Tick Tock Tips: 4 ways to keep to time in a virtual client meeting

When it comes to client meetings, timing is everything. If you’re an accountant, business coach or any sort of consultant, you’ll know that time is a commodity. You’re charging your clients for your collaborative sessions, advice and expertise.

With so many client meetings taking place online nowadays, here are some ways to make your video call meetings as punctual as they might be in a physical meeting room:

1. Keep to a timed agenda!

Announcing and keeping to an agenda is the key to producing satisfying meetings for your clients. Whilst enforcing a timed agenda with clients might be done with less directness than with, say, your colleagues, it is important to nudge people in the right direction.

One of the key strengths of Connect4’s ‘pod’ concept is that a templated agenda, with timings for each task, is professionally displayed throughout the meeting. This is a great way to keep you and your client focussed, and keep the meeting on track.

2. Review the summary of your previous meeting first thing

This is a really valuable way to save time! Make the first item of your agenda a revision of what happened when you and your client last spoke.

This ensures that you’re both refreshed, have recalled the previous decisions made and you’re on the same page. In turn, less time will be spent reviewing details that may have already been accounted for.

3. Yes, meeting minutes are vital

Whatever you call it – taking minutes, making meeting notes or creating a summary – it’s a task renowned for being laborious and time-consuming. However, summarising your client meetings can save you so much time in the long run, especially if you use the tools that make this time-efficient and make distribution easy.

In our Connect4 pods, you have the ability to save your meeting records directly to your pod, giving all pod members quick and easy access to the summary of the last meeting.

With one click, your summary can also be shared with all of your pod members via email, meaning your clients will have meeting notes in their inbox for immediate reference.

For ultimate time-saving, we love our ‘video summary’ feature. Connect4 allows you to record a short clip where you can outline the content of the meeting you’ve just had. This is then saved straight to the pod.

Meeting minutes made easy. And no short-hand necessary!

4. Factor in a ‘joining problem’ grace period

When we used to meet up with our clients in person, being punctual for a meeting or consultation at a physical location was a different concept.

These days we join a meeting – or connect to our Connect4 pod – at an agreed start time, hoping to see someone on the other side. But we’ve all experienced those Working From Home quirks that have made punctuality tricky.

When ‘budgeting’ your client meeting time, make allowances for the reasons why parties to a video call might run late – misbehaving Wi-Fi, quickly answering the door for another delivery, or digging through an inbox to find the invitation email.

Allowing an extra 5 minutes for your meetings could give your clients the space to arrive comfortably in your virtual office and get the most out of your time together.

Time’s up! Let’s summarise…

Making the agenda and meeting summary the stars of the show will definitely have your virtual client meetings running to time. Don’t forget to allow a few extra minutes for your clients to join you in your virtual meeting room!

If you’re interested in time-effective virtual client meetings, you can book a Connect4 demo here. For more meeting tips, check out this article on the Connect4 Blog page.