Organise an Efficient Conference Call

Conference calling is a fantastic way of keeping your business on track while key members aren’t able to make it to the same meeting destination. However, as with anything, conference calls need ample planning in order to run smoothly and effectively, and thus a conference call agenda, which will stem from your initial conference call meeting ideas. It’s easy to understand, then, that without the necessary strategy, conference calls can be a huge waste of your own and a lot of other people’s valuable time.

Attendees

Before you set up the conference call, decide who really needs to attend. There may be someone who doesn’t need to sit through the entire conference call, in which case they could always be called separately at the appropriate point in the conference call to discuss their part, or even emailed with the appropriate information.

Pre planning

The key is to treat every conference call just as if you had all the attendees and speakers in the same room. Create a meeting agenda and remain focused at all times – fail to plan and you might as well call it off. Plan the meeting’s theme, an itemised agenda, time and date, phone number to dial in on, and the conference call access code, and let everyone know these details via group email/invitation. And remember to invite only those for whom the content of this conference call is absolutely necessary. This way, you shouldn’t have any absences or latecomers, or any attendees not knowing what the meeting’s about.

Similarly, if it’s necessary for your conference call to be accompanied by Internet access, then you must make the necessary preparations for everyone to have access to a computer with an Internet connection prior to the meeting’s commencement – if you need your attendees to have web access, then remember to let them know in their invitation.

And finally, just a few minutes before the conference call’s commencement, send out an email to alert everyone that it’s is about to start – this will gently remind those who have perhaps forgotten.

Location, location, location

First and foremost, you’ll need to conduct your conference in a quiet location where you can clearly hear what others are saying, and vice versa. If your conference call is dogged by distracting noises that make the speakers’ voices inaudible, then both you and the other attendees will lose interest very quickly.

Be on time and remain in control

It’s incredibly important for the host to keep to schedule – be late, and you’ll be setting a bad example to others for future conference calls, it will throw your agenda off, and your business associates may be disgruntled by the fact that you’re throwing their working day out of whack, too, and be reluctant to be involved in further calls. Sign into the call, make sure everyone is there by taking a register of attendees, noting any absences – you should have apologies for those who find at short notice that they aren’t able to attend. Your register could even state what organisation each attendee works for and why they’re involved in the call. When the conference call has begun, make sure you stay on top of the agenda and don’t let anyone else take over the call.

Run through protocol at the beginning, politely requesting that whenever someone speaks, they state their name first, thus easily saving confusion. This is crucial for conference calls with multiple attendees – too many people, especially on some of these conference call services, tend to sound very similar and are often indistinguishable.

Wrapping up

You should encourage your attendees to provide feedback before the close of the conference call. And make sure that this feedback doesn’t turn into a discussion that strays from the topics scheduled. If this does happen, all you need to do is politely advise your attendees that all off topic points should be held back until a more appropriate meeting or call – it may even be a good idea to remind your attendees at key points in the meeting to keep all discussion focussed and strictly on topic.

To wrap up, briefly summarise the points covered, request any last minute comments from attendees, and ensure that all attendees contact details are present and correct. And while you have everyone on the end of the phone, it’s the perfect opportunity to agree a time and date for your next conference call, where appropriate. Remember though, you don’t necessarily have to have the call and authorization codes set up yet – you can email this information to the attendees at a later date in your conference call confirmation email.

The Follow Up

A week or so after the conference call, make sure that you send out an email to everyone that thanks them for their input and itemises the points discussed during the call – the meeting minutes, if you like. In this email, you can also detail any items that were shelved for a later date, and any thoughts that occurred to you since the meeting’s close. By now, you should have the phone number and conference call authorization code for the next telephonic meeting extravaganza, so be sure to put that into your email too.