One of the trademarks of a quality IT enterprise is utilizing today’s technologies to offer solutions for tomorrow. IT companies specialize in offering virtual and digital services – and that often means working through the realm of the Internet to communicate with clients abroad and schedule online meetings.
However, for many IT companies, a simple free VOIP solution seems to “do the trick” – and if it isn’t broke, why bother looking for a fix? The reason is simple: efficiency, and subsequently, profit. Today’s online meeting solutions, those offered to businesses as top-of-the-line platforms, are different from what video conferencing used to be as recently as a decade ago.
Over the past 10 years, improvements in both hardware and software have created a video conferencing standard that cuts out the heavy-duty equipment, video conferencing room and long, arduous setup, instead offering a software solution that caters to the available hardware and makes video conferencing a worthwhile investment for small-to-medium enterprises and larger corporations alike. How, exactly? Well, that’s what we’re here to discuss and opine upon.
Increase Meeting Accessibility
The first point towards a proper online meeting solution for IT companies is that, through the web, meetings are no longer limited by that one big factor – physical location. You don’t have to hold a meeting in a single room with 20 people – instead, announcements can be made in a meeting with twice as many people from three different departments spread across three continents. Borders become meaningless, then, and timing/scheduling becomes less of an issue as anyone can tune into the meeting at the last minute from wherever they are, provided that they have a computer device (be it a smartphone or a workstation computer) and a quality Internet connection.
Which brings us to another point towards meeting accessibility – while many free VOIP solutions offer a similar degree of device interoperability, few offer a truly feature-rich and high-quality video/audio experience across all devices as so many top-of-the-line video conferencing solutions promise. While online meetings are absolutely nothing new for many larger corporations, starting a meeting without so much as a software installation – through invite links and web-based applications – means that it’s never been more convenient to hold a face-to-face conversation over the internet between as many as 100 different individuals – or more, if need be.
Save on Travel Costs
In the same lieu as eliminating the need for specific devices or a preset technological infrastructure, a proper premium online meeting solution can offer you nearly everything that a physical meeting can, allowing you to skip the time and money it takes to cross entire oceans to make a meeting between two or more people possible.
While we may have been in the air for over a hundred years, flying nowadays is still a rather expensive cost factor that many businesses have to consider. And for the environmentally-conscious IT company, aviation accounts for 12 percent of all CO2 emissions related to transport, as per the ATAG. That’s a fraction of road transport, but aviation is generally a fraction of total transport in the world. While alternative fuels are making aviation more environmentally-responsible, we’re still ways away from green flight. You can offset the issue by getting a train rather than a plane, as per the Guardian, but that’s not really feasible if you’re traveling across continents.
Make Company Meetings More Efficient
There’s no secret that meetings are much too often a waste of time. If a meeting runs over half an hour, or into the realm of an hour and more, there’s a rising danger of daydreaming, sleeping, or unrelated work activities taking place. Meetings are blamed as being one of the greatest time sinks for many larger companies, especially those that hold daily meetings.
Aside from time, the inefficiency of meetings is also another point of complaint for many employees. Meetings go on and on, yet without a concrete goal or decision-making plan, they turn into a broken record.
Running an effective meeting requires a.) a strict schedule, b.) a concrete plan and concise goal, and c.) the means to keep the audience engaged in the discussion at hand. Video meetings work best in this regard, by offering a platform for every meeting member to speak up with equal volume, and by keeping members engaged by virtue of being in front of a camera at all times.
Create a Better Help Desk
Managed IT service providers are often plagued by countless customer questions. At times, these can be inane – but at other times, a customer’s question can open up into the discovery or a fault in a product or service. Aside from that, however, customer service is absolutely integral in the day and age of Internet reputation management and the efficacy of social media in the way of word of mouth marketing.
Through proper business video conferencing for IT and the features of products like BlueJeans, you’ll have no trouble taking your customer service to the next level. your company can offer a uniquely personal help desk experience, making each client and customer feel special and truly appreciated.
When all is said and done, however, the biggest benefit to a proper online meeting solution is the increase in the efficiency and ease of intercompany communication, eliminating department borders, and creating a more cohesive unit within your company.