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Meeting Software Buyer's Guide
Table of Contents
- » What is Meeting Software?
- » How does Meeting Software work?
- » Is it worth investing in Meeting Software?
- » What are the features of Meeting Software?
- » What are the benefits of Meeting Software?
- » Before Selecting Any Meeting Software
- » How to Select the Best Meeting Software?
- » Pricing of Meeting Software
- » Conclusion
Over 55 million meetings are conducted weekly all over the world. This phenomenon means that on an average a business person spends most of his time on meetings, constantly looking to get solutions to the problems faced on a daily basis. Earlier, it used to be a paper-pen based process and was taking a lot of time to make its purpose fruitful, but nowadays it’s merely a matter of time to get the juice of the meeting on the table as soon as it gets over. It just takes a few minutes to finish the setup process to organize a board meeting that can turn more productive than a traditional offline meeting. However, unless you know how to arrange audio and video channels to their best, expecting a quality output can be a complicated affair but not anymore. It can be quickly taken care of by Meeting Software.
» What is Meeting Software?
It is a software that helps you automate your internal board meeting and other necessary elements required to host a tremendous virtual meeting with your board members on a frequent basis. With the software by your side, it takes only a few minutes to prepare a conducive environment for hosting an error-free meeting with the capacity to add as many delegates as you want. You can engage your audience with your content through virtual whiteboards, Facebook & YouTube Live, Polls & Surveys, etc. Not just for pre-meeting stuff, the Software is also helpful for analyzing and sharing the minutes of the meeting and recorded conversation with your team without any difficulty. With options for easy social media sharing of your content, you require no additional helping hand to take care of many routine processes involved in a meeting on a day to day basis.
» How does Meeting Software work?
Online Meeting Software takes the help of several tools to help you give your virtual meetings a success every time. For instance, for preparation, it offers you customizable pre-designed invitation formats that save your time. Also, it easily virtual attendance page thereby making it easy for you to keep a note of attendees. It creates an individual profile page of your attendees and their stated propaganda about the meeting so that you get to know about their interests, agenda, and expectations beforehand to give the meeting a definite direction. The option of screen sharing and virtual whiteboards makes it easy for you to state your point through drawings, flow charts, and document sharing which you find difficult to do otherwise.
» Is it worth investing in Meeting Software?
Virtual Meetings and web conferences are part and parcel of daily business dealings, and there is no question about that. They are a great way to save time and money from travelling too far places to make an important business decision. If your business has multiple branches and requires frequent coordination amongst the employees before every important decision, the software would be your ideal bet. The software allows you to make the entire process hassle-free for not only you but also for your participants. They feel special when their inbox reads a reminder message to attend your meeting. Even the minutes of the meeting shared post-conference will make their work easy to report their higher authorities. In this way, online meeting software will create a good impression of your brand on your employees. Would you like to give it a pass to save a nominal monthly subscription fee?
» What are the features of Meeting Software?
Though the purpose of the software is to arrange hassle-free internal board meetings for you, it can do a lot more than just that. Let’s have a look at some of the standard key features that you will find in almost any type of Meeting software.
› MEETING CHECK-IN:
It enables the ability to check in to meetings thereby sending an alarm to everyone when a session ready to commence. Thus, you need to depend on any of your employees to do the needful as the software can automate the whole process with ease.
› SCHEDULING:
The timeline of each meeting can be tracked and rescheduled to keep track of the number of meetings held on the days and times. You will be able to see the sessions that eat much of your time and can note your flaws from saved videos to further improvise your next meetings.
› PRE-DESIGNED THEMES:
Usually, you send invitations to your employees through email in advance or urge them to self-check-in on your intra website registration page. That takes time for your designing team to come up with their best each time you decide to put a new theme. However, with the software by your side, you can select from a number of pre-designed registration themes and email templates that set you to roll in anytime you want.
› UPDATE, CANCEL OR MOVE MEETINGS:
One needs meeting management software that allows the update, cancel, or move meetings on the fly. You can also make changes across the entire shared calendar, and so the rest of the company. In this way, everyone can successfully receive updates on meetings and would not have to check the schedule manually.
› ALERTS PARTICIPANTS:
With the software by your side, you no need to make a constant follow up with the participants prior to the meeting. The software will send email reminders to all the participants of the meeting. This would keep them updated with the time and day of the meeting.
› SHARING DETAILS:
There could be some last-minute participants who may feel disconnected from not knowing the minutes of the meeting in advance. However, with the software, you can share that with each participant almost instantly thereby narrowing down the scope for any miscommunication.
› VIRTUAL WHITEBOARD:
Needless to say, in a meeting, there comes the time when you need to draw a flowchart or write something on your whiteboard to make your point clear. However, a physical whiteboard may not get clear to the eyes of the participants from a small screen but with the software that ceases to exist. It offers a virtual whiteboard to use your imagination. As you draw or write something, the participants see it clearly from the screen and even can zoom it for getting a better view.
