Video Conferencing: Streamlining Communications
Miscommunication has always been the cause of wars, divorces, and nearly every other problem in life, and companies should do as much as possible to ensure that their communications do not cause issues. While digital signage is effective at communicating with clients, digital signage will not be enough to ensure that the communication between establishments of large national and multinational companies will not break down. Thanks to video conferencing equipment, communication is much easier and better than ever.
One of the main issues that arises when communicating over long distances is the language barrier. When large, international companies communicate between countries, it is often difficult for people to understand what others are saying due to exotic or strange accents. Video conferencing tends to reduce the problems, as the people in the conference are able to read the lips of the person speaking as well as hear what they are saying. This is proven to make understanding much easier, as the brain recognizes words much more easily if the eyes read what the ears are hearing.
Another advantage to using video conferencing technology is that there will be fewer misunderstandings. Email is unable to communicate tone and thus emails that should be worded strongly were thought to be advice and emails that were in no way offensive were read as being strong and as a direct attack on the person reading it. Using video conferences, there is no risk that the parties in the conversation will misunderstand the tone of voice of the person with whom they are communicating, as they can recognize the facial clues to support the tone of voice.
Video conferencing is directly related to an increase in productivity, thanks to the simple fact that communication is made much easier and clearer. While the video conferences were once “talking heads”, technology has advanced far enough as to make the video conferences clear and crisp. The ability to use visual aids and have a dynamic and interactive conversation makes it much easier for companies to maintain high productivity.
Video conferencing is also one of the best ways that companies can save money. Without the equipment, companies require employees to travel in order to communicate with and train the employees in the distant locations. However, with video conference equipment, there is no need to travel as communication and hands-on training is made possible by the ability to talk face to face in a video conference. There is no need for employees to spend time and money traveling around the country, as they can simply call up their counterparts for a video chat.
Finally, the amount of time that video conferences save is amazing. Seeing as there is little need for employees to travel, there is no need to spend time sitting on an airplane or driving a car. The amount of time spent writing emails can be significant, especially if the conversation via email is incredibly important. Video conferences reduce the amount of time required for communication and thus streamline operations.