Improve client interaction and employee efficiency

Webinars –  interactive seminars that use a computer presentation format to deliver a message and allow participants to communicate with presenters – are associated often with product launches, advertising and training. E-meetings, which typically target small intercompany groups or specific clients and subject matter, tend to be less presentation based and facilitate interaction in a closed-discussion format. Both are simple to manage and attend, and most service providers have made it easy to organize and invite members.

Webinars

Webinars are information-sharing sessions presenting an opportunity to provide widespread training or an infomercial-style session to current or prospective clients. They’re an effective way to give a presentation to clients who might be outside a reasonable geographical distance for training. You control who knows about the training and who is invited to the session.

Our industry would best use this technology to identify a specific client sector to perform training. Increasing your bed bug business in the retirement home community is an example. This would be an opportunity to put on a one-hour training session about inspecting and monitoring bed bugs specific to the business sector, and invite only key current and potential clients.

E-meetings

I’ve found I’m more apt to attend a meeting when it’s convenient to simply sign in online. I believe the best applications include weekly company branch operations roundups or sales performance reviews.

Internet-based meeting/training and promotional venue costs have drastically dropped recently. Depending on the size, you could comfortably budget $35 to $60 for a monthly e-meeting, or $80 to $110 a month for a webinar. Most providers have packages that give you unlimited use of both products for about $135 to $160 a month.

No matter the size of your company, one or both of these applications can provide an immediate benefit to your bottom line through improved client interaction and employee efficiency. PMP

You can reach Stanbridge, a PMP and longtime technology columnist, at dean@directlinesales.com.