The COVID-19 pandemic forced many SMBs to quickly adjust business operations in order to adapt to this new business climate—with video conferencing becoming a necessity for moving business forward.

And while people have been diving in headfirst, for many SMBs, this is their first time using such tools for business communication. In fact, in our recent TechValidate survey of 169 SMBs (<250 employees), found that at least 21 percent were adopting video conferencing for the first time.

Small businesses have the same needs to connect with teammates, customers and partners, but individuals in these organizations wear many hats—putting a premium on their time and resulting in zero tolerance for navigating technical complexity. They are constantly on the move and require a reliable solution that delivers a consistent and secure solution.

To help keep small businesses productive during these times, Verizon recently announced over 200 small business owners from across the country will receive up to $10,000 to support their businesses as recipients of LISC's Verizon Small Business Recovery Fund. These grants are meant to help them meet payroll, pay rent and address additional immediate operational needs. Additionally, Verizon is funding BlueJeans’ video conferencing service free for 1-year to each of the small business grant recipients.

At BlueJeans our goal is to provide convenient access to secure, high-quality video conferencing to help more users connect with employees, vendors and customers; we hope this free offer helps even more businesses stay connected and productive during these challenging times.

Furthermore, our TechValidate survey, which asked SMBs about their experience with video conferencing technology in recent months, revealed the main reasons SMBs switched over to BlueJeans, which BlueJeans Meetings features influenced product adoption and how BlueJeans is being used. Upon analyzing respondents’ business drivers and product-feature requirements, we found that—much like their larger peers—SMBs prioritize security and user experience.

In fact, overwhelmingly, ease-of-use was the deciding factor for many SMBs in adopting BlueJeans. The top 5 BlueJeans capabilities that influenced the buying decision:

  • Ease-of-use
  • HD Video
  • World class audio
  • Enterprise-grade security
  • Industry-leading interop

The survey also found that when security is of importance—BlueJeans is the vendor of choice. 57 percent of surveyed organizations switched over to BlueJeans from using Zoom. Of those, 51 percent said they switched because they wanted better security. Here were the top three reasons overall that people switched to BlueJeans:

  • 38 percent wanted better security
  • 36 percent wanted better audio/video
  • 26 percent wanted a more reliable solution; 26 percent wanted better pricing (tie)

Compared to their experience with other video conferencing providers, respondents agree BlueJeans has superior security (95 percent), meeting reliability (90 percent) and ease of use (89 percent). Similarly, 94 percent of respondents agree that BlueJeans’ standards-based approach to security makes them confident that their meetings are protected.

As the use of collaboration tools and streaming video continues to climb, we’re glad that we can help support small business owners during these important times.

To make sure we’re doing what we can to best suit the needs of businesses large and small during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond, this week we announced new features for meeting security, engagement, and time management to augment the work from home (WFH) experience.

Learn more about how BlueJeans supports SMBs and download your free trial of BlueJeans today.