Want to have more meaningful meetings?

Then it'southward fourth dimension for your concern to prioritize face-to-face communication.

Rather than send forgettable emails or messages that get cached in inboxes, contiguous interactions demands people's attention.

And sure, doing and so is easier said than washed if yous're juggling a decorated schedule or working remotely. This is especially truthful with COVID-19 keeping u.s.a. apart from clients and coworkers.

That's exactly why video meetings are and then valuable for companies today. Virtual meetings empower you lot to take contiguous interaction without wasting fourth dimension or putting folks at gamble.

In this guide, we'll teach you how to accept an effective meeting and why face-to-face communication is crucial to making those meetings count.

We'll go over:

  1. What do we mean by face-to-face up communication anyhow?
  2. Why face-to-face up meetings are and then important
  3. Which meetings don't need to happen face-to-face
  4. five essential skills for face-to-face up communication in business

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What do we hateful by contiguous communication, anyway?

Face-to-face up interaction represents in-person conversations where participants can see each other. This includes in-person conversations (think: one-on-one meetings, stand-ups, briefing room sessions) and video meetings through tools (similar RingCentral):

face to face video meeting in RingCentral Video

Meeting contiguous is a must-practice for companies including, of grade, distributed and remote teams. That's because in-person conversations are ,ore memorable as they allow attendees to pick up on non-exact cues, body language, and emotions that are difficult to replicate via text.

Ask yourself: when'southward the last time you reflected on an email or chat message?

The mere act of meeting contiguous goes hand in hand with building relationships with customers and coworkers alike.

Face-to-confront advice is crucial in business, and it'due south ofttimes a balancing deed. When you're juggling tasks and your schedule is tight, information technology becomes clear that not every meeting requires an in-person conversation.

Afterward all, electronic mail isn't going anywhere and team messaging is all the rage right now. You accept plenty of options in terms of how they communicate (as long every bit face up-to-face interaction don't fall past the wayside).

Why are contiguous meetings so important?

Off-white question! Below are some of the key benefits of face up-to-face advice and when it makes sense for teams compared to traditional messaging.

People are likelier to larn and retain information from your conversations

Fact: studies show that face-to-face up interactions go manus in manus with understanding and date.1

When people accept the power to encounter who they're talking to, they're more likely to retain what they're hearing. Many people are visual learners, plus in today's distracted world, face-to-face communication forces people to pay attention to the conversation at manus.

Imagine you're replacing your car bombardment for the showtime fourth dimension. You lot'd probably prefer to lookout man a video of someone walking y'all through the procedure versus someone just reading you the steps, right?

Contiguous conversations create personal connections

According to Gallup, personal connections are essential to success for workers in remote environments.two

Building a sense of trust among your coworkers is difficult through text solitary. Beyond combating workplace loneliness, face up-to-face interaction serves as a reminder to your coworkers of the faces behind the keyboard.

This sort of personal connectedness is important for serving customers, likewise. Rather than communicate solely through email, getting some face-time or following up with them in-person shows that you're invested in their success.

Also consider that there are personal or sensitive situations where face up-to-face advice is much more personable.

For example, the popularity of telehealth and virtual therapy speaks to how patients need to see their doctors to feel comfy going back and forth with them. Here are some other situations where face-to-face interaction is appropriate:

  • Providing personal, one-on-ane conversations with teammates (think: a operation review)
  • Discussing potentially sensitive workplace data
  • Wanting someone'south undivided attention (call up: talking about leaving a company, etc.)

You empower customers and teammates to tackle complex issues

In short, some issues are just too complex for a quick call or email.

And research shows that when issues become complicated, customers are 23% more likely to seek out face-to-confront interactions versus rely on a telephone call or self-service options.3

This is a prime example of how features in RingCentral, similar screen sharing, allow for face up-to-confront interaction to help clarify issues for your customers. The same rings true for walking coworkers through a detailed report, for instance:

screen share in ringcentral video

The power to prove versus tell, and give your teammates an opportunity to inquire questions face-to-confront will ultimately encourage them to learn more effectively. If nothing else, talking to them face-to-face makes it more likely they're paying attention to you lot.

Okay, just which meetings don't demand to happen face-to-face?

Let's be real, though: non every conversation needs to be a face up-to-face meeting.

People are busy. Not just practise you need to respect the schedules of others, but you lot should also consider your own!

