So, the time has come for your business to start using web conferencing to meet communication needs. That’s awesome! Now you can enjoy the benefits of remote work and live online trainings! And a top conferencing provider can help you vastly improve your business model!
But there’s the catch: how do you go about picking from all the conferencing providers out there? Which one is the best fit for you?
Picking the right conferencing provider is a big deal, and not one to take lightly. Switching providers can be a headache no one wants to endure. Whether it’s accommodating your training departments or getting execs to buy-in, there’s a lot you have to account for.
Taking the time to pick a provider that works well with your organization is crucial. The right provider can grow with your team as your needs change and expand. And they help drive more collaboration than you could imagine.
To help you make the right selection, we’ve listed out the questions you should be asking yourself when evaluating a top conferencing provider.
Researching for a Top Conferencing Provider
During your research phase, you need to determine what your needs are as an organization. Ask yourself these initial questions before talking to conferencing providers:
- What will you use conferencing for in your organization: online training, webinars or online meetings? Other? All of them?
- Do you need just a simple screen share or conference call line? Or do you want your conferencing service to be more of an asset and resource for your organization?
- Do you have many remote workers you need to collaborate with?
- Do you need analytics/reporting to be a part of your conferencing package?
- Is it important to keep growing with the conferencing solution, and keep implementing it in new ways across the organization?
- What is your budget?
- How many people in your organization will use the conferencing tool? Do you plan to grow and add more members to your team?
- How important is it for your participants/guests to join your audio and/or web meeting without any hassles?
- Is it important for you to have high participant limit in your conference room or call? I.E. 100, 500 or 1,500 attendees
- What audio is important for you? Do you need some or all of these options: integrated dial-out, VoIP, dedicated toll-free, public toll-free international toll, SIP UV? (Not sure? Use our audio conferencing checklist to help inform your decision.)
Identifying the Conferencing Features You Need
As you start talking with your top picks for conferencing providers, you need to dig into which features are important to you. You may want to ask yourself:
- Is recording your meetings/webinars necessary?
- Does your organization use or want MP4 Recordings?
- How important is it for you to have features that keep participants interacting and engaged?
- How much would you benefit from sharing multiple pieces of content or running polls at the same time?
- Do you need multiple webcams going at once?
- Do you want to have small group sessions during online events? (You may want breakout rooms.)
- Do you have time to continuously upload the same content, over and over again?
- Do your participants get stuck with updates before joining your room — causing them to be late and frustrated?
- Do you want to stream videos from YouTube?
- How important is branding and customization for online events to your organization?
- How often do you have the SAME meeting with the same participants?
- Do you need to be able to track registrants and track curriculum?
- Is mobile friendly important?
- Is it important for your participants to be called directly from a web meeting vs. dialing into the conference line?
- During your meeting, do you want to be able to tell which participant is talking?
- Does your organization need to integrate with an existing LMS (Learning Management System)?
- Do you need to be able to provide live and on-demand training?
- Is tracking participant interaction and engagement important?
- Is it important for you to have a variety of visual layouts to share with participants?
- Would you like to control audio features? Like turning off the “beep” when participants join the call late.
- As part of your training or webinar program, would you like to have personalized training or even help to build out content for your online conferencing events?
- Would you like to utilize Adobe Captivate or Adobe Presenter with your conferencing service?
With remote workers, more projects and trainings are now being held digitally more than ever before. Asking yourself and your conferencing provider these questions will be beneficial for the long-term success of your team.
Having the resources in place to grow in this digital era will be huge for how productive and efficient your organization is. Giving your organization a tool that is useful and works for muliple use cases can only lead to a happy team – making YOU look like the hero!
If you’re looking for information on how to compare one top conferencing provider with others, start with us! Here are a pair of resources we created to help you out:
- Watch our recorded webinar The Good, the Bad & the Ugly: Web Conferencing – which compares the features of each top conferencing provider like Adobe Connect, WebEx, GotoMeeting, and so on.
- Use our interactive Online Conferencing Checklist, which allows you to check off the conferencing tools platform components, and enterprise options you may want.
There are so many options out there, talking with a dedicated solution consultant can help you make the best fit for your organization. Schedule a customized demo at a time that is convenient for you with our product experts to see if Adobe Connect and MeetingOne’s Audio is a fit for you!
