Lights, Camera, VoIP!

There’s been a lot of talk about the power of voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology, and I admit that I’m responsible for some of it.

When I and most pundits talk about VoIP, however, we tend to focus on how it can save businesses money through more efficient transmission and a bevy of additional features at no additional cost. Or we explain how VoIP can enable mobility by letting the office phone travel with workers no matter where they are located.

What we don’t as often mention is that VoIP also enables video calling. And video is a game-changer for business, not just a nifty feature for grandmothers who want to see their grandchildren blow out candles in another part of the country.

We’re quickly losing the human touch thanks to modern technology. We live out of our e-mail inboxes, we stare at our computer screens, and some of us like me don’t even work in an office with other people any longer. When we do get actual face-time, we subvert some of that time by slavishly checking our smartphones instead of interacting with the person in front of us.

Business VoIP and the video calling it enables are helping to reverse that trend a little bit, however.

Image via Shutterstock

We’re still in front of our laptop or smartphone, but with video calling there’s a lot more of the person we are communicating with.

It might seem that a talking head is really not that different than a detached voice in the ether, as the case may be with the telephone. And haven’t we figured out the facial expression thing with emoticons? But there’s a world of subtle cues and additional information that comes across with a video call.

The first few times you use video calling, you invariably focus on how cool the technology is—especially if you’re calling someone in another country (Skype definitely has been the first experience with video calling for many of us). But when you get beyond the wow factor, you quickly discover that the little bit of extra information that comes across with a video call is not so little.

We’re trained as humans to read facial expressions, and video calls not only help build rapport well beyond what you get with voice calls or e-mail, but they also give additional information that can be used to gauge the response of the other person, such as body language. This can mean the difference between a sale and a missed opportunity, and the difference between the acceptance of a business idea and one that gets shot down without a fair hearing.

We’re human, even if we often throw ourselves into inhuman conditions. VoIP, and the video calling it also enables, helps return some of that human element.

Edited by Alisen Downey