With remote working on the rise, we cannot simply ignore the importance of audio conferencing and its ability to facilitate smooth working from home. Unfortunately, audio conferences are often plagued with delayed responses and severely broken conversations that negatively impact our overall engagement. The lack of engagement and delayed responses sap the team's productivity as a whole.
India hosts many IT and ITES businesses that heavily rely on audio conferencing to run their daily operations. Audio conferencing glitches would be detrimental to these businesses. Hence, it is essential to address them as soon as possible. In this article, Pulse Unified Communications, a leading audio conferencing solution provider in India, explains a few audio conferencing solutions for conducting a flawless and smooth conference call.
It is normal to assume that the equipment is all up and running just because a meeting was conducted a few hours before. We need to understand that each audio device renders audio differently with different audio conferencing applications.
Therefore, it is crucial to check the equipment at least ten minutes before the scheduled conference. In the event of a problem with equipment, this time gap will allow us to resolve it. Listed below are a few basic troubleshooting tactics we need to know.
Speech recording: Records our speech to see if it is audible and clear. We must change our seat position away from the microphone until we are confident that the audio quality is good.
Check speaker volume: Poor speaker volume can significantly impair communication and result in misunderstandings. It is also possible that the conversation could be extended if the participants cannot understand each other. Therefore, it is important to check our speaker volume before the meeting commences.
As remote workers, we are often unable to ignore the background noise from our homes. Regardless of the cause, background noise disrupts our audio calls and also impacts our focus and engagement. Making a soundproof room might seem like an impractical solution, but some noise cancelling devices on the market can help us reduce the background noises.
The noise-cancelling devices eliminate all background noises during the live audio calls, resulting in crisp and clear audio. These devices can record audio conferences with such a high level of clarity that they do not need any post-production editing.
It would be chaotic if everyone kept their mics unmuted during a team meeting. Participants should be advised to mute their microphones when not speaking. It can greatly improve the quality of the audio. A good audio conferencing application should have a mute feature to facilitate clear and uninterrupted conversations.
Several audio conferencing solutions also provide moderation operations that enable us to mute the participants. This feature can help reduce the interference from non-speakers or those who might be rudely interrupting the conversation. Similarly, with features such as closed captioning, participants can better understand the conversations, eliminating the need for interruptions in meetings.
Setting up audio conferences only when required would be an ideal solution to avoid frequent meetings. Status updates, simple Q&As, and other direct details can be shared through emails or other forms of written communication. We should ensure that the audio call is set up with a clear structure to avoid unwanted delays or other technical difficulties. Here are a few tips that will help our audio conferences run smoothly.
During audio conferences, we often experience technical issues and subsequent delay in calls. The best way to avoid this is to contact an Internet service provider and resolve the issue. Probably the best way to resolve this is to replace these devices with high upload speeds.
Run a Wi-Fi speed test before the call, and refrain from downloading all programs until the audio conference is complete. If we are working from home, we should ensure that all other household members avoid Wi-Fi until the audio call has ended.
While video conferences are rising in popularity due to their ease of discerning participants' moods, facial expressions, and body language, audio conferences are more accessible and clear. The above fixes to audio conference issues will ensure the meeting runs smoothly.
