Why preparing your video conferences is essential

In a recent podcast episode, Spearline Enterprise Sales Manager, Emmanuelle O’Donovan spoke with Josh and Kees about the importance of audio for virtual events and conferences. Emmanuelle shared her varied portfolio of experiences in the telecommunications, conferencing, and business development sectors throughout the interview.

She began the discussion, talking about how the conferencing sector has drastically changed over the years. With new trends constantly emerging, she believes that while the industry has evolved considerably, it’s been for the better. The most drastic evolution was, particularly, in the past year, where everyone was forced to move to the home office.

“Originally, conferencing would have strictly just been in the business domain and it is now fully in the public domain. Whether it be for socializing, classes, or just work, we have all found ourselves to be in the conferencing space.”

Originally conferencing simply meant a gathering of a few hundred people in a single location, with one or more speakers. As business requirements continued to evolve and develop over the years, as did conferencing. The audience grew wider thanks to multiple participants simply logging into the conference through their own devices from different countries and continents. The ability for any member to screen-share documents while presenting meant files that were sent from one region to the other could be updated in real-time, proving to be highly beneficial at saving time for everyone involved. The growing popularity of video was another important benefit as it allowed participants to replicate the face-to-face meeting experience.

Emmanuelle continued to provide insight into how an operator facilitates a large conference and what is to be expected. “Prior to the conference, usually the speakers would be facilitated with an operator, agreeing on the flow of the call, the formal introduction, and facilitating a Q&A session.” The overall responsibility of the operator is to ensure that the call runs perfectly for the clients. The quality of the line of the speakers and of the people asking questions must be clear, and that the thousands of attendees listening to that call, can receive an excellent flow of the conversation.

When asked about what other requirements may need to be met for high touch events and conferences for mergers and acquisitions, earnings calls, and even disaster management, Emmanuelle simply responded “provide the right service for your audience. Preparation is key.” For example, a London-based company may have investors located across the globe, and to prepare for their monthly meetings, they must ensure that all participants can easily join. Investor relation management is usually assigned to analyze and locate where all parties are dialing in, their respective time zones, and if they can evaluate correctly what type of telephone numbers participants may need to be provided.  

“There is a lot of coordination and as more things appear to be flawless, preparation and quality are underpinning all of what is important for that event.”

Emmanuelle continued to emphasize the importance of preparing large conference calls and how vital it is to have clear communication and cooperation between all parties involved.  If a business plans to facilitate a high number of callers dialing in from around the world, they must make sure that their telephone carriers can carry the number of lines of the attendees that are going to connect to the meeting.

“Preparation and working collaboration with a conferencing provider are key to ensure that they understand who is going to connect, how are they going to connect, allowing participants to be able to plan and work with their telephone providers so that everybody can connect timely. Good service availability is absolutely vital and if anything goes wrong, you need to be able to work very promptly to address the situation.”

Common frustrations such as being unable to connect, audio quality dropping while someone is presenting are all problems we have all fallen victim to, especially in the past year. Trying to resolve these issues creates delays, thus extending the meeting or conference, and resulting in multiple participants suffering from call fatigue. Remote conferencing has never been more business-critical for any organization. While your organization may invest in an excellent infrastructure or plan for redundancy, things can still go wrong. Rather than be reactive and try and resolve those issues, it’s better to be prepared and proactive by having both full visibility on your enterprise network and the ability to replicate the experience of your customers.