Member Article

Conferencing costs UK businesses £26 billion per year

*New study from LoopUp details costs of poor conference call practices on business *

LoopUp, the premium remote meetings company, today released the Enterprise Conferencing: User Behavior & Impact Report, a study of conference calling practices in the enterprise. Surveying 1,000 professionals in the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) who regularly participate in conference calls, LoopUp sought to understand business people’s attitudes towards conferencing as well as their comfort with conferencing technology, and its perceived benefits and challenges.

Key findings from the study include:

• Business people waste an average of 15 minutes per conference call simply getting started or dealing with distractions throughout the call.

• This wasted time costs UK businesses over £26 billion. This cost has increased by 46 percent since 2015 (up from £14 billion).

• Dial-in conferencing remains the primary way business people participate in conference calls, regardless of whether they have access to web or video conferencing tools. 61 percent of people (68% in larger companies) report that they still typically dial in in to their conference calls.

• Conference calls present a significant security challenge to businesses. While 70 percent report that it’s quite normal to discuss confidential information on conference calls, over 50 percent report that it’s also normal not to know who’s on those calls.

• Video conferencing has not yet reached mainstream adoption. Only half of respondents believe it is actually useful for day-to-day conference calls and, strikingly, only 12 percent feel as comfortable on video calls as they do on audio calls.

“It’s not surprising that the majority of business people still default to dial-in to join their conference calls. While there is an abundance of capable software products for conferencing, most business people neither have the time nor inclination to learn how to use them, and they certainly don’t want to learn by trial and error during their meetings,” said LoopUp co-CEO, Steve Flavell.

“Unfortunately, dial-in conferencing offers a subpar user experience which impacts productivity and costs businesses money. Even more critically, it can put sensitive information at risk,” continued Flavell. “To move users away from dial-in, businesses should seek an alternative that addresses the needs of mainstream users without overwhelming them with complex features.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth .