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Best web video conferencing tools to make business meetings a hit

Life has taken a new meaning with the ongoing pandemic. Gone are the days where you would physically go to retail outlets to purchase things or have proper schools. Even most offices are shut and people are working from home. This has led to the sudden surge in online tools to make life more convenient and safe. For instance, people have shifted to online shopping, virtual socializing, and official online meetings.

In fact, there has been a huge surge in the usage of video conferencing software in the last one year. Be it for online classes for children or for conferences and webinars in offices. Small and big, all sizes of organizations have now shifted to the virtual format of learning and working. Let’s find out about some of the best video conferencing tools you can use to make the new normal of working remotely seamless and efficient.

1. Dialpad UberConference

UberConference was one of the first few software that changed the way online meetings were held. It made PINS and downloads redundant and made it more convenient for people to have virtual conferences.

This feature-heavy video conferencing tool has an intuitive user interface with a suite of advanced features that can make any online meeting a pleasure to host and attend. It has a built-in AI technology that offers you a complete searchable transcription of the meeting. Its voice intelligence feature captures critical moments from the conference and compiles a list of action items for you to get back to later. It also has a post-call summary, giving you a snapshot of the meeting.

It also has a screen share facility that allows easy sharing of screen while the meeting is going on. So whether it is to showcase weekly sales metrics, collect feedback, or to present a deck to the team and clients, screen share is a treasure.

Attending conferences in HD quality is a great plus as it gives you the feel of in-person meetings. UberConference offers premier video quality supporting resolutions of up to 720p, making meetings more productive and personal.

There are two pricing plans for this software. The first is a free plan where you can have up to 10 participants and meetings for up to 45 minutes. The second plan is priced at $15 with up to 100 participants and 5 hour-long meetings.

2. Zoho Meeting

Are you looking for an affordable video conferencing tool? Zoho Meeting will fulfill all your needs. This free app is the ideal solution for both meetings and webinars. It helps in business collaboration with the help of both audio and video sharing, screen sharing and 24/7 customer support.

For video conferencing, Zoho Meeting allows you to schedule planned meetings way in advance with the option of sending email invitations to participants with the agenda, date and time of the meeting. It also allows instant collaboration where you can share the link of the meeting and people can join instantaneously. You can get RSVPs from invitees and know who is attending the meeting too. For quick join in you have embedded meeting links on the organization website that allows members to join ongoing meetings by entering their email address.

The security threshold of the meetings is also superb, with a private meetings feature where you can lock confidential meetings and not let uninvited people get in. It also informs you when someone tries to enter your meeting.

Another great feature is moderator control, where you can steer the meeting in the right direction. As a moderator, you can mute all or some participants as well remove some if they are a nuisance.

Zoho Meeting is an ideal webinar tool too. It allows webinar analytics wherein you can analyze and document webinar registrants, poll results, attendees, and Q&A through webinar reports. To give your webinar a more personal touch, you can customize the registration forms with personalized fields and questions. You can add your company logo and name for brand promotion. It has excellent features to understand the audience better such as polls, Q&A, and raise hand. These help in controlling the webinar effectively and also get valuable feedback.

The video conferencing tool has a free plan that allows up to 3 participants and 10 webinar attendees. It has a few paid versions too. The cheapest plan allows 10 participants for $2.5 per host per month when paid annually and $3 when paid monthly. The next plan has up to 25 participants for $ 5 annually and $6 monthly per host. Another plan allows 50 attendees costing $9 per host per month and $7.5 per host per year. The most expensive plan allows 100 participants with a $10 per host annual charge and $12 per month charge. There are similar webinar plans with the attendees ranging from 25 to 250.

3. Whereby

A simple and interactive video conferencing app where you can easily host or attend meetings without having to install any app or software. All you need is your personalized URL and you can connect up for a meeting using the internet browser on the mobile or desktop in just one click. It has excellent collaboration tools that make virtual meetings seamless and feel like real-time live ones. The intuitive screen share allows you to share your thoughts on paper easily, while the option of using a whiteboard makes the meetings more organized. You can make the meeting a part of your workflow by simply integrating it with Outlook Calendar and Google Calendar.

For privacy and added security, you can have your meeting rooms, where you have the liberty to allow whoever you want. All the meeting rooms are locked, so guests have to knock to be let in. So the moderator is in complete control of who all can attend a meeting.

For a more customized look and feel, you can personalize the meeting room with company logos and various backgrounds. This is an amazing tool for brand awareness too. You can also add fun emojis to make the meetings a little casual and fun.

