An annual general meeting is a decorated event where a company’s shareholders, directors, executives, and other important people come together. In this meeting, directors and top management usually provide key updates regarding the company and its performance to the shareholders. Shareholders also get the chance to ask questions.
Usually, AGMs take place in a big hall or conference room where hundreds of people can attend with the option of live broadcasting. However, COVID-19 changed the game a lot. In many places, it is strictly forbidden to gather more people together than a limit set by the respective healthcare authority. Therefore, companies are now taking their AGMs online. Software such as Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams are being used for this purpose where many people can join a meeting where a few can speak.
Now, these solutions get the job done. But they have limitations too. One of the primary limitations is that these tools are highly dependable on internet service. Without access to a laptop or a phone with internet connection, nobody can join the meeting. We all know that not all of us can access internet at a specific time for many reasons. Someone can be travelling or in a remote location where net connectivity is poor. What happens in this case? Also, what happens when there are more people in the AGM attendee list than these tools can handle?
Let’s not forget about the fact that many stakeholders forget about the meeting! How do you remind them if they are not connected to the internet? Delegating a couple of staff members to remind everyone one by one is not a feasible solution either!
To mitigate these issues, a digital solution should be adopted so the AGM can be organized in a user-friendly way and people can join the meeting even when they do not have internet connectivity. For that purpose, you’ll need
- A solid strategy that covers every aspect of AGM management
- Digital tools that can help you digitize the whole process
- A way to streamline all digital tools to provide users a seamless experience
In this blog, we are presenting a four-step strategy to set up an automated AGM management solution that allows hundreds of shareholders to join the meeting via a teleconference.
Step 1: Registering AGM Attendees
In this step, the company can promote the AGM via multiple channels: social media, traditional media, or even by courier mail. The goal of this promotion is to make sure the stakeholders fill out an AGM registration form. The form can be shared via a shortlink in the digital media invitations or via a QR code if physical items are being used to invite people. The form may include fields like the shareholder’s name, email address, phone number, etc. When a shareholder fills out and submits the registration form, they will receive a personalized confirmation message. All their details will be stored in a centralized database that can be accessed by the company staff from anywhere.
Step 2: Sending AGM Reminders
Before the AGM meeting, the company can send one or multiple reminders to the registered attendees so they do not forget about the AGM. The reminders can be highly personalized with details of the event and how to join the event. The company staff does not need to personalize these messages by themselves. They just need to build a message template prior to the reminder date. The solution will pull data from the centralized database and send a personalized copy of the message to each of the attendees.
Step 3: Join the AGM via Teleconference
People can join the AGM in two ways. In the first way, the company can dial out to all the participants when the teleconference begins. All registered participants will receive a telephone call form the company to join the meeting that is happening via teleconference. Also, people can join the meeting by dialing in a phone number. The meeting can be secured by setting up a PIN. People who dial in must enter the PIN to join the meeting. The PIN is sent to participants via the reminder messages.
Alternatively, a company can use both methods.
To manage the meeting effectively, all participants can be muted when they join. Only a few with moderator privileges can unmute them. During the Q&A sessions, attendees can raise their hands by pressing a button on their phone’s dial pad and moderators can allow them to speak.
Step 4: Reporting
Once the meeting has been adjourned, company staff can download a detailed report that outlines the meeting’s duration, the number of participants, and other analytics. These insights can be used to create better agendas for future AGMs.
So, here are the four easy steps to create an automated AGM management solution. From registering participants to getting all of the participants in a teleconference call, the whole process is done automatically so the level of human intervention required goes down to nearly zero.
What’s next?
To implement this solution, you’ll need the right digital tools to ensure that all the steps in this strategy are executed perfectly. For that, you’ll need a digital form builder, email marketing software, SMS marketing software, voice broadcasting software, a CRM, and most importantly, a digital teleconference app. You’ll also need to streamline all these applications so they work together seamlessly.
Sounds hard, doesn’t it? It is indeed difficult, because developing this solution from scratch requires a lot of work.
Fortunately, SimplyCast anticipated the growing demand of a digital AGM management solution and brings you a complete solution which is 100 percent ready to go. Using our internal resources, digital engagement tools and marketing automation technology, we have built a solution that can take care of every task involved in your automated AGM management strategy.
Our platform is scalable so getting hundreds of participants in a teleconference is not a big deal. SimplyCast is an ISO 27001:2013-certified company so you don’t have to worry about your clients’ information and the potentially confidential information shared during the meeting.
Simply request a personalized demo of the solution with our experts today by clicking the button below and we can further help you develop you r automated AGM management solution.
