What You Should Always and Never Do in Remote Meetings: Part 2
1. Feature Article
What You Should Always and Never Do in Remote Meetings: Part 2
By John DiJulius, Chief Revolution Officer
Last week we introduced you to the importance of training all your employees how to execute video meetings flawlessly with Part 1 of What You Should Always and Never Do in Remote Meetings. Part 2 gives you more valuable tips.
Never & Always for Video Meetings Continued
Always use attendee’s name
Calling on people to share their thoughts helps keep everyone engaged, on their toes, and paying attention in case they get called on. It also helps get valuable feedback and ideas from the people who don’t want to compete with the stronger personalities of the group, who may tend to dominate the conversations. And finally, it reduces people from talking at the same time or over each other.
Never present nonstop for more than 10 minutes
Even if you are supposed to present your content for 30 – 45 minutes and then take questions afterwards, you must engage the audience every 10 minutes. Think about live presentations, even though the speaker may be presenting for a long period, they still interact with the audience during their presentation with questions like: “How many of you have ever…?”, or “Of the following, which one is more important…?” This can easily be done using features like interactive polls and chat.
Never have RBF
This is why it is important to make sure you can always see your own thumbnail. I am even shocked by the facial expressions I catch myself having during conversations. Without meaning to, you can look miserable, bored, or possessing the good old resting bitch face (also known as RBF).
Always open with ice breakers
If you are the organizer and it is a small group (12 or fewer), opening with a rapid-fire icebreaker is a great way to get everyone engaged. For example, “I want each person to tell me how they are feeling in one word.”
Always have fun exercises in longer meetings
If you are facilitating a workshop, such as 2-3 hours with your employees, it is great to have a fun exercise in the middle to reset people’s brain. For example, you can play FORD trivia, where you show a list of information (e.g., loves boating, teaches yoga, training for their first marathon) where the attendees then have to guess who each person is.
Always have breaks at every 50 minutes
If you are the organizer, understand virtual is totally different than a physical meeting. In a physical meeting, most groups take breaks every 90 minutes. To avoid zoom fatigue, I recommend shorter breaks more often (e.g., ten-minute breaks every 50 minutes).
Always put the thumbnails by camera
Regardless of where your video software puts the thumbnails of attendees, which is often to the far right of your screen, I suggest you click and drag the thumbnails to directly underneath your camera. When I don’t do this and have re-watched the presentation, I see myself looking away from the camera the entire time, because I am always staring at the thumbnails.
*Related – What You Should Always and Never Do in Remote Meetings: Part 1
2. Client Best Practice Your Company Should Consider Doing
founder of NewDay, has always been committed to building a world-class customer service organization. To ensure that all his employees know how to deliver excellent customer service, he has sent over 100 NewDay employees, on average, to our Customer Service Revolution conference every year and also sends three to four of his leaders to our Customer Xperience Executive Academy every year. Actually, he has 9 of his leaders attending the 2020 CXEA class.
3. Short Video You Need To Watch & Share With Your Team
Watch this short video on how there are two types of leaders; Energy Givers & Energy Suckers
4. Episode #8 of The Customer Service Revolution Podcast
Episode #8 – John DiJulius talks with Craig Russell, former SVP of Global Coffee for Starbucks. Russell was instrumental to Starbucks becoming one of the great brands 
in the world, built around an emotional compelling experience that makes price irrelevant. I love this conversation with Craig, it is so rich in golden nuggets. Here are just a few takeaways:
- What are the most important characteristics a company needs to focus on, in order to become world-class at customer service.
- What do you do when the CEO is not truly bought in to building a great customer service organization?
- Why is there no ribbon-cutting ceremony to be world- class?
- Why is training someone on behavior change so much harder than technical training?
- How do we prevent organizations from overusing technology and make sure they are maintaining the human experience?
- How do you make your front line zero-risk?
- What should people look for in hiring?
5. Quote of the Week
“While you may possess an extraordinary gift or talent professionally, that by itself does not make you an extraordinary person.”
—John Maxwell
When I heard John Maxwell say this last summer, it hit me like a punch to my head. It is something I like to read often to keep me humble and not mistake professional success for anything other than what it is.
6. Resource to Help Take Your Customer Experience to the Next Level
Is your team struggling to provide an exceptional experience in the new normal?
The shift in today’s environment has not just changed the way we do business, it has changed the way we provide service. Are you struggling to create the same 
experience in the new normal? Have regulations and guidelines hampered your previous delivery? Have communication and processes previously in place been faltering in your remote workplace?
We can help.
The DiJulius Group has developed a new workshop to specifically address these challenges and more.
During this team building workshop, your participants will work on:
- Use of empathy
- Difficult No’s
- Negative Cues
- Journey Mapping
Your team will leave the workshop with new systems to follow, and feeling a sense of relief, alignment and clarity.
And yes, this workshop has been developed to be delivered virtually 😉
For more information about this workshop, or any of The DiJulius Group workshops, contact Claudia Medica at Claudia@thedijuliusgroup.com or schedule a call!
