Video conferencing is becoming very popular amongst business people. Companies use it to keep touch with remote teams, hold meetings without leaving their desks, and even to present information to clients and colleagues. It has been used to train employees and can even act as an inter-office video intercom when necessary.
If you’re like one of the thousands of businesses considering video conferencing or e-meeting software and equipment from providers like videonations, there are very good reasons why you might choose this innovative technology. Although the basic technology has been around for over forty years, it has come a long way and can help your business to be more efficient.
Faster Answers
Email can be ignored, as can telephone calls, and both are terribly impersonal. Getting up from your work area to travel and speak with someone directly can be an immense loss of time when you just have a simple question. By combining video conferencing with an inter-office chat system for work-related questions, you can handle both issues at once.
Encourage employees to send an IM with a video conferencing request when they want to connect for short questions or five-minute meetings. Programs like Skype or even FaceTime can help with this.
Offer Better Client/Customer Support
We’ve all heard it from customers before. “Why can’t I just talk to a real person?“
Failing to personalise your customer support can be disastrous. It presents your business as cold, unwilling to go above and beyond, and even uncaring. This is why many businesses are now offering live video chat with customer service representatives who can handle simple questions from a distance. It can even entirely eliminate the need for a call centre.
Create a Remote Team
Brick and mortar offices and stores cost money, and this can be especially difficult for startups. Instead, create a remote team of contractors from anywhere in the world. When it comes time for training and meetings, video conferencing will help you to engage with your team more easily. Chat groups on Skype and other IM platforms can take this one step further, with everyone on the team easily accessible.
Scalability
Whether you’re a company of one, or 1000, video conferencing can be customized to provide you with what you need to get the job done correctly. The infinite scalability of video conferencing solutions makes it an excellent choice for early startups and fast-growing businesses. Further, whereas you would once need to switch out equipment, service provider, and more just to access large-scale video conferencing, this is no longer required. It’s possible to shift from small to large in a fluid manner, starting easily and growing later.
Work From Anywhere
One of the great benefits of conferencing over the internet is that you can connect with your office from just about anywhere in the world. If your job can be done online or over a VPN, then it’s possible to integrate a video conferencing solution with other apps and programs to allow you to work from a virtual office. It can also allow you to monitor the office while you stay home sick, or to allow your employees to work from home on days they are too sick to come into work, but well enough to handle a light load.
There’s really no benefit to forcing employees to come in when they aren’t feeling well; research has shown that doing so usually ends up costing the business lost days when others become ill. While it is always possible that an employee may abuse the privilege, most loyal employees will appreciate the trust you put into them when you offer it.