At a time, up to 50 participants can be a part of the meeting, with 12 of them on stage and interacting while the rest are on listening mode and contributing through chat, audio, and reactions. All the meetings can be recorded, downloaded and shared, which makes analysis and evaluation much better.

Whereby offers two plans in addition to the Free plan, where you can have one meeting room and up to 50 participants and timed group calls. The business plan has unlimited users, with all users getting a personal room to host up to 4 participants. You can expand the meeting room through XL team rooms and host up to 50 participants. This plan costs $14.99 monthly and $11.99 yearly. The Pro plan allows one user, one meeting room with up to 50 participants and is priced at $9.99 monthly. You can add on features to this plan with an additional amount.

4. Lifesize

Enjoy real communication and collaboration with your teammates and clients through this excellent video conferencing app. Use this unified cloud software app for seamless conferences in HD quality with optimal flexibility and customization.

For any meeting to be successful, the audio and video quality should be the best. In Lifesize software, this aspect is well taken care of. It has stunning 4K video quality that makes you feel as if you are in a live session. The customizable platform provides multi-application meeting room systems that offer flexibility. You can connect the meeting room systems with other popular video conferencing services including, Zoom, GoToMeeting, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Skype and more. 

Lifesize also boasts of robust admin features that provide complete control to the moderator. You can custom tune and manage the deployment of the software as per the organization’s needs. You can also personalize the room control interfaces in addition to the present integrations with providers, including Extron, AMX and Crestron. The software has cloud and room system APIs that manage directory systems, workflows and meeting scheduling for better collaboration.

Security is of prime importance when it comes to Lifesize. In this regard, it offers enterprise-grade encryption by default, privacy certifications via AWS, single sign-on support and independent third-party security.

Having an uninterrupted meeting is not enough;  as a team lead or an employer, you would want to review and analyze every meeting. At Lifesize, you can do real-time meeting analytics to monitor meetings as they are taking place through real-time reporting and live call statistics. You can record all meetings too for post-meeting analysis and review.

Lifesize offers three plans for its users. The first one is free of cost and allows one host and up to 10 participants with a 40-minute meeting duration. The Standard plan priced at $12.50 per host/month allows you to have up to 100 participants and unlimited meeting duration. The Plus plan, which is ideal for midsize companies, allows you to host up to 300 participants with a minimum of 10 hosts. It will enable one hour of cloud recording storage per host too.

5. Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is one of the most sought out video conferencing software today. This advanced tool integrates with Microsoft 365 and lets users schedule audio and video meetings with one person or a group of people. The unique advantage of this software is that you can have up to 1,000 participants in a meeting and 10,000 in a webinar.

Easy integration with Microsoft 365 allows you to schedule meetings and invite people within the company without any hassles. At the same time, external users can join these conferences from a web browser without downloading the app.

Its security feature is another reason why users love this software. The moderator has complete control of the meeting and can mute or remove uninvited attendees and assign participants and presenters. If you are unsure of any particular attendee, you can have them wait in the virtual lobby.

Microsoft Teams have fantastic collaboration tools too. From recording meetings in the cloud and sharing with participants later to having live captions during a meeting. For a follow up after a meeting, you can get the participants list from the meeting and download it. To offer a customized appeal to a meeting, you can choose a background or upload a personalized one. You can also blur the backdrop to reduce distractions.

This unified and collaborative platform lets you organize and manage communication and meetings effectively owing to its simple and familiar interface. Every team using Microsoft Teams will have a site in SharePoint Online with a default document library folder. All files shared during the meeting are saved in this folder. You can apply permissions for documents containing sensitive information.

There are four pricing plans for this software, the first one being free. It allows up to 100 participants and a maximum of 60-minute calls. In Microsoft365 Business Basic plan, you need to pay $5 user/month and have up to 300 participants and a meeting duration of up to 24 hours. In the Microsoft 365 Business Standard, you have to pay $12.50 user/month and enjoy the same perks as the Basic plan with the addition of productivity apps and services. In the Office 365 E3 plan, you pay $20.00/user/month and have up to 10,000 participants and a meeting duration of maximum of 24 hours.

Conclusion

With the pandemic continuing for more than a year now, there has been an increase in video conferencing tools, making people quite confused as to which one is the best. The aforementioned tools are some of the best in the business today. They are both easy on the pocket and convenient to use. All of them are loaded with features making them ideal for business meetings and webinars. Take your pick and use them judiciously to make work from home as convenient and effortless as you can.