Endless airline terminals. Overpriced airport food. Overly-close seating on packed planes. What’s there to love about business travel? Sure, there are some road warriors who appreciate never having to clean a room or make a bed as they spend all their time in hotels, but for most people, business travel is simply something to be endured. Even 10 years ago, it would have been challenging to have the kind of high-speed access and seamless experience that you need for video conferencing, but today’s a different story. See how you can save time and money by utilizing some of these next-gen video calling apps.
Business Happens Everywhere
Workers want to be able to be productive anytime, anywhere — and that could include while watching their child’s baseball game, stepping out of a client meeting for a few minutes or even from home on the weekends. This is especially true of small business owners who are never truly off duty. Fortunately, video conferencing software and apps have come a long way from the fuzzy, slow-moving images and poor sound quality of the past to provide crystal-clear images and sound with no noticeable lag. If you haven’t tried it lately, video calling apps are now quite seamless to use and work equally well from your desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile phone.
Benefits of Video Calling
Let’s face it: travel is expensive, and the cost is not always justified for the value that you provide. There are certainly times when business travel will still be required, but many negotiations and conversations can happen equally well over a high-speed video call. Phone calls without video are not enough to provide you with the nuanced information that you receive when you’re able to see someone directly in front of you, and video calling fits that bill nicely. Business is increasingly global in nature, making video calls one of the few cost-effective ways to work with teams that are scattered throughout the region — or the world. Until the last few years, it was a bit more difficult to ensure that both individuals or teams had access to the right software and hardware to make video calling truly viable. With the majority of laptops being shipped with high-resolution video conferencing hardware already installed and the prevalence of smartphones, that is no longer the case.
Top Video Calling Apps
While certainly not an exhaustive list, here are a few of the top video conferencing apps that are used in business today:
- Skype — consistently one of the top-rated apps by technology professionals and users
- Zoom — free video calling that allows you to instantly share information from your phone
- Cisco WebEx — businesses professionals love it, and there are extensive shared workplaces available in the platform
- GoToMeeting — quickly and easily collaborate with partners and clients in real time
- Slack— cross between a chat platform and video conferencing, built specifically for team communication
No matter what your video calling needs are, there’s probably a platform on the market today that will fulfill your needs — and cost far less than relying on expensive business travel.
