The Conference Group has added a new feature to its operator assisted audio conferencing service that lets operators and/or moderators view, and control,  the Q&A queue in real time during a live audio conference.

This new feature, called Conference Viewer, enables a moderator or operator to prioritize participants waiting in the Q&A queue, so that the more important or pertinent questions are asked first. In this regard the feature helps improve the quality of the information conveyed to the audience during a live audio conference.

 

During audio conferences, audience members can ask live questions by having the operator put them into the Q&A queue, where each participant waits, with their line muted, until it's time for them to ask their question. This ensures that questions are asked one at a time, in a designated order, and only by participants who are "approved" by the operator or moderator to ask questions.

With Conference Viewer, both conference operator and moderator can view the names and company names of participants waiting in the Q&A queue -- plus they can prioritize them by changing the order. Once an audience member’s question has been answered, the operator or moderator can remove the audience member from the queue and un-mute their line.

This new capability, which is included in the cost of the Conference Group’s full-time operator service, gives customers greater control over their events while still maintaining a professional operator-facilitated Q&A session.

Greg Plum (News - Alert), director of channel development at the Conference Group, said the new feature results in a better user experience and “puts more control in the hands of a conference moderator, while still having the support of our trained operators on the call.”

“These days, conferencing users expect a good value, as well as more control of their conferencing experience,” Plum said. “Conference Viewer provides both."

Last month the Conference Group announced that it had added a new feature to its audio conferencing service that allows a conference leader or other user to create and maintain lists of conference attendees for automatic dial-out.

The new capability, dubbed “UBlast,” allows a user to quickly get a pre-defined group of people on a conference call with just the click of a mouse. Using a proprietary Web interface, a conference leader can easily create, add, delete or modify “dial-out” lists, and then enact them automatically upon entering the conference (or manually by entering a code).

The Conference Group (News - Alert) -- which also offers a Web-based videoconferencing service -- recently launched its Conferencing and Web Conferencing channels on TMCnet. These micro-portals offer news a feature articles about The Conference Group’s products as well as research and news about the conferencing market in general.