(Newswire.net — September 12, 2016) — In the current world of technology, video conferencing has soared above and beyond the limitations of its original offering – video calling – and has now become a sort of split between being a digital communication suite and a collaboration platform.
Top-of-the-line business conferencing services offer much more than a face-to-face conversation across continents in real-time – they’ve recognized the modern digital landscape, and adapted to provide up-and-coming companies and established enterprises alike with the tools they need to boost productivity and efficiency. Productivity and efficiency are those two magic little words that spell a single, attractive result: profit. As per MindTools, an effective communication strategy can also make virtual teams that much easier to manage.
But like any great service, there are countless quality service providers to choose from in the world of video conferencing. You want to not only choose the one that gets you the biggest bang for your buck, you’ll also want to make sure you don’t choose a provider that leaves you with less advantages than your competition. That means going for the most feature-rich, practical option on the market – and for that, you need a checklist.
The Essential Video Conferencing Checklist
If you’ve decided to take the plunge into the rabbit hole and figure out what service best fits your company’s needs, budget and capabilities, you’ll want to know what’s possible and what’s essential. The first thing to look for in a quality video conference service is reputability. Companies like BlueJeans Network have been making their mark in the industry for years, evolving into the software market as the need for existing hardware and digital infrastructure diminished with the growing processing power of computers and phones, increased global Internet connectivity and the mainstream application of the cloud.
It’s easy for plenty of software providers to advertise a good service, but maintaining their reputation in the face of a less-than-stellar product is a little more difficult. Check for reputable and well-rated services before making yourself a shortlist of possible providers. From there, it’s time to delve in to the feature list.
High Quality Output
The first feature to a proper video meeting software is that it prioritizes quality output. That means high quality, clean audio, combined with 1080p video. Obviously this is not the type of quality you’ll want to expect when you’re calling from a six-year-old computer using dial-up, but under the right conditions – office to office, from one major city in Australia to another across the world in Canada – a top-of-the-line provider should ensure top quality in both audio clarity and video crispness.
Stellar Security
Another basic feature that any reputable meeting service provider should be able to ensure is encryption-based security. Today’s video meeting technologies mostly function over the cloud – to keep you from requiring a fully-stocked Polycom conference suite with a dedicated conference room and a million wires, software providers utilize the cloud to allow most devices to access a web-based application that does the same thing, with a loss in performance relative to the very best that today’s conferencing hardware has to offer.
That means all your calls, data and files will be transferred over the Internet, through the cloud, from one source to another. It’s up to the middleman to provide you with the proper security, and that means making it nigh-impossible to intercept your message.
When it is intercepted, it should be nonsense. Encryption allows you to make stolen files unreadable under the incorrect conditions of decryption, and it’s necessary for good security in a world where cybercrime is on a constant rise.
Collaboration Tools
While these software and hardware providers started out by making a living off selling video calling capabilities to large corporations, the needs of these corporations and their smaller competitors have changed. Today, it’s all about utilizing software to increase collaboration – and that means file sharing, screen sharing, video playing, slideshows, and much more.
Make sure that the list of collaborative features for your chosen provider is extensive, and relevant. If you offer tech support for your clients – or if you design digital products – you’ll want to make sure screen sharing is a definite option, so as to better guide your caller, for example. Alternatively, real-time document editing and file sharing allows for smoother meetings that get more done.
Universal Interoperability
Another important feature for meeting software providers is device interoperability. This means the ability to join into a call through whatever technological means available – from a smartphone’s web browser to a dedicated conference system’s installed software. After all, more people are on their phones than ever before – as many as 2.08 billion as per Statista.
Even better, some providers allow system administrators to send invite codes to people without the software, allowing them to join into a call from their web browser without requiring a signup or anything else – making tech support that much easier. Ultimately the best choice is entirely up to you and your needs, but whatever you do choose, it’s important that it prioritizes your needs and the provider’s relevance to those needs.