“It’s hardly surprising that people don’t particularly like doing conference calls,” said Steve Flavell, Co-CEO of LoopUp. “They’re fraught with annoyances and distractions – what are the dial-in details, who just joined, who’s speaking, where’s so and so, who has all the background noise, how do I share my screen – the list goes on. The world has come to accept these things as just part and parcel of conferencing. LoopUp is here to change that.”
To take the pulse of working professionals, LoopUp commissioned a survey by IBOPE Zogby International. The study found that 23 percent of time spent on conference calls is wasted with difficulties getting the meeting started and in-call distractions, amounting to over $6.2 billion of lost value across UK and US enterprises. Eighty-two percent of respondents admitted that these distractions also hindered productivity, including their willingness to participate actively. Furthermore, 83 percent of respondents said they would do more web conferencing and richer collaboration if only the tools were easier to use.
LoopUp lets professionals keep focus on the business at hand by removing the mess inherent in audio conference calls and making richer content sharing easy. It enables adoption because it is compatible with how professionals work: users can always still dial in as they are accustomed, but can access LoopUp faster through extensions for smartphones, Outlook and the Web.
“Although conferencing has been around for decades, it still falls short in three areas: set-up time, taking attendance and the interstitial interruptions that disrupt collaborative discussions,” states Hyoun Park, Research Analyst, Aberdeen Group. “Traditional conferencing vendors have been content to provide a user experience that is opaque and non-intuitive, at best. Because of this, much as Apple forever transformed the experience of mobility through ease of use, there is an opportunity to provide an easier, more reliable, and more consistent experience for the millions of employees who use conferencing tools on a regular basis.”