Planning for your Telephone Conference Calls

If you are used to traditional conferences, you will be delighted to know how technology allows meetings, collaborations, and conferences to bust the most common impediments to successful communication during these sessions.

For one technology allows a meeting to take place even if the participants are not in the same room. It even allows conferences to take place even if the participants are not in the same building – or country for that matter. Telephone conferencing, for example is one of the earlier and most effective ways to accomplish this.

However, this method does come with some drawbacks. For one, fact that you do not see the people you are talking to will certainly decrease the amount of visual communication available. Studies have shown that people process more information visually than aurally. This means that seeing the people you are talking to have a great bearing on your understanding of the meeting.

In addition, there are certain drawbacks to not being able to interact personally with co-participants. It could cause people to listen less. It also makes them prone to distractions. However, looking at the situation, the alternative – not having a meeting at all – does not seem too cheery as well.

This makes planning a telephone conference call so that it can maximize its efficacy given its limitations very important. Here are some tips to help you make the most out of your telephone conference.

1. Planning. In a board-meeting scenario, planning is already very important. This is doubly true for telephone conferences. Since some of the members will be probably be out of the building in different locations, it would be safe to assume that they are busy and will want a productive meeting that is both starts on time and ends on time.

Make sure you plan to inform the participants of the meeting regarding the scope of the meeting, the goals, and the time you expect to spend on the meeting. This will help them keep order. This is important since telephone conferences have a tendency to lack the order present in conventional conferences.

2. Set the protocols. Inform the members of the protocols in place for the duration of the meetings. For example, make sure the members are informed on when to speak and when a response is required of them. Visual messages will not be used so extra emphasis should be made on provided audible cues to facilitate communication.

You could also implement the clock method. The clock method serves to help the members visualize themselves around a conference table each assigned a specific seat in the direction of the numbers on the face of a clock. One member could be assigned 1:00, the next 2:00, and so on and so forth. This helps the participants visualize relationships between themselves. It also encourages active participation in the discussion.

One problem with telephone conferencing is the fact that they may sometimes make one feel too much of a spectator instead of a participant. This makes operator assisted teleconferencing, and even facilitator-assisted telephone conferences necessary.

3. Make sure the technical aspect is all right. It is important to make sure that the conference – which is already so reliant on audio – is free from technical snags. Some snags that could seriously jeopardize a meeting include hissing and popping audio, static, background noise, intermittent connections and others. I

It would be best if the technical problems were properly taken care of to prevent such inconveniences.

4. Evaluation. Make sure you create room for user feedback and opinion. Not only would it help the meeting itself. It would also help your revise and improve upon your present telephone conferencing plans so that your meetings can be more effective in the future.