Remember These Effective Tips When Managing Conference Calls

Due to convenience and cost-effectivity, conference calls have become a daily part of every business routine. And while attending one does not demand a lot of effort from you as a participant, there are a few guidelines that can essentially help you as a participant during a conference call. Although managing conference calls does entail more responsibility on your end with a lot of planning, preparing, and organization under your care. 

But really, how can you possibly manage people that you don’t even see?

You have to consider non-verbal cues, external noises, and technical issues. It may be a bit challenging but with these best practices, your task of managing conference calls is made easier:

• Environment check

You wouldn’t appreciate going in a call where the background noise mostly drowns out the conversation, right? The same goes for your participants. Before anything else, be sure that you are situated in a conducive place where you can clearly hear people on the phone and they can for you too. Apart from the environment, there are also common conference call mistakes that can be easily avoided if taken into account ahead of time. 

• Determine the goal

You can’t just schedule a call and not have specific goals in mind. Even if the call is done on a weekly basis, it is important for you to establish a clear goal every time. What do you hope to achieve after the call, in the days and weeks after that? Let your participants know because it requires a team effort to achieve these goals. 

• Set an agenda and share it

Even before scheduling the call, you must list down the key discussion points that you wish to raise. You also need to include actions or solutions you want to accomplish by the end of the call. And for there to have an open discussion afterward, it is important that you share the agenda with your participants ahead of time. Participants can go through it and be able to contribute later on. It can be about the progress of an ongoing project, the stats of social media and blog posts, or the current count of webinar attendees. Here’s how to create an effective conference call agenda.

• Prepare your materials

Ran through your presentation several times to make sure nothing is amiss and all the information, statistics, images and infographic are accurate and cohesive. Try screen sharing it through another company computer and see if it works appropriately. 

• Start and end on time

Keep in mind that everybody else is working on their own projects, completing their own tasks, and meeting their own deadlines. The least you can do is to start and end the conference call on time. This is to show that you value and respect their time. 

• Do a roll call

Have the participants introduce themselves as they join in on the call. This is to give you and everyone else an idea of who’s present at the call and in order to match the voices to their names. 

• Set expectations

Before you go to the meeting proper and discuss the agenda, you must start by setting your expectations. Encourage them to speak up. Assure them that everyone deserves to be heard or that no idea is too ridiculous. Allow them to feel comfortable in sharing and contributing later on.

• Keep the call on track

When everyone gets too comfortable during the call and someone starts talking about the new trick their dog learned, it is possible to lose track of the key discussion points. This may urge others to also share personal stories that can distract everyone away from the agenda. Remember that you can always cut through it politely and get everyone back on track accordingly.

• Have everyone agree on the next steps

After everyone has contributed an idea, a solution, or any kind of suggestion that has been discussed thoroughly, there should be an agreement on which steps are to be taken afterward. Everyone should leave the call knowing they were able to accomplish the agenda. It’s important that they have an action plan to work into later on. 

• Follow up through email

Conference calls are usually recorded and documented for reference. It will be easier for you to distribute a summary of what went on with the call. Have the recording transcribed and summarized for you and the team. Make sure that you take note of these four things as soon as you end a conference call too.

In the end, regardless if you’re the participant or the host, a conference call’s success is still determined by the team’s willingness to collaborate and exert effort to accomplish its goals. Make sure to keep these things in mind when managing conference calls.