Guide To Conferencing

rooms with more people in attendance.

In recent times though, products have developed to suit a multitude of requirements comprising different network connectivity, ergonomics, evolution and value-added services.

Products today not only need to sound good but need to look great too as many high tech facilities use high tech services of high tech design. Stateof- the-Art looks are becoming as important as the state-of-the-art technology.

Meetings without restrictions

Customers also want and need flexibility to connect to different networks without hassle. This maximises the return on their investments by utilising them as often and as flexibly as possible. Analogue, digital, wireless, mobile, USB and IP connections and mixtures of each are all extensively utilised and conferencing phones need to be able to work in these different environments, and increasingly to allow users to switch and bridge between different networks. The drive to Unified Communications is at different stages for different companies but the consistent factor is that people are increasingly looking for multipurpose investments.

This demand is also evident in the services that users now expect of their conference phones. First and foremost is still the need for the clearest possible sound reproduction to allow the best possible exchange of clear spoken communication but today’s conferencing phones also need to provide users with additional valueadded services to improve their personal and business efficiency.

Services such as call recording are becoming the norm in many industries and the ability to immediately record conference calls is becoming a critical and essential way of working. Whether it is a customer enquiry or complaint, supplier update, project timetable or market or company information that is being discussed, the ability to immediately record the information and then circulate it to specific targeted personnel for immediate action is proving to be a massive asset for any business looking to improve its customer service and business efficiency. Actually this type of service extends the use of the conferencing phone to be used to record not only phone conversations but also meetings or minutes of meetings with the phones being used as dictation devices, saving the time and resources needed to write up the notes, review them and circulate them some time later. Information can be immediately recorded and circulated to the parties concerned for immediate action.

Meetings are spontaneous

With the changing pattern of working behaviour, with more delegation of responsibility and authority and more hot desking and home working, conference phones need to be more widely available to more people than ever before as individuals need to be able to take advantage of being with colleagues to call other people immediately, share and discuss vital information and act on it without having to wait days and weeks to synchronise all parties diaries for a face-to-face meeting.

The environment for a home worker is very different from a corporate boardroom but both benefit from quality hands-free communication, network interconnectivity, and the ability to work and communicate as efficiently as possible. A conference phone with wireless headset operation is a great benefit to a home worker who now has the freedom to roam whilst still being fully engaged on a call, just as it is to a Corporate Presenter or Training manager who can present information to a room full of people as well as remote attendees using the conference phone and via the headset he is able to communicate to all parties simultaneously without having to move back and forth to be near the phone.

Crystal clear sound for group audio conferencing is still a priority but today’s phones need to offer so much more.