Although some conversations brand more than sense to have in person, here are some sample situations that are frequently better suited for messaging compared to face-to-face interactions:

  • Elementary "aye" or "no questions to your team
  • Requesting access to a file, document, or resources
  • Check-ins on the status of a project
  • Reminders to complete a task (call back: fill out a class, sign a document)
  • Sharing reports or spreadsheets that can exist shared or viewed digitally

These common workplace conversations can easily be handled in a squad collaboration software. This fashion, you lot tin can instantly take care of the "small stuff"—and free up time in your schedule to meet with your colleagues and coworkers face-to-confront for the bigger, more complicated conversations:

team messaging and video calls in RingCentral's app

Handle the piece of cake questions in a chat, and the harder questions over a video call.

🔥 Pro-tip:

As an added bonus, yous tin actually talk face-to-face directly from the RingCentral app by just clicking the video icon to start a virtual meeting.

v essential skills for face-to-face advice in business

To wrap things upwards, permit'due south interruption downward the must-have for running improve meetings that eye around face-to-face interaction.

1. Preparedness

Remember what we said before most respecting everyone's schedules?

It might exist a no-brainer, only annihilation you can exercise to make your meeting outset on time is a plus.

This means having an calendar that outlines where (and when) your coming together will be as well as who will be doing the talking. If you need your attendees to exercise homework or nowadays something themselves, make sure they aren't blindsided by those requests.

Oh, and preparedness as well ways double-checking your video conferencing software to avoid any needless hiccups once y'all actually go started. The proficient news is that tools like RingCentral brand it a sure-fire to brand your meetings run smoothly, assuasive you to preview your video, mic settings, and files in a single click:

RingCentral Video settings

All your video coming together settings in one place in RingCentral Video

ii. Looking the function

Right now virtually of us are rocking piece of work-from-home attire, which isn't going to win many "all-time dressed" awards.

Getting into business casual mode is i easy fashion to give your meetings a subtle sense of professionalism.

When in doubt, make a point to look your all-time—specially if your meetings are in Hard disk drive video. That means every detail of your wardrobe and lighting are crystal articulate for your attendees. (This again speaks to the need to preview your video settings prior to getting started.)

Keep in mind that much of "looking the part" also involves your body language.

For case, are y'all making eye contact with your camera? Are your attendees' eyes veering off the screen? Is anyone slouching?

Picking upwardly on attitudes and emotions is one of the biggest benefits of contiguous interaction, granted y'all're paying attending to them.

3. System

Some other important piece of virtual meeting etiquette: don't try to jump confront-to-confront meetings on your coworkers without some sort of heads-up. Remote piece of work doesn't necessarily hateful that everyone's schedule is a total costless-for-all.

Ideally, you lot should be able to see your attendees' availability on their calendars to zero in on a time that works for everyone. This is what doing so looks similar through RingCentral's integration with Google Calendar:

RingCentral's Google Calendar integration

iv. Brevity

It'due south easy for a face-to-confront conversation to devolve into tangents and pocket-sized talk if you lot aren't conscientious. For the sake of respecting anybody'due south time, try to keep your meetings brisk and stick to your talking points instead of going off script too oft. (This will also brand sure that you agree your attendees' attention.)

If there's still time left after y'all've gotten through the "meat" of your meeting, and then of course, y'all can have those off-the-gage conversations.

5. Attentive questioning

Both during and after meetings, make a point to pause and make sure that everyone is on the same page.

Something as simple as "Any questions?" or "Did everyone get that before we move on?" can encourage meaningful conversations that get people talking. When someone has their concerns relayed dorsum to them, they know they're existence heard and fifty-fifty more so when the conversation is happening face-to-face.

Are you lot prioritizing face-to-face communication?

So much of how to have an constructive meeting involves getting some face time in.

Rather than alive exclusively in your inboxes, brand a point to initiate more than frequent confront-to-face interaction.

If information technology's not possible to meet in person right at present, call up that at that place are tools that tin can help you lot! If you aren't using RingCentral already, come across how information technology can aid you conduct more than engaging and productive virtual meetings:

🕹️ Get a hands-on await at how RingCentral can aid yous improve your face to face communication by booking a product tour:

one burleigh-courtroom.co.great britain/assets/docs/contiguous-communication.pdf

2 gallup.com/workplace/311288/communicate-create-stability-despite-uncertainty.aspx

iii comm100.com/resources/report/2017-alive-chat-benchmark-report

Originally published Aug 13, 2020, updated Feb 25, 2021