How Does Teleconferencing Work?

Advantages

Teleconferencing offers you the advantage of being able to get a large group of employees together in a company with multiple locations. The individuals can all call in to a central phone number and participate in the phone call with other members of the company. This can help a company that has locations in many different countries hold a meeting without having to fly all of the members for the meeting to a central location. Using a teleconference also limits the need for meeting space. Each member of the teleconference can call in from his own desk, or even from a cell phone if he is traveling, instead of having to arrange for a conference room reservation.

Features of Conference Calls

It is possible to get a recorded file of your conference call at the end of the call. This recording can be used to share with individuals who could not attend the call. It can also be used to evaluate the interaction between the different members on the conference call. The individual who is hosting the conference call can even get a printed list of who called in to the conference call instead of having to take roll at the beginning of the call. Teleconferencing also allows the host to choose to mute the other callers during the call at any point to limit interference on the line, and then unmute them when the host would like to open up the call to questions.

Challenges When Using Teleconferencing

Teleconferencing can be very useful, but it's not without its challenges. One of the biggest challenges is the quality of the phone line connections for each of the members. It can also be tricky finding a convenient time for all of the members for a conference call, because with everyone being located in different locations, coordination for choosing a time must be done through phone calls or e-mails. When hosting a conference call, it is also impossible to be able to look at your audience and determine if they are paying attention. Without a moderated question and answer period with an operator who organizes individuals with questions into a queue, you can have individuals speaking over each other trying to get their questions in during the teleconference.