I recently acquired a client that has business dealings with various companies around the globe, including Costa Rica. They also have clients in the New Orleans area that have been temporarily displaced. Communicating between the various field offices, sub-contractors, and clients has been quite a challenge. I was asked to assist in establishing a better means of communicating between the various offices that would provide convenience without increasing expenditure.
I found a company called LiveOffice that worked with me to provide my client with teleconferencing, videoconferencing, and webconferencing services. These services, used as needed, have brought my clients' contacts together and have allowed them to continue to conduct business as usual for their existing customers as well as provide services to their new global customers without raising expenses. In fact, they have since been able to lower the amount of travel spend, which has allowed them to hire the needed staff to support new customers.
Its funny, these services have been around for quite awhile, yet we seem to think of them as impersonal when compared to in-person visits, and as outdated and inconvenient when compared to email. These are misconceptions and these technologies should again be considered by companies needing to reach out beyond their own office walls.
Companies such as Sony have greatly improved the equipment and software used in these conferencing technologies so there is much clearer communication with very little troubleshooting needed. LiveOffice is only one of the companies that provides conferencing services as many are popping up around the country. Hope my good experience will provoke others to consider these as reliable ways to communicate and cut the costs and risks of travel. Best of luck in 2006!
