Face To Face Meeting vs Conference Call: What Are the Differences?

Some recent advancements in the technologies have considerably eased the entire system of doing business all over the world. Today face-to-face meetings have been replaced by virtual meetings through telephones. Conference calls have made it easier for the investors as well as teammates to know the current developments in the business. However, some of the businesses still find face-to-face meetings more effective. In order to compare face to face meeting vs conference call let us know what is a face to face meeting and what is a conference call?

What Is A Face to Face Meeting?

Face to face meetings are the meetings in which all the participants meet each other in person in the same meeting room. All of them come well prepared to the meeting room with an intention to participate in the meeting, regardless of its location. It can be the board room of the company, an office or a restaurant. All the participants are expected to give their views on the agenda of the meeting so that some solid decision can be taken instantly.

What Is A Conference Call?

A conference call is a telephonic call which allows you to talk with several people simultaneously at the same time. Conference calls are of two types- one which allows the called participants to take active part in the discussions and the second is which does not allow the called party to speak but only listen to the caller. Main purpose of conference calls is to add several participants by using a conference bridge or an audio conferencing tool like ezTalks Meetings etc. Other participants are normally allowed dial in the telephone number of the conference bridge to become part of the meeting.

Face To Face Meeting vs Conference Call: What Are the Differences?

In order to find difference between face to face meetings and conference calls we should compare their individual benefits.

Benefits of Face to Face Meetings

Face-to-face meetings are usually free as you need not pay any money to attend them like package fee for online or telephonic calls.

The participants can express their viewpoint not only through their words but through their body language also.

Face to face communication is better than telephonic conference as the chances of misunderstanding are less in face to face meetings.

The physical presence of the all participants ensures that they know the reason of being there on the same premise.

Lesser chances of waste of time as no one attending the meeting may support it.

Chances of distraction are lesser as everyone behaves to look disciplined.

Participants try to keep distraction away while discussing serious matters.

Instant feedback is available essentially required to promote teamwork.

Creates strong bond between participants in comparison to conference calls

Benefits of Conference Calls

Participants need not leave their place to tend conference calls as they can be attended on phone with the help of some audio conferencing software tool like ezTalks Meeting etc.

Distance for meeting room does not matter in conference call as you need not travel to it and continue to work on your project.

They can also prepare their presentations even during the conference meeting.

The presence of more participants can be expected in conference call meetings as they have to spend only some time for such meetings.

Environment safety is another reason that makes conference call better. You will not be spoiling environment with the exhaust of your aero plane or car while travelling to the meeting room.

Market competitions and technological advancements have made conference calls cheaper than earlier.

You need not spend much or any money to arrange equipment, transportation, hiring venue and other facilities for conference call meetings.

Final verdict

Thus, you can easily understand the difference between face-to-face meetings and conference calls by comparing their definitions as well as their individual benefits. On one hand face-to-face meetings allow the participants to share their viewpoints instantly but on the other they have to spend a lot of time and money on travelling to meeting room. Similarly, conference calls focus on avoiding waste of time and money but work related and personal problems can distract participants more than face-to-face meeting.

Thus after considering pros and cons of both types of meetings it can be concluded that both of them are effective depending upon the availability of the participants and purpose of the meeting etc.