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A Professional Installation Makes All the Difference

When it comes to a seamless and productive workday, communication is key. No matter how big or small it is, your Dallas, TX business more than likely needs tools to help your employees communicate and collaborate on a daily basis.

A commercial audio video installation is a must for your whole building. The benefits are endless, and the reliability and top-quality of your system make for a worthy investment. But when it comes to a project of this size and importance, you don’t want to depend on disparate components and products that compromise your setup: You want one comprehensive, intuitive system.

Work with a team of professionals you can trust! DeVance Electronic Lifestyle is here to make the entire process – from installation to daily use -- a breeze for you and everyone on your team. Find out more about commercial AV and our installation services by reading on below.

Crestron Mercury Simplifies Every Conference Room Meeting

Communicating with everyone in your Dallas, TX company – including those in-office and working remotely – can be a bit complicated. No matter if you’re hosting a huge presentation or providing training in an important meeting, ensuring that your employees get the information they need is a top priority for you. 

That’s why commercial AV for your conference room setups is a must. And our team at DeVance Electronic Lifestyle highly recommends a Crestron Mercury system. In this blog, we’ll dive into how it can benefit your business today.

Want to find out more? Keep reading on below.

The new year is just around the corner, and savvy Dallas business owners have started to consider what improvements they want to make in 2017. While many of these planning sessions focus on increasing operational efficiency, you might want to consider an alternative approach: improving the customer experience. Whether you’re running a restaurant, a retail store, or a car dealership, creating the right atmosphere for a relaxed and happy customer is a key component of business success.

So how do you do that? There are many different ways, but some technologies are rising to the top. Below, we cover five great commercial audio video trends that we predict will hit it big in 2017. 

SEE ALSO: 3 REASONS TO UPGRADE YOUR COMMERCIAL AUDIO / VIDEO SYSTEM

1. Interactive Displays

Waiting in lobbies isn’t fun for anyone, but technology can help make the time go by faster. Interactive displays use motion or touch technology to allow guests to manipulate what’s on the screen. These customizable screens could be as simple as ambient art that reacts to hand motions or a trivia game that gives points for selecting the right answer. Restaurant patrons waiting for a table, children waiting for a dentist appointment, or key clients waiting for a business presentation—interactive displays can help all of them have a more enjoyable experience.

2. Serve Yourself Technologies

People know what they want better than any waiter or customer service representative could, so why not let them control the service experience? This “do it yourself” automation technology started out as a way for businesses to save money on staffing costs, but it turns out that customers actually prefer this approach. Common applications are ordering kiosks at restaurants or price check scanners at retail stores. You’re essentially giving your clients instant gratification. There are no delays or miscommunication—just an intuitive screen that provides simple options for your clients to choose from.

When you’re planning a conference room and considering all the commercial audio video details, you’ll likely first think about the most noticeable elements you need -- like your display and speaker technology.

In our many years of experience installing automated boardrooms, we have found that often, the smaller, less flashy components make or break the meetings. Keep reading to better understand what we mean, and which three factors you should no longer ignore!

SEE ALSO: Boost Sales and Work Harder With Digital Signage

Room Scheduling Software

Many hiccups can arise during a meeting scheduling process. It’s not uncommon, for example, for someone to set up a video conference but forgets to send the link to your calendar. A software glitch can allow a room to get double-booked.

Designating a place and time for a simple meeting should never be painstaking. Crestron’s Fusion room scheduling software connects everyone in your office to an easy-to-use scheduling platform. Employees can see which rooms are available on touch screens throughout the office, and press a few buttons to book a meeting, set a space and invite attendees. For your convenience, Fusion syncs with standard email tools, like Outlook and Google.

In today’s offices, you see a complete transformation from the business scene of just ten years ago. Alongside less fluorescent lighting and fewer cubicles, another lasting trend we’ve noticed is the huddle room: According to recent market trends identified by Frost & Sullivan, huddle rooms are projected to replace almost 70% of all meeting rooms by 2022.

What is a huddle room, though? It’s too small to be called a conference room and too business-oriented to be a break room, so imagine, if you will, something in between. Maybe two or three employees want to spend half an hour rehearsing a presentation but don’t want to book a conference room. Or a peer leader wants to instruct an employee on a topic that needs a visual aid. In these instances and several others,  a huddle room proves a handy tool in your overall commercial audio video and automation setup. Why would your Dallas, TX, office need one, especially when you already have a few conference rooms? We’ll explain below.

SEE ALSO: 3 Commercial Audio Video Trends You Need to Know

A Welcome Break From an Open Office

The open office concept seemed to crop up in nearly every business last decade. According to a 2010 study by the International Facility Management Association, 68% of people worked in an office with either no walls or low walls–and the number has undoubtedly grown.

Regardless of the cons of the layout, which we’ll discuss below, owners continued to build them for their cost-efficiency and collaboration benefits. Some studies have noted that banishing the closed-door office has leveled the manager-employee playing field and made executives seem more approachable.

Some people may describe their company’s conference room technology as “practically stuck in the stone ages.” That’s a problem. Even if your system isn’t that old, commercial audio/video technologies have come a long way in recent years, and an outdated system could negatively impact your Dallas, Texas business. Fortunately, there are many new and innovative technologies available for businesses that make using conference room AV easy and effective. Below, we’ve covered the three main ways that a commercial AV upgrade can add value to your business.

Save Time
How much time do your employees waste fumbling around with the conference AV system, trying to set up a presentation or connect to a teleconference? If it’s more than a few minutes, there’s definitely room for improvement. Modern commercial AV systems are designed to be user-friendly and simple to start, so your employees know exactly what to do with minimal training and no guesswork.

Commercial automation integrates all the audio and video components within your boardroom into one simple control system. Want to lower the screen, turn on the projector, dim the lights, and turn on the speakers? That can all happen with one press of a touchscreen. There’s really no comparison when it comes to time savings for conference room automation vs. manual operation methods.

Increase Reliability
There are few things more frustrating than getting ready to start a presentation with an important prospect only to have your AV equipment fail you at the last minute. In today’s fast-paced and demanding business environment, you need a commercial audio/video system that will always offer crisp, clear audio and video. The streamlined approach to operating your commercial automation system ensures that you’ll never accidentally exit out of a video conference or struggle with finding the right controller to adjust the audio. The result is a conference room system that functions exactly as it should, every time you need it.

Improve Image
What does your conference room technology say about your company? If you want it to say that you are cutting edge and innovative, commercial automation is the way to go. An outdated and inefficient AV system can be off-putting to potential clients, while an AV system that has your presentation instantly start at the push of a button can impress those clients and assure them that your company has a good handle on things.