Hosting Large Conference Calls

Manage Big Conference Calls With Confidence

Whether it’s the first large conference call or your 50th, it’s normal to feel some nervousness leading up to the meeting. Big conference calls usually signify important events. If it’s your responsibility to make them run smoothly, it’s best you do everything you can to ensure success.

Simplify Your Event

Large audio conference calls aren’t difficult to manage, but you do need to prepare for the meeting in advance. And it’s necessary to know the tools and steps that are required to maintain control. If you were put in charge of managing an in-person corporate event for your company, you wouldn’t just wing it. You’d plan ahead of time to make sure everything goes according to plan. The process of preparing for a large conference call is no different.

In our experience working with clients who have managed large conferencing events, we’ve heard all the stories imaginable. Such as corporate investor relations meetings with nothing but commuter traffic in the background. Or free for all conference call Q&A sessions where attendees talk over each other.

We’re here to help you avoid issues such as these. These best practices will ensure you manage your large conferencing events effectively.

Tips for Hosting a Large Conference Call

Run test conference calls in advance

Familiarize yourself with your conferencing service and its features. To start, we’d recommend running a few test calls before your scheduled event. Have a few colleagues join you to test out the features you plan on using. If you are running an operator-assisted event, make sure to set up a call with your operator to review your goals and requirements ahead of time. Then, when it comes down to game-time you’ll be ready.

Mute your participant’s conference lines

Large conference call events are usually lecture or webinar style. The host and a few guest speakers present initially, while the rest of the conference attendees listen in. If you haven’t muted the conference call it only takes one caller with a bad connection or calling in from a high background noise environment to ruin your entire call. You can easily prevent this through the use of our host telephone controls by pressing 1* to mute your conference or turn on the mute feature using the online conference manager.

Prepare and Distribute a Meeting Agenda

There’s a purpose for your conference, therefore, it’s important to create a meeting agenda so you get your desired end results. Whether you’ll be hosting a 40 or 4,000 person conference call, the preparation and end result should be the same, visualize how you would like the conference to go and use that to plan your meeting agenda.