I think anyone who travels regularly for business already knows this one, but it’s still nice to have it confirmed. A survey recently done by Embassy Suites shows that business travelers  think face time is important in maintaining strong client relationships, and in-person visits are far more effective than conference or video calls. Um, yeah. Anyone who has ever tried to have a conference call with twenty people all checking their email, eating lunch, and surfing the web knows this! More interesting facts:

• Seventy-six percent of business travelers who had less face time with clients in the past 12 months reported it had a negative impact on their business relationships.
• Almost one in five (18%) business travelers reported losing a project because they were unable to travel to see a client and 17% say they lost the client altogether.
• Can apps, emails and video chats replace old-fashioned face time with clients? Respondents indicated it would take an average of 5 video conferences, 10 phone calls or 20 emails to replace 1 hour of face-to-face contact with a client.

More interesting info? Women think it would take less phone calls to make up an hour of face time than men, 9 for women vs. 12 for men. Huh. Maybe it’s because we are so efficient? 😀

Another interesting fact: the survey respondents were very evenly split between women and men, with 51% of respondents being men and 49% women.

My experience has been, very clearly, that in person visits are much more efficient and effective than any kind of telecommunications. Readers, do you agree?