subject: Are Conference Calls As Effective As Face-To-Face Meetings? [print this page] Are Conference Calls As Effective As Face-To-Face Meetings?
Nowadays many businesses opt for conference calls, which have become the technology preferred for communicating with people located all over the world. Using call conferencing decreases a lot their business travel expenses and reduces significantly the time lost on conducting face-to-face meetings. In times when companies need to lower their costs, the option of conferencing services for communication is just the way to go.
Conference call service providers provide many conferencing solutions. In order to participate in the teleconference participants use the number provided and dial into a conference bridge. One of the advantages of teleconferencing the call could be conducted and joined only by using any ordinary telephone line. This gives one a chance to use phone conferencing service anywhere and anytime.
Are face-to-face meetings totally replaced by voice conference calls? The answer is probably negative. Meetings are conducted mainly in service of people and help them communicate. A face-to-face meeting provides you with more information by means of body language, the personality and behavior. The non verbal signals speak more and give you awarness of what is exactly going on. Conferencing helps you make sales presentations, provide training, conducting sales deal or announcing financial results. But a face-to-face meeting is still the culmination of discussions over the call.
Conference calling, however, offers significant advantages, because they can replace initial meetings aiming at fixing important the aspects of each business deal. Calls can get connected a group of people working on a certain project. They can help promote the feeling of a single team working together. But most important of all is that conference calling saves time and money.
Following are situations when telephone conferencing successfully replaces face-to-face meetings: using the Internet to share files and documents, client is being introduced to your team, making demo presentations, strategic planning and follow ups. Project participants can also receive quick regular update on the status. Those were the things that make a teleconference more useful than face-to-face meetings.
Face-to-face meetings may never be completely replaced by conference calls. Face-to-face meeting is suitable for rough negotiations or hard situations. Conference calls and its advantages, on the other hand, can easily replace regular update meetings.
