It wasn’t that long ago that we used to tell people not to use their cell phone on a conference call because there was too high a risk for noise in the meeting. Many times people would tell us there was static or noise on the call and when we joined the call we usually tracked down someone on a cell phone introducing noise into the call. And the coverage for cell phones was so bad the participant on the cell phone would miss most of the call anyway. Well today there is little chance that someone will not be on a cell phone during a conference call but many of the same challenges to noise on the call exist. So what can you do to reduce noise in your conference call?
- Mute your Line – The best thing to do if you are using a cell phone is to mute your line unless you are speaking. Conference call bridges have technology that makes sure that all participant’s lines are loud and clear and if there is noise around you all participants will hear it. With the conference call service from Zip Conferencing it is simple to mute your line using our system. This is handy if you don’t know where the mute control is on your phone and our system confirms that your line is muted. That way there are no mistakes with thinking your line is muted when it isn’t. All you have to do is hit *6 on your telephone and your line is muted. To unmute your line simply hit *6 again.
- Mute all Participants – If you are the host of the conference call you can mute all participants on a conference. This comes in handy if there is a large number of participants. With more than 10 participants even if no one is on a cell phone there will be noise on the call as participants shuffle papers on their desk, etc. To mute all participants just touch *96 on your phone and to unmute them touch *97. You can control the noise and just open up the lines when you want people to be able to interact.
Don’t let noise take away from the content of your next meeting. Control the noise and you will have a more effective meeting.