Some Things to Know About an Operator Assist Conference Call
Being new to the act of placing conference calls might be a seriously daunting task, especially for those of us who need to manage a large conference, with members scattered all over the globe, for the very first time. With a gargantuan responsibility like this, the best thing to do is not to jump right in, but to request the help of an expert - in this case, someone who knows his or her way around phones, and can handle a large number of calls all at once from the background. Make your first big conference call an operator assist conference call.
An operator assist conference call is a corporate-level service offered by many reliable conference calling providers. If you have the luxury of time, you should book this service many days ahead of the conference so that you and the operator can have time to discuss the nature of the conference, and the things that need to be done.
When you inquire about operator assistance from your conference call provider, you will be given a rundown of the things you can do with this new feature. There is such a thing as a pre-conference call, where you and the operator can discuss and schedule the things that will occur within the conference. Depending on the service package you were able to purchase, your operator should also be able to assist you in performing some business-critical functions before the date of the conference itself, such as helping you fax or email important conference information to your participants.
During the conference itself, your operator could conduct a roll call to see if all the confirmed participants are connected to the network, before the discussion begins. He or she can also mute certain people on your cue and disallow them from participating in your operator assist conference call. The beauty of this is, you don't have to know the commands yourself. All correspondence with the operator may be done "behind the scenes," as it were, if this is what you prefer: you can dial a certain number to bring up your operator, and your dialogue will not be heard by the other participants.
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