Video conferencing has been a boon to business productivity and efficiency. Teammates and clients can connect from anywhere in the world and receive many of the benefits of in-person meetings—all without the expense and hassle of business travel.
But you are not alone if you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the frequency of video meetings today. With the trend toward remote and hybrid work spurred by the pandemic, people have 250% more video meetings in 2022 than compared to early 2020.1 Experts believe that video conferencing is actually more cognitively taxing than interacting face-to-face2, which means that the expedience and cost-effectiveness of video calls does come at an expense to the participants.
As all signs point to remote and hybrid work being here to stay, improving the quality of video conferencing can have an outsized impact on productivity, efficiency, and the employee experience for years to come. Here are the top six ways that businesses can make it happen today.
1. Maximize Your Bandwidth and CPU
Choppy video and audio during video conferencing can be a major distraction, bringing meetings to a halt and stopping the flow of conversation. No matter how robust your video conferencing technology, the transfer of video and audio data in real-time imposes significant demands on internet bandwidth and computer processing.
If you’re at home, pause smart devices in your house that consume bandwidth, and if others are present with you, ask them to take a break from high-demand activities like video streaming.3 If you use a PC, press “CTRL/ALT/DELETE” to view the task manager (or open the Activity Monitor on a Mac) and close out any unnecessary apps that are utilizing significant computer processing power.4
2. Minimize the Distractions
We all know that it’s best to participate in video conferences in a calm, quiet environment, but sometimes circumstances do not cooperate. Take advantage of video conferencing tools that help eliminate distractions for you. RingCentral MVP™ offers background noise filters for both audio and video calls.5 Even when using the mobile app, it only takes one click to automatically register the pitch of your voice and eliminate background noises and echoes.
3. Make It As Easy As Possible
When it comes to video conferencing with clients or prospective customers, the last thing you want to do is add barriers to participation. Conferencing technologies that require users to download a separate app will deter the very busy or the technologically challenged. One option is Microsoft Teams, which allows participants to join video calls without a download, although there may be feature limitations depending on the user’s browser. Another option is RingCentral, which enables a near-universal look, feel, and feature set across browsers, no download necessary.6
4. Let Artificial Intelligence Do Some of the Heavy Lifting
In order to make meetings really count toward business objectives, it’s necessary to have notes and summaries that translate the discussion into action. That said, if the meeting was last minute, there may not be a clearly designated reporter, or if your team has back-to-back meetings, there might not be enough capacity. Consider a technology like Otter.ai that analyzes voice and translates it into text. Or consider an option like RingCental MVP with Advanced Meetings Insights that not only creates a meeting transcript, but uses AI to generate a summary, keywords, and video highlight reels.
5. Increase the Interactivity
Most professionals participate in multiple video calls every week. Even going back to 2020 before the pandemic, American businesses held 11 million video conferences every single day.7 It’s only natural that video calls will blend together without interactive tools to set each one apart. RibgCentral MVP’s video meetings offer a suite of features that enable users to make each meeting more unique. A digital whiteboard facilitates brainstorming through diagrams, sticky notes, highlighting, and minimaps. Breakout rooms enable large groups to split into smaller teams for focus sessions.
6. Don’t Overdo It
Video conferencing is a wonderful business tool, and with technologies like RingCentral MVP, it’s effortless to schedule video calls. But don’t allow video conferencing to become a crutch. If the topic can be effectively addressed over channels like chat or email, consider skipping the video call. Teammates will appreciate handling their end of the work on their own schedules and will be more likely to feel invested in video conferences going forward if they know they are necessary.
1 https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/triple-peak-day-work-from-home/629457/
2 https://news.stanford.edu/2021/02/23/four-causes-zoom-fatigue-solutions/
3 https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/8-tips-for-better-video-conference-calls
4 https://www.ir.com/guides/video-conferencing-quality
5 https://www.ringcentral.com/us/en/blog/reduce-background-noise/
6 https://www.ringcentral.com/us/en/blog/new-chrome-and-firefox-support/
7 https://otter.ai/blog/meeting-statistics
Ensure Your Video Conferencing and Communications Are Always at the Highest Level
If your business’s video conferencing capabilities are lacking, it may be time to consider an upgrade. But before you investigate new technologies, reach out to a business communications expert like IPC Tech. Your video conferencing capabilities should be a synergistic part of your entire communications platform, and we can help you find a solution that improves your overall operations and grows with future technologies.