Making Your Web Conference Worthwhile

Naturally your web conference and teleconference will be worthwhile. At least you hope that is the case. There are ways to ensure that each teleconference is better than the last. The use of participant feedback is very effective for honing your teleconferencing skills. There are a variety of methods that can be used for obtaining feedback, such as polls, questionnaires and surveys that ask very pointed questions. By using feedback, you learn what your participants get out of the teleconference as well as fresh ideas regarding how the web conference or teleconference can be made better. This is generally separate from any polls or surveys that ask questions regarding the material discussed in the teleconference. These questions specifically ask questions about the technical aspects of the call, how it was facilitated, attendee engagement and other factors that do not pertain to the actual content of the teleconference.

Polls

If you are techno savvy, you can create an online poll to obtain feedback on the web conference or teleconference. Actually, there are several applications that can be easily used to create a poll and you don't have to know html or be a computer wiz to set it up. This can be effective because it usually allows respondents to offer anonymous feedback. Ask specific questions and offer several answers from which the attendees may choose. For instance, you may ask, "How would you rate your experience on today's teleconference?" You offer the choices as excellent, good, fair and poor. This way the attendees can let you know how they felt about the way the teleconference was handled. It does not generally offer options to the respondents to write in suggestions or offer comments. It does, though, give the results in percentages so that you know that 80% of the respondents rated the teleconference as "good."

Questionnaires

A questionnaire can be a web based question form that respondents fill in as a method of giving feedback. It can also be handed out in hard copy format and can even be included in the materials that are distributed prior to the teleconference or web conference. A questionnaire can ask more pointed questions and elicit more personal answers that are less scripted, but it is difficult to get a hard line on percentages and majority opinions. Additionally, in order to obtain the most out of a questionnaire, someone should compile the responses into a report that puts the information into a comprehensive format that can be understood. In other words, all like answers should be put together but all responses need to be included.

Surveys

Surveys are much like polls in that they ask questions and the respondents select an answer that best fits their own opinions. However, it takes the process a step farther by also including questions where respondents can offer opinions and make comments. This is a very effective method of obtaining feedback and helping you to improve on your teleconferences and web conferences. The trick is knowing what questions to ask. Questions that ask for ideas on how to make the teleconference better, how could the web conference be better facilitated and ideas for subsequent teleconferences can help you make your next teleconference a success. You can ask about team building activity ideas, engagement of attendees' ideas and methods of teleconferencing. You can cover a lot of ground and make major improvements to your teleconferences and web conferences by simply asking for a fresh, different point of view.