At Evolve Collaboration and our sister companies, The Streaming Network and Momentum Conferencing, I head up a team that runs over 400 quarterly earning announcements every quarter.
I always find it surprising when we transition a company from one of our competitors (let’s face it, usually after a failed call service experience) how little the Investor Relations professionals are privy to the process and how much they are leaving to chance every quarter.
This is even more surprising when we know that the average publicly traded company in North America spends upwards of $800,000 (According to XbInsight) on their Investor Relations practice.
That number is before you take into consideration the time that the CEO and other C-suite spend on earnings announcements at general Investor Relations meetings.
Incomplete bookings
When we transition a new Investor Relations department to our call service, we often start to get bookings that look something like this:
Hi MC,
Can you please book my Q2 call for next Tuesday @ 9:00 am?
I need the information ASAP!
Thanks,
Investor Relations Department
We understand that things move fast at earnings time and you have a lot going on, so when you are ready for your earnings announcement it is all hands-on deck!
That being said, no matter how good your partner is and how much they have on file for your account, sending through an order like this can result in errors.
Best practice is to review all the options in-front of you (like a checklist) and book your call with as much information as possible.
At Evolve Collaboration we instituted an online booking form which walks you through the booking process and provides all the options that you can select for your call service.
<<Check it out here http://evolvecollaboration.com/callorder >>
Most quarterly earnings announcements are carbon copies of the last, but from time to time things change.
Using an online booking form provided by your call service will reduce the amount of back and forth at earnings time and leave you to focus on more important matters.
Know your vendor’s SLA’s and do your best to work within them.
At Evolve Collaboration, we have special SLA’s for our Investor Relations customers that inform them we will return bookings in 4 hours or less.
Even with these above industry average SLA’s (usually they are 24-48 hrs) we get people pushing for ASAP bookings and asking for confirmations inside of 1 hour or 30 minutes.
These rush requests can often be accommodated, but they put stress on both you and your call service provider.
We know the pressure you are under, and when working with your call service provider, it is always good to understand your SLA’s so you can send your booking in and know exactly when you are going to receive it back.
What’s your plan to communicate with the call service operator team?
It is common practice to book a Communication Line & a Call Management tool (we call ours Leaderview) so you can have instant communication with your call service operator team.
Having multiple ways to communicate with your operator is not a bad thing, especially when things go wrong – more on that later.
You should always ensure that your operator team knows how you are going to communicate with them so that they can focus in the right place and react quickly to your requests.
Do you have an earnings announcement fire drill?
We all remember the fire drills in elementary school, right?
Often times we don’t plan for inevitabilities on a call service because “things have always just worked”.
Unfortunately, things can go wrong in a million ways. I have had customers who have had the power go out in their office, phone lines drop, internet stops working, or worse!
We always like to ensure that we know the drill with our customers…
- How do we call the boardroom back if the speaker drops?
- What do we do if we lose communication with you over Leaderview?
- What is the standby message in the event of a large issue?
- Are you doing the call from a new location this time and unsure of the technical infrastructure? What new plans should we make?
20 minutes early could save you a lot of headaches later!
The day of earnings can be hectic, especially if information is changing up to the last minute.
Often times customers will dial in very close to start time as a result and it does not give the call service provider time to do a proper sound check or review the last-minute information you have sent across regarding changes to your script or special instructions.
Regardless of what is going on, you should have someone available to dial in early and review the call before hand and conduct a thorough sound check from the room you are doing the call from!
I have been at this for the better part of 20 years and I have seen the good, the bad and ugly as it relates to earnings conference calls.
Creating a process that sets you up for success should be a collaborative effort between you and your call service provider!
Contact me today so we can review your current quarterly earnings announcements service and ensure you receive the best call service available.
Marie-Claude Hébert
DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER | EVOLVE
T: (416) 640-9770
