Video conferences have been a pillar of business life for years. While historically saved for executive conference rooms of many large organizations or special events, the rapid growth of technology and its accessibility has made the benefits of hosting a free online meeting available to every business, at any time, from anywhere.
Now, hosting an online video call promotes an increase in productivity and efficiency across all departments of any organization – executives, marketing, sales, finance, human resources, development, product management, customer service, remote workers, and training – at little to no costs.
Video collaboration enables a wide range of employees to better convey, understand, and act upon project information shared with coworkers. Because most communication is nonverbal, face-to-face interaction is vital to building business relationships. Engaging in a cam-to-cam chat enables the same live interaction without the costly expenses of travel.
Most organizations have already experienced improved efficiency, productivity, and innovation due to hosting video calls online.
Here are ways your business can see real benefits from online video meetings:
Reduced travel expenses
Without question, the biggest benefit and convenience to hosting a video call online is savings in travel costs.
Frequent traveling across the country or internationally for routine meetings with partners, clients, and industry colleagues was once a necessary and time-honored practice.
And yes, for particular tasks, there’s no replacing live interaction.
But nearly every organization across all industries can save significant amounts in expenses by implementing online video calls in their business.
Companies can save cash on flights, hotels, city transportation, and other expenses that arise.
Now that technology has made significant strides in the delivery of high-definition video quality and ease of use, online video meetings can lead to meaningful results without burning a hole your finances.
Reduced unproductive time spent while traveling
Hosting an online video meeting won’t just save your organization money, but another significant resource: time.
Part of the hassle of traveling for meetings is the time spent before and after the actual meeting.
All that time spent waiting for departing flights, connecting flights, baggage claim, sitting in city traffic, hotel check-ins, and the distraction of people along the way.
By scheduling a video call, you can spend your time more productively by skipping straight to the meeting without ever losing the flow of your work.
Not to mention your traveling team members will have better morale and more energy to get things done.
Eliminate possible meeting delays
As we mentioned above, leaving the office for business travel can slow down your productivity.
But it’s not only important to consider your time, but the time of the person or group you’re meeting with as well.
One of the major annoyances in any meeting is delays.
Whether it’s traffic or navigating to your meeting, showing up late is a sign of disrespect for other’s time no matter who you are or what the situation is.
Unfortunately, things can happen (often out of our control) that keep us running late, rescheduling, altering plans or locations.
A huge perk to online video calls is eliminating possible delays by crumbling distance barriers, enabling you to connect to others at any time in real time.
Eliminate meeting time restraints
Due to the accessibility of high-speed Internet, low-cost, and ease of use, you can host an online video call in a matter of seconds.
This means meetings can be held at any time of day, eliminating any time barriers or hurdles previous generations of people had to jump through.
No more red-eye flights and jet lag adjustments in order to be in sync with your colleague or client’s timezone.
You can simply schedule a time that is convenient for each party’s schedule and dial in.
As soon as meetings are finished, travelers don’t have to wait to get back into the office to take action. Team members can make moves moments after a call.
Meetings are shorter and more effective
Because meetings can happen instantly and at any time, you can now slim down meeting times; thereby increasing efficiency and productivity.
Whenever a cam-to-cam chat is the channel of communication, participants are more likely to stay in focus because the person speaking is directly in front of them, which means they can see and hear how you’re receiving their message.
It’s much easier to drift off in a meeting when you know the person speaking isn’t looking directly at you.
And because meetings can be recorded, anyone who missed the meeting can watch it on their own time to get the nitty gritty details without depending on anyone else.
Allow for greater attendance and participation
In today’s digital age, it is critical for businesses to utilize the technology readily available.
A major convenience to online video calls is having the ability to get your message across to people who aren’t physically in the same room with you.
Instead of traveling to multiple locations, you can open up your content to anyone with an internet connection.
By expanding your room for attendance and making it easier for others to participate, you can position yourself as an authority in your industry.
Video webinars have become an extremely effective tool marketers use to help businesses and organizations become influencers, gain a wider audience, and acquire new leads due to video’s worldwide access.
Exchange information immediately with Share Screen
Having the ability to share screens online in a video meeting makes exchanging and ensuring information is understood much easier.
For example, design departments can share their screen over video with marketing or management without causing much disruption in each other’s workflow.
Screen sharing is a real productivity booster for organizations with multiple locations or that have employees working remotely.
By engaging with your audience via online video call, you enable participants to gain a deeper understanding of concepts or solve problems more efficiently by detailing information on the spot without the need to meet in person.
Improved client communication and satisfaction
Sharing screens online doesn’t just provide convenience internally, but externally with clients as well.
