Why Your Teams Need Video Conferencing to Stay Collaborative

What Does a Video Conferencing Application Do?

Video conferencing is exactly what it sounds like: a phone call with video chat enabled. It can be used for anything from two employees talking to each other over a project to entire board rooms of staff discussing business strategy.

The Advantages and Use Cases of Using Video Conferencing Tools at Work

Performing these talks over video chat rather than physical meetings not only cuts down on travel costs but also makes remote collaboration much easier and more convenient. There are many reasons why you should make video calling your go-to solution for long-distance meetings.

• Cost: Putting everyone into the same room costs a lot more than you think. Everyone needs to plan out the travel costs and make room in the schedule for such a meeting. By comparison, you’re saving your company tons of money and time by switching to remote solutions.
• Ease of scheduling: In the same vein, it’s much easier to schedule meetings and even emergency group-ups on the fly when you don’t have to worry about traveling. Almost everyone can show up instantly.
• Quality of collaboration: Compared to instant messaging or phone calls, the visual aspect boosts engagement and makes the meeting seem more like a real-life conference. Science has proven that humans remember information more readily when it’s visual. You have an opportunity to showcase PowerPoints, sketches, screen sharing, and other visuals to empower understanding.
• Employee morale: It’s much easier to socialize and feel like you’re part of a group when you have faces to look at. Video calling can promote positive business relationships among employees, even if everyone is miles apart.
• Flexibility of the workplace: A recent trend that’s gained traction is the hybrid workplace, the ability to work from both home and the office. Most employees prefer this model thanks to its flexibility and work-life balance, and video conferencing solutions finally make it achievable.
• Recordkeeping: Ever kept a recorder present at every business meeting just so you have records of everything that was talked about? Now you can have that functionality built into the video conferencing platform itself. Remembering important details is now automatic.
• Accessibility: Best of all, you don’t need any specialized equipment to use video conferencing. Cloud communication platforms enable anybody to use personal devices like smartphones, laptops, and tablets to connect to the conference. This level of accessibility is unparalleled.

All types of industries use video conferencing, from academia to healthcare to finance. You see video calls used for a variety of applications within those firms as well, such as:

• Job interviews
• Team meetings
• Webinars
• Product demos
• Employee Training

At this point, you should be eager to start taking advantage of video conferencing and push your business into the future. But first, let’s go over some best practices and common pitfalls of this lucrative journey.

Best Practices, Tools, and Technologies Related To Video Conferencing

If you’re interested in preparing your office for video conferencing, there are a wide variety of tools and equipment to get you started on the right foot. Prices range from entry-level equipment to high-end and extravagant setups. It all depends on your own budget and needs as an organization.

When it comes to preparing conference rooms, you can start with large displays on the walls first. One major monitor should stand as the focus for the room. It can even be interactive if you’d like the presenter to highlight or annotate important information on the screen while streaming the activity to remote users over the Internet.

Each participant also needs some type of video and audio input and output. Most of the time, a smartphone or a laptop with a webcam and microphone array is sufficient. If quality matters to you, consider investing in a high-end microphone or a dedicated camera. Consider echo cancellation if you’re concerned about speaker audio feeding back into your microphone.

And finally, you need some sort of software platform to get it all connected together. We’ll discuss later what we recommend in that regard.

Potential Challenges of Implementing Video Conferencing

Any kind of paradigm shift in the way your company works and interacts is bound to run into some small issues. Luckily, none of them are unsolvable thanks to advancements from service providers. But let’s cover those concerns now.

The first consideration applies to companies operating internationally. When scheduling meetings, you need to take into account the individual time zones of all the participants. Not everyone will be ready at the same time in these circumstances.

It’s also unlikely that organizations will ever fully replace in-person meetings. The level of personal interaction simply isn’t achievable without some form of physical proximity. At the same time, the popularity of the hybrid workplace is a testament to the appeal of both remote and in-person workplaces.

And finally, some companies are concerned about the setup cost and the technical difficulties associated with video conferencing and white label softphone software. This problem can easily be solved by choosing a helpful mobility solution provider that’s willing to make the process easy for you and provide technical support whenever you need it.

Implementing video conferencing doesn’t have to be difficult. 

Are you looking for a fully-featured solution that’s tailor-made for businesses? Acrobits LinkUp has everything you need.

Discover our fully-brandable video conferencing solution for yourself. Book your personalized demo today to get started.