Joining video meetings shouldn’t feel like a chore. We know from life during the pandemic that video-meeting fatigue has dampened enthusiasm for virtual meetings and events. That’s pushed us to inject new life into video — making the experience more personal and engaging. After all, better video experiences eliminate fatigue, boost meeting satisfaction, trigger sales, and enhance team productivity.
With hybrid work here to stay — encompassing 52% of employees, says Gartner — video meetings and virtual events must truly engage all participants (in-office and remote) to thrive. So what needs to change? The fix isn’t just better video compression — it’s also about retooling the video user experience with smarter usability and leveraging breakthrough, data-driven intelligence.
Our quest to ignite deeper engagement inspired us to acquire two innovative video products from Hopin – Session and Events, including the amazing Product, UX & Engineering talent that shaped these innovations. The video-based technologies in Hopin Events and Session applications are powered by deeper AI insights and personalization. We will integrate the technology and products from Hopin across our video portfolio. We’re transforming the RingCentral video experience across meetings, rooms, webinars, and events.
If you’ve participated in virtual and hybrid events in recent years, you know they’re a mixed bag in terms of style, substance, and personal engagement. One of the things everybody misses about in-person events is the chance encounter, where you see an old friend or make a new but possibly lasting acquaintance with a fellow attendee.
Meeting software should make every encounter a snap and empower attendees to socialize conveniently. Done properly, even a virtual event should heighten our sense of community with our fellow attendees.
Here are five ways the Hopin technology will reinvigorate virtual events for our customers:
- Networking. One of Hopin’s powerful discrete social networking features is a “connection discovery tool,” which introduces event participants via a video call, and then enables the exchange of business contact information and optional follow-ups. Private video calls, chats, and meeting rooms allow attendees to engage directly with others.
- Scalability. Live events should work well, whether it reaches 75 individuals or 75,000 participants. The cloud-based technology that powers the meeting technology must be built to scale, even if the participants join from anywhere globally. Everything is customizable, including breakout rooms, exhibit space, and experiences ranging from interactive games to on-demand content.
- Branding. Event sponsors and participants prefer an immersive experience. No one wants to get lost in an events platform or a counterintuitive interface. We favor customizable branding that enables hosts to configure events to look and feel how they want. The sponsor’s brand is the design priority, and sponsors should determine how content is shared and how attendees interact.
- Intelligent insights. With the conversational intelligence capabilities in our contact center platform, we will apply AI insights to webinars and events going forward. These insights will enable event sponsors and participants to maximize their event participation and create personalized experiences that drive higher engagement and satisfaction.
- AI enhancements. Hopin Events applies AI in several ways that help improve the user experience. For example, an AI-assisted touch-up feature offers streaming video enhancements to correct poor lighting or improve resolution, even on faulty networks. Users even have the option to present themselves with photo-realistic avatars or an airbrushed effect.
With these new video products and enhanced capabilities, we’re expanding our RingCentral footprint from a UCaaS leader to a deep engagement and community-building platform that serves the needs of an entire enterprise — and its customer base. When RingCentral customers deploy our meeting or webinar products, their employees, partners and customers will see a highly customizable platform that uplevels every user’s experience.
By focusing on engagement, intelligence, and personalization, RingCentral will not only eliminate barriers to launching and scaling video meetings and virtual events, but also become an experience platform that grows champions for every business.
Learn more here: https://www.ringcentral.com/rc-events.html.
Originally published Sep 21, 2023, updated Nov 03, 2023