Hosting a free online meeting improves productivity and efficiency by enabling your sales team to be in more places, connect with more people, and close more deals faster than ever before.
Client presentations, live demos, sharing & viewing documents can happen at the same time, anytime, and aren’t burdening your client with printed materials.
Plus, online video meetings enable your organization’s sales and customer support team to build stronger relationships with clients by providing a more personal, one-on-one attention.
Additionally, by sharing screens online, your salespeople will feel less worn out by travel, and able to provide clients with optimal communication and satisfaction at a higher frequency.
Improved internal communication
Any organization knows communication is a major key to success.
Unfortunately, it can be easy for that communication to be slow to send and receive – or worst, completely lost.
When you have multiple projects going on, there can be an incredible amount of back-and-forth emails or messages flooding your inbox.
Hopping on a quick video call can reduce the noise and open up a clearer channel of communication that will make team members and departments spend less time trying to solve problems.
For example, production and marketing departments can share each other’s screens and make adjustments on the fly.
Increasing your organization’s flexibility will help improve your team’s workflow (and declutter emails) between all departments.
Make decisions faster
Along with improving your team’s workflow, having a cam-to-cam chat speeds up your project turnaround time by reducing the time it takes to make decisions.
There’s no doubt collaboration is best when you can bounce ideas off of one another in the same room.
You can get a broad sense of how strongly team members believe in ideas by taking notice of nonverbal behaviors and movements.
Providing your organization with video call capabilities, project members can exchange ideas in the same ‘room’ from anywhere in the world.
When you foster strong communication and brainstorming, your team can get on the same page faster and work towards completion without missing a step.
Stronger team building
The hiring process can be tedious and time-consuming. Candidates are often put through stages of meetings with various management members over the phone and corresponding through email.
Often, top-level talent is out of state and can be a costly expense to relocate them onsite.
With the growing rate of remote workers, organizations that utilize video conferencing as a tool for recruitment dramatically increase their hiring and retention of top talent by ensuring the right person is selected for the position.
Online video calls also encourage new ways of connecting remote employees with in-office team members by providing face-to-face experiences they would otherwise miss out on.
Furthermore, by providing employees with the ability to host online video calls in place of traveling, team members can have an improved work/life balance.
Some organizations even allow employees to work from home one day out of the week to help give a break from the daily commute.
Reduce time spent training
Instructional training for new and seasoned team members is a great way to make sure your organization stays on top of the best practices.
By recording and storing your video calls online, you can bring new employees up to speed in a much shorter amount of time.
Management can record and upload videos online of best practices, protocol, or policies, so new recruits don’t have to travel to receive training like they once did in the past.
Online video drives and enhances engagement by providing employees with access to a more immediate platform of learning.
Businesses also become able to train more people at once, saving a trainer’s time while allowing more trainees to hit the ground running.
Gain a competitive advantage with access to experts
Having the technology to meet virtually anywhere means you no longer have to travel to connect with industry experts and teachers.
While attending seminars, conventions, and conference are great, some organizations might not have the means to travel on location.
Online video calls serve as a vehicle to attend webinars and tap into the brains of experts without the travel expenses.
Even better, by reaching out to experts directly and hosting a video call online, you can set yourself up to build relationships with leaders and share information straight from your office.
You can skip the convention fees and seminar travels while still maintaining relationships and a presence in your industry.
Open up new market opportunities
If your organization has goals on a global scale, online video calls can help open your business up to new international marketplaces.
As more and more organizations are exploring foreign markets, utilizing video can be a major game-changer by helping to break down language barriers that would make travel much more costly.
For example, health care interpreters have expanded their non-English speaking clients through the power of online video calls – clients they otherwise would be unable to reach.
Reduced environmental impact
Sure, while hosting an online meeting as a means of going ‘green’ may not boost productivity or your bottom line, per se, reducing the need to travel will have a greater long-term global impact.
By reducing energy use, your organization will lighten its carbon footprint, indirectly and directly.
Making a positive contribution will also help energize employee motivations and morale, leading to higher quality performances.
There’s no doubt about it; video meetings produce a positive impact in any organization within any industry. With tangible productivity improvement and cost-effective convenience, technology has reached a point that implementing video is a no-brainer.
Cam-to-cam chats make face-to-face interaction easy and save your organization travel costs while still bringing people together.
From your conference room or smartphone, devices of all sizes allow organizations to reach out and stay connected in ways that have never been faster – improving the way we work, and ultimately, the way we live.
In today’s global economy, encouraging innovation with online video technology is necessary to keep up with fast-moving digital trends. To see how safe and secure video communication can double your organization’s productivity, get started with a free trial of Brosix’s premier platform today.
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