If you’re an executive manager newly charged with holding weekly or daily conference calls, knowing what you are doing is essential. You may receive the benefit of a few pointers on holding Conference Calls, or you may have been lucky enough to be exposed to a skilled conference call leader in the past. If you’re not so confident about your conference call organizational skills, a few basic guidelines can help.
First, you must establish that you will be using a top quality conference call service and telephone equipment. Conference calls that are continually interrupted, are hard to hear or that are dropped will destroy any hopes you have for effective communication.
Second, be sure everyone that will participate is aware of the conference call and is scheduled to be present on the call on time. Participants coming and going throughout your call will be even more disrupting than they would be if they entered and exited a room where you were holding a face-to-face meeting.
To establish conference call protocol, it is a good idea to send out a reminder the day before the call along with key information. This information should include the conference call access number, the call-in time (schedule a few minutes prior to the call’s start time), the topics to be discussed and a list of participants.