An important client emails asking for a meeting to discuss their future plans - your diary is busy, and their diary is even busier. Trying to book a face-to-face meeting is going to be difficult.

Setting up a conference call is the ideal solution! Think of the benefits to both companies….

No travel costs – the meeting will take place from the comfort of your office, your home, or even the next Costa Coffee you stop at. Likewise for all the other parties involved. Not only will this save your company money but if you can fit in 4 conference calls where you would have only had one face-to-face meeting you could achieve so much more!

No unnecessary journeys - we all need to be conscious of our carbon footprint! And at this time of year, do you really want to be stuck on the M58 in the snow? A conference call benefits all parties.

Getting people together – in our increasingly busy lives, you can involve more people in a conference call than you might logistically be able to get round the same table – the Chairman in Portugal who only comes into the office 3 times a year for example.

That’s not to say you should empty your diary and set up a conference call instead of all your meetings. For some situations it’s important to sit down with the client, show them a demonstration of your equipment and even just make them feel “loved”. But for the majority of situations a conference call would do the exact same job as traveling those 200 miles up the motorway to see them personally.

And if you are on the road a lot and you need to have an important call with a client, why not ask your PA to set up a conference call and remain on the line to make notes? Both Unify OpenScape Business and ShoreTel systems would be ideal for this.

Even better – why not set up a Web Collaboration session and you can share screens and much, much more.

Further reading - Why Collaboration has become critical to business- Click HERE