“After the tone, state your name, followed by pound or hash sign.”
I’ve said the same name to this prompt over a hundred times. Every time I’ve said my name (which hasn’t changed), from the same cell phone number. And guess what? My voice print is pretty identically too. It’s better than a pin code.
Do you ever get the feeling that conference calling companies haven’t thought about how lame their products are in over a decade?
Quick aside: Google Hangouts fix a lot of these issue and are generally pretty great, but not everybody knows how to use them yet. You still have the lowest common denominator problem for voice conferences.
Here are some ways I’d fix conference calling:
- If I had a standing conference, I’d have the conference line call the participants about 30 seconds before the conference was scheduled to start.
- If the user didn’t answer, I’d have it call back automatically in 60 seconds. And I’d let the user control these options from a web page.
- If the user dropped during the call, I’d IM them back and ask if they wanted us to call them back. I’d first try a push client, then I’d try a SMS. All they’d need to do was tap a link, not press any darned buttons.
- I’d let users know, when it was scheduled, about my app. My app would let you:
- Control background noise suppression on every line. Or have a “room” mode where you were using your mobile phone as a speaker phone, because that happens sometimes.
- You could record the conversation.
- I’d have an optional “transcript” mode. And could either use machine or human translation. And have it on a wiki page so participants could edit/elaborate.
- I’d be able to create a conference from my computer, in the 3 major clients, on the 2 major platforms. And companies who say “we support Outlook on Windows”, quit your whining already, there is this other platform called Mac and this other client called Apple Mail (despite’s shortcomings) that a lot of people use.
- I’d never say “State Your Name” to the same phone number more than once. The first time I’d ask them if they want me to remember the name.
- I’d never care if they pressed # or not, or did something unexpected after they did (problem with a lot of v-mail systems).
- I’d always let them speak their code, but really would never have codes BECAUSE I’D BE EXPECTING THEIR CALL FROM THEIR CELL. And would politely put them in the same conference.
- Every thing I emailed them would be in a tel: link format that included any PIN codes (which I’d eventually deprecate in lieu of the above).
- I’d never have a conference code and a pin. It’d be part of the same number.
- Every conference code would include a checksum digit or two, so you wouldn’t have a problem typing.
- I’d never, ever, ever say “You entered 1231123123, press “1” if this is correct” because I would have fixed it with the checksum above. Grrrr….
- I’d accommodate some bad connections where you can’t actually press digits on your phone. I’d let you speak the number (or again, recognize your phone number).
- My software, if there was a screen sharing or integrated computer interface, would actually be tested with pre-releases of browsers so normal users didn’t struggle to install the darned software any time a browser push came out.
- Web clients and screen sharing apps would have a “Call Me” button that had a pre-configured list of conference rooms and phone numbers for your company. Not just typing your phone number again. And if I logged in as “ME”, it’d say “Call David’s Cell”.
- Seriously, how many times have you burned minutes at the start of any meeting just dialing into the stupid conference line? Shouldn’t it have called you? Shouldn’t you, as you are hooking up to the projector (a whole other problem for a different post) have a button that has a list of your conference rooms and just hit “Call Room XYZ”. Done.
There are a myriad of other things I’d fix, and I’m actually shopping for some new services as we’re all rather disappointed with our current screen-sharing / conference calling options. It seems the vendors haven’t paid attention to their products in a long time. Smells like an opportunity (albeit maybe better services exist, and I just haven’t had time to look).