging meetings.
But the endless list of features can become too much, adding additional layers of complexity that waste time and can scare away users. In addition, many web conferencing tools rely on VoIP over the public internet, so audio reliability can’t be guaranteed.
Asking the right questions
Of course you want to implement innovative conferencing technology and drive digital transformation so you can stay ahead of your competitors. But getting the right solution for your business means weighing up some important considerations:
- Will users adopt the solution or will their frustrations lead to risky workarounds?
- Will external guests be able to join calls quickly and easily or will they struggle with time-wasting downloads?
- Will VoIP over the public internet jeopardize business-critical calls with poor audio reliability?
- And is it better to opt for a dial-in provider with reliable audio but a basic, potentially frustrating experience, or go for a web-based solution that includes engaging features but where audio reliability can’t be guaranteed?
LoopUp: the best of both worlds
At LoopUp, we understand the dilemmas today’s IT professionals face.
We believe you should have the benefits of highly engaging features without compromising security, audio reliability, and simplicity of use.
We host all LoopUp calls over PSTN, giving you the reassurance of knowing all calls are hosted on the highest quality lines and never over the public internet.
While we offer engaging features such as screen sharing and video to make meetings more collaborative, we never overload users with complex features. In fact, we keep it really, really simple with an intuitive UI allowing users to join a meeting, start video, and share screens with a single click.
Keeping simplicity at the core, users are more likely to adopt the solution and there’s no need to worry about guests wasting important time struggling to get onto the call. It’s one of the reasons 20 of the top 100 law firms trust LoopUp with their business-critical conference calls, and 86 per cent of these users utilise LoopUp’s dial-out function – a simple, intuitive and secure call-back alternative to dial-in.
With LoopUp you never have to choose between simplicity and innovation or the trade-offs between dial-in and web conferencing – you get the best of both worlds in a unique remote meetings solution.
Want to know more?
If you’re looking for a better conferencing solution for your firm, we’d love to talk. We have helped thousands of businesses like yours follow a simpler path to better remote meetings – let us show you what we could do for you too.
If you’d prefer to try LoopUp for yourself before discussing your needs with a member of our team. Sign up to our LoopUp Free Plan to see the benefits for yourself.
The LoopUp Group
LoopUp is a premium remote meetings solution for better, more productive conference calls.
For too long, businesses had to choose between the potential of web conferencing software and the simplicity and reliability of traditional audio conferencing. LoopUp combines both, transforming the way businesses communicate.
Over 5,000 organizations around the world trust LoopUp with their important remote meetings, from multinationals like Travelex, Kia Motors, Planet Hollywood, and National Geographic to fast-growing SMEs, professional services firms and public sector organizations.
You’ll find us in 15 global office locations, working around the clock to help companies unlock the true potential of their conference calls.
