Are Conference Calls the New Fax Machine?
When was the Last Time you were on a Conference Call?
Until a few days ago, I couldn’t tell you the last time I was on a true conference call. Not a conference call with video, but yes, the one where you use the “phone” app on your smart device and dial into a toll free number, enter your participant ID and have to announce yourself as you come into the call. There was a time, not so long ago, where conference calls were the best way to communicate with a large group of people. Where it used to be common to have to say the phrase “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, this is (enter name here)” at least a few times throughout the conversation. Where sometimes it was a mystery about how many people were actually on the call and if someone dropped out. Oh yeah, and the people would interrupt the call by being late so you would get a “This is (enter name here)” right in the middle of the meeting.
I’ve Always Loathed Conference Calls
For some of the reasons listed above, I’ve always hated conference calls. Besides the logistics part, a conference call often turns into one person talking way longer than they should because there’s a nervous energy on the line. There’s always that awkward moment of silence after someone finishes a thought where everyone involved is waiting for someone to speak next. This often causes two people to start to talk at once, which turns into the conference call tango “Sorry, you go ahead.” “No, you go, it’s fine.” *both talk* “I was just going to say…” and so on.
Without the ability to see faces, it’s also near impossible to read the energy of the “room”. If you ever had the luxury of being on a pitch call with a client, inevitably there was always a moment where the pitching party would break for questions, and then receive silence. Silence can be good, silence can be bad, but how can you know without seeing any faces?
We Used to Hate Seeing our Professional Selves on Camera
Do you remember when it felt awkward to have your camera on? I can remember in 2016 when I first started eGuide I used to feel like I had to go out of the way to make sure I was presentable for video. I would adjust my surroundings, straighten my shirt, maybe change my outfit, all to have an internal call. Maybe you all weren’t that extreme, but it used to be the exception, not the normal to have your camera on. If you were working from home, the last thing you would want to do is give your colleagues, bosses, and potential clients a glimpse of what your house looked like. It was a faux paux to be interrupted by a kid, spouse, or pet. And the most common joke told would be about someone not wearing pants.
Was it the Pandemic that Killed the Conference Call?
While the trend was pointing towards the preference to video & audio over audio only, I would argue it was the pandemic that accelerated this shift into routine, and put the nail in the conference call coffin.
According to Cloudwars.co there are some CRAZY statistics about Zoom. Here are a couple:
In just four months from December 2019 to April of 2020 zoom grew from 10 million daily meeting participants to more than 300 million.
In January of 2020, there were approximately 100 billion minutes of Zoom meetings per month. Just three months later, that figure skyrocketed to over 2 Trillion minutes.
It’s not just the United States. Gobally, Zoom grew by 246% in the APAC and EMEA regions in Q1 of 2020.
And while those statistics are just for Zoom, for a large chunk of corporate America, the IT department may have put the kibosh on Zoom when the need for video and virtual collaboration arose, and shifted their workforce into Microsoft Teams. In November of 2019 there were approximately 20 million Microsoft Teams users, according to Statista. Just a few months later at the end of April, 2020 that number grew to 75 million users.
Besides Microsoft Teams and Zoom you have Google hangouts and other fridge platforms that are vying for market share that have all seen growth from the pandemic.
Where will the Trend to Virtual and Video Calls Take us?
As we continue to live in the great unknown during this pandemic, companies are reaching their threshold of “waiting for the storm to pass” and are starting to have discussions of reducing their real-estate footprint, embracing work-from-home permanently, and equipping their offices with modular work environments, desk-sharing, and pandemic-friendly spaces. For many big companies January 1st, 2021 was going to be the “return to office day” but in recent news that looks like it may be pushed to July. How much time will pass before the new normal just becomes normal?
If you Have not Embraced Video, You’re Behind
Video is not going anywhere, and if you are working for a company that is still dialling into conference calls, you may want to get with the times. Video platforms like Zoom, Google Hangout, and Microsoft Teams have allowed us the “next best thing” to “in person” and will not be going anywhere any time soon. I would argue that humans, while adaptive, lack self awareness. For many, we haven’t realized we’ve completely shifted our expectations until we hear the hold music on the line while we wait for the conference call to start.
