We've inherited a lot of conference rooms from previous installers. The pattern is depressingly consistent: beautiful displays, expensive ceiling mics, three remotes on the table, and a handwritten note taped to the wall that says 'Call IT before meeting.'
Good AV isn't measured at install. It's measured Monday at 9:02 AM, when someone walks in cold for a client call.
One button, or no button
Every conference room we deliver passes the 'cold Monday' test: a person who has never seen the room before walks in, plugs in their laptop or starts a Teams meeting from the touch panel, and is on a call within 60 seconds. No phone-a-friend.
That means one source switch (USB-C with charging), automatic display wake, automatic camera framing, automatic mic gating. Everything else hides behind the scenes.
Acoustics first, microphones second
Adding more microphones to a glassy room is a losing battle. The first thing we look at is the room itself — bare drywall, glass walls, hard ceiling tiles. A few hundred dollars of properly placed acoustic panels does more for intelligibility than the most expensive ceiling array.
Standardize across the floor
If you have three or more rooms, standardize the user experience. Same touch panel layout, same source naming, same camera presets. We've seen organizations save more in reduced support tickets than they spent on the AV.