Collaboration and the way people work has not only changed in recent decades, but in recent weeks due to COVID-19. With more companies conducting business remotely, a virtual meeting room, or virtual meeting space, is a cost-effective way for teams to meet face to face, share presentations and collaborate, regardless of location. Lifesize makes it easy to set up a virtual meeting room and share with participants in seconds.  The organizer and attendees can jump into quick, impromptu virtual meeting rooms or schedule regular, recurring video meetings effortlessly through Lifesize.

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What Is a Virtual Meeting Room?

A virtual meeting room (VMR) is a term used to describe a shared space that allows online collaboration hosted by a cloud service. A virtual meeting room is an online meeting space where multiple participants from different locations collaborate through a video conference call. These rooms allow an organizer to host a real-time, face-to-face virtual meeting with remote attendees, and only require a webcam and a browser.

Three Instances When You Need Virtual Meeting Rooms

Whether you’re meeting with new clients, conducting a company-wide meeting or simply connecting with remote coworkers, it can take a significant amount of time for attendees to get to the meeting. Virtual meeting spaces eliminate the time waste and travel costs associated with traditional in-person meetings while still giving participants all of the benefits of connecting and collaborating face to face through cloud video conferencing.

Remote Work Meetings

Companies are no longer limited to the pool of talent in their immediate geographic areas. Thanks to video collaboration tools like virtual meeting rooms, companies can recruit top talent from anywhere in the world and have engaging and productive group meetings regardless of the employee’s location.  

Company-Wide Meetings

Creating organizational alignment is one of the most challenging issues for global companies that have multiple offices or satellite offices of remote team members. Whether you’re hosting a webinar or giving a virtual presentation for the whole team, virtual conference rooms unite your team. A virtual conference room is the most efficient way to conduct a secure, all-hands meeting to bring the entire company together and ensure everyone is working on the same shared goals. 

Meetings with Long-Distance Clients

Face-to-face interaction with clients is important for maintaining a healthy relationship, celebrating joint successes and being responsive to their needs. Fortunately, virtual meeting rooms make it possible to connect with each one of your long-distance clients on a regular basis and even jump into quick impromptu working sessions. 

How to Set Up a Virtual Meeting Room

Lifesize makes setting up a virtual meeting room easy. Follow these five steps to get started and you will be collaborating with participants in a VMR in no time. 

  1. Open the Lifesize App
  2. Click on the Meetings tab and then create a one-time or permanent meeting
  3. Add the meeting’s name, optional password, description and location 
  4. Click Save
  5. Invite participants to the meeting by generating an email, creating a calendar invite or just copying the meeting details to your clipboard and pasting into any messaging tool 

One-Time Virtual Meeting Rooms vs. Permanent Virtual Meeting Rooms

One-Time Virtual Meeting Rooms

One-time meetings are single-use, private sync spaces that are hidden from your full Lifesize directory and perfect for quick ad hoc video calls or meetings where security is a priority. One-time video calls are great for sales demos, interviews or any other meeting where you need to cover sensitive material.

Permanent Virtual Meeting Rooms

Set up a permanent virtual meeting room and always have a dedicated place to meet. They’re perfect for recurring meetings because the dial-in details never change. And because permanent VMRs are searchable in the directly, they’re incredibly easy to join without having to look through your email for the link you accidently deleted.

Benefits of Using a Virtual Meeting Room

Increased Productivity

VMRs provide intuitive collaboration tools that enable a more coordinated workflow and help boost productivity through content sharing. Collaboration solutions such as screen sharing and recording online meetings allow those who were not able to attend to view later.

Flexibility to Join from Anywhere

It is not always possible to attend every meeting you receive an invite for, especially if you are not physically close to the meeting location. With VMRs you can meet with anyone at anytime regardless of your location. If you can’t join the video conference, you can also use audio concerning for an on-the-go meeting experience.

Video Conferencing Solutions Save Time

Virtual meeting rooms are also the quickest and most efficient way to bring everyone together for recurring meetings or urgent, quick decision making without having to wait on each person to travel to a physical meeting room. It takes only seconds to join a virtual conference room with one click of the meeting invite link. 

Cost-Efficient HD Video Conferencing 

Having to travel to each meeting in person can really add up with the price of flights, car rentals, hotel accommodations and food expenses. Virtual meeting rooms give you the opportunity to join collaborative meetings with multiple meeting participants face to face without the costly travel.

Equipment Needed to Set Up a Virtual Meeting Room

One of the great things about setting up a VMR through Lifesize is how easy it is to get started with just a computer and a built-in webcam. Participants can simply click on the meeting link and join through a web browser. No special software or apps are needed for visual communication, just a virtual address and your remote team..

Computer

Connect from your PC, Mac, tablet or phone.

Webcam

The one built into your laptop or mobile device is perfect.

Video Conferencing System (optional)

Join a virtual meeting from a conference room or huddle room with a Lifesize video conferencing system.

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Virtual Meetings for Customer Support

Setting up a secure virtual meeting room with customers is an easy way to connect with customers face-to-face and answer questions in real-time. CXEngage Video allows work from home call center agents to initiate video-based conversations from any support channel such as phone, email, chat, SMS and social media. To learn more about setting up video conferencing for your customer service call center, visit Serenova.

Get Started with Lifesize Virtual Meeting Rooms

As a result of improved communication tools like VMRs, participants are more in sync, meetings are more productive and decisions are made at a faster pace with conference call services. It has never been easier to jump into quick sync over video or make use of recurring virtual meeting rooms for larger project status update meetings. By signing up for your free account, you can easily connect with up to 10 participants on a fully encrypted high-quality call.