Lost time on conference calls costs businesses $34 billion a year
Business people waste an average of 15 minutes on each conference call they make simply getting started or dealing with distractions throughout the call. This wasted time costs US and UK businesses over $34 billion/£26 billion according to a new report.
Online meeting company LoopUp surveyed 1000 professionals in the US and UK and finds the cost of wasted call time is up by 46 percent since 2015.
Dial-in remains the main way business people participate in conference calls, regardless of whether they have access to web or video conferencing tools. 61 percent of people (68 percent in bigger companies) say they still typically dial in to their conference calls.
Conference calls also present a significant security challenge. While 70 percent report that it's quite normal to discuss confidential information on conference calls, over 50 percent say that it's also normal not to know who's on those calls.
Despite all this there’s a reluctance to adopt video conferencing. Only half of respondents believe it's actually useful for day-to-day conference calls and, 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," says 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. 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."
The full report is available to download from the LoopUp website and there's a summary of the findings in the infographic below.
Photo Credit: pathdoc/Shutterstock
