6 Video Conferencing Must-Haves

An important feature of VoIP platforms are the capabilities it offers for video conferencing. The right video application can change the way your company collaborates, interviews, and facilitates training and meetings. Having capable video conferencing also makes remote work possible for your employees. However, aside from a large bandwidth and superb video quality, what should you be looking for when searching out a VoIP company for your business?

What is VoIP?

Recording capabilities

Trainings are essential to continue your company’s progression. Training new employees or rolling out new initiatives can take days, weeks, or months before everyone on your team understands the procedures. Trainings are often time consuming for all parties involved.

The benefit of having recording features for VoIP video is that even if an employee is unable to attend a meeting or forgets a certain aspect of a training given in the meeting, they can go back and rewatch the recording of what was discussed. Reuben Yonatan, CEO of GetVoIP, says “not everyone can take good notes, so being able to provide a recording of the call helps make sure that no one misses any important details.” This is crucial for saving the time of all parties involved. 

Screen sharing 

Screen sharing eliminates the need for the facilitator of the training or meeting to verbally explain what they are doing on their computer. With screen sharing, they can project what they are seeing and doing on their computer on to everyone else’s computer. You can project the specific application training, documents, videos, or anything else that shows up on the computer of the employee sharing their screen, keeping the whole team on the same page.

Yonatan says, “Being able to show someone what you’re talking about, rather than trying to describe it to them, saves a ton of time during meetings. You can efficiently run through documents or examples and get back to the meeting.”

Built-in notetaking 

Built-in notetaking provides a space that can take the role of a white board during a meeting to facilitate more discussion and collaboration. Everyone in the meeting will be able to see everything that is written in this space. It helps to keep your team’s ideas organized and ensure that everyone remembers the highlights of the meeting. 

Capabilities for the maximum amount of people in the meeting

Each video service provided is different, and within the same VoIP company you can choose between plans with different thresholds for the amount of people able to join a video meeting. Ensure you know what that threshold is so it can meet the video call capabilities that your company requires. 

Noise reduction

Everyone has been in a meeting or conference call where there is loud, distracting background noise that makes it nearly impossible to hear or focus on what is being shared. This can slow down a meeting or make it entirely impossible to continue. To combat this issue, a noise reduction feature can be a game changer. Yonatan explains, “if you can find a suite that offers noise reduction, take it. This reduces background noise picked up by your mics — things like typing, coughing, or traffic. It also keeps meetings running smoothly without everyone having to mute and unmute constantly.”

Easy access for joining callers

Make sure that the video conferencing capabilities make it easy for users outside of your company to join the video conference. Brian Peterson, VP of engineering at Dialpad shares, “A major problem with most conference calls is getting people to join without any issues. Half the challenge is just getting your participants on the call. For example, a lot of providers put long, hard to remember PINs as a requirement to call in, or it requires you to download software or sign up to join. The last thing you want to do when you invite a potential client is have them jump through hoops to talk to you.”

What's next?

Now that you know some of the major components to consider when deciding on the video conferencing capabilities that you want, it's time to look at specific VoIP providers to determine which would suit your companies needs best. Read unbiased reviews of the top rated VoIP providers as well as summary of the good and the bad of each.