» What are the benefits of Meeting Software?
Apart from the key features mentioned, it is crucial to take a look at the benefits of the meeting software.
› EFFORTLESS MEETING PREPARATIONS:
The software powers you to make hassle-free planning of your upcoming meetings and to create an effective communication channel with the attendees for the preparation of the meetings. This includes management of documents, distributing agendas, offline viewing, scheduling and updating piece of information of a meeting by the virtual meeting software.
› TRANSPARENCY:
Meeting Management software should have the crucial element of being transparent. It is the ability to see and access the minute of every meeting that would be held. This feature helps get everyone on the same page at the same time cuts off the times invested in asking questions concerning a meeting’s topic, length and location and the efficiency of the meetings are enhanced.
› SENDING UNLIMITED INVITATIONS:
Unlimited meeting invitations to the attendees using the address feature book. The whole process of initiation will take just a few minutes, and you will find it easy than the traditional method of meeting through bulky wires and accessories.
› MULTIPLE MEETING SCHEDULES:
It is meeting software which enables to arrange and re-arrange multiple meeting schedules without any confusion but ensuring authenticity. With that being said, you can have more than one meetings run by this software under a single time frame, giving credibility to its multi-user feature.
› AN EASY INTERFACE:
It has a flexible interface to use that facilitates editing the meeting schedules. You will get all the details such as participants’ info, and schedule time of meeting on a screen. Later, you can also find your get recordings and minutes of the meeting downloaded from the dashboard with a few clicks.
» Before Selecting Any Meeting Software
Meeting software comes in many forms to cater different groups of business. For example, some software have features to only schedule and manage the outcomes of the meeting, they don’t contain any audio or video call feature for facilitating virtual meetings. They cost less as compared to their higher versions and is perfect for those looking to manage internal meetings within a single office premise. Also, the cost varies depending upon the level of digital space you need to use for sharing attachments. Thus, the primary task before selecting any meeting software is to go through the possible number of features that you can get by browsing as many sellers’ websites as you can and then make a list of those you need at least. It will help you ask for the right type of customization you need for your software.
» How to Select the Best Meeting Software?
It is not that easy to select the best meeting software with a little observation. It is not just about chalking your requirements and your budget, it is about weighing the pros and cons in order to select the one that best addresses your current setbacks to host a successful internal meeting every time. In this regard, there are certain things to consider while selecting an ideal Meeting Software for your business.
› MULTIPLE CONFERENCING:
This is one of the essential features to look for while purchasing any remote meeting software- check its ability to arrange several meetings under a single time frame. Moreover, it should be able to arrange them without taking much of your time. A hassle-free arrangement is a key point here.
› VENDOR REPUTATION:
The task is somewhat similar to when we are about to purchase a home theatre for our home. It is important to choose the company sensibly. Not every company would provide the right quality software.
› NETWORK MANAGEMENT:
The meeting management tools chosen by you should be adept in network management just like any other service. It should be able to push software updates, perform diagnostics and keep central address books updated from time to time.
› STREAMING AND RECORDING:
The main reason for investing so much of our precious time to pick up the best cloud meeting software is stream highest quality video coupled with unmatched audio quality for a better experience. Don’t ever settle down for any meeting software that won’t be able to stream video in 4K HD format or won’t be able to record quality audio to hear even slow voices with clarity.
› FIREWALLS:
Video conferencing requires configuring firewalls to make calls beyond the organization’s network. The exact details of how to configure a firewall are highly dependent on a range of factors including the system. Unless the software promises to provide strong firewall support to keep your system safe from security breaches, feel free to give it a go.
» Pricing of Meeting Software
Apart from every unique feature and characteristics of Meeting Software, what should be determined first is whether or not it fits your budget. The primary task to do is to set the budget and then a make a choice accordingly, checking on all meeting tools which are catering to the needs of the buyer. Now coming to the pricing part, just remember, the price soars up with an increasing number of participants and added-features of course.
On average, the price starts from as low as $19/month eligible for 10 participants and can go up to even $49/month for 250 participants. To make you subscribed till longer period, vendors may also offer discounts on the annual subscription which may go up to 20% of the usual budget. Irrespective of the pricing, you get unlimited meetings, HD video calling, mobile optimization, web audio, dial-in conference line as some of the common features for your use. On the other hand, with a higher fee, you can unlock other meeting tools such as unlimited recording, keyboard & Mouse sharing, active directory, drawing tools, etc.
» Conclusion
Almost everywhere the sessions are now held on virtual platforms. These meetings conducted on the virtual platforms have turned out to be more systematic, organized and productive. Meeting Management software which could also be termed as a virtual meeting software has been of great help which has enabled the team to approach. These have certain drawbacks which would include technical issues, grainy videos, issues with the network. However, they are still more reliable than the traditional forms of holding meetings those slow down the pace of expected progress owing to the absence of automation.