6 Signs you need a new Meeting Management System

Meeting room booking and meeting management is a vital area in any organization. The fact is, that meetings are an essential part of any modern organization. The bigger your organization is, the greater the need for an intelligent and efficient system to manage meetings and resource bookings is.
Meetings are more than booking the right size of meeting room and inviting the right people. Meetings can involve catering services, invoicing, and welcoming external guests in the reception. With this kind of complexity and processes that need to run smoothly, disorganization and confusion are not just irritating. It can also cost your organization both time and money.

6 signs that you need to improve your meeting management:

1) Your no-show rate is high

Are your meeting rooms being booked but left empty? This is very common for many organizations and the empty rooms are not just inconvenient – the unused empty space costs money and productivity. No-shows happen when an employee forgets to cancel the meeting or the room booking. The no-shows leave meeting rooms empty and prevent other employees from booking the unused meeting rooms.

Fortunately, the frustration of looking at empty meeting rooms without being able to book them can be solved! The most efficient way to do this, is by implementing a simple check-in/check-out system. You can, for example, implement a system that requires all employees to check-in to their meeting in advance. This can be done from their phone or a meeting room panel. Checking in from a meeting room display can be done either by a simple touch (without user authentication) or by scanning an RFID-card on the meeting room panel. Checking-in by using the RFID card can also be connected to user authentication. This means that only employees whom attend the meeting can check-in from the meeting room panel. If the employee doesn’t check-in the booking will automatically be canceled and be free for others to book.
A great benefit that comes with a proper room booking and meeting management system is the reporting opportunities. You get access to a no-show report that can be generated. This allows administrators to analyze the no-show rate and identify employees who do not show up for their meetings. Learn more about how to eliminate no-shows with our mobile booking app or with our meeting room panels and check-in/check-out system.

2) Double bookings and ‘room-sharking’

Another classic issue in offices is double bookings and so-called ‘room-sharks’ who occupy meeting rooms that are already booked by others. Double bookings can occur if your system is not efficiently synchronized on all platforms or if your system is managed manually.

‘Room-sharking’ often becomes a problem if a booking system is not intuitive and easy. An efficient booking system lets employees both pre-book meetings and book instant meeting rooms seamlessly. Ad-hoc and spontaneous meetings happen all the time. Therefore, being able to book a meeting room from the phone or a meeting room panel is essential! If the booking process is too complex people will often avoid booking a room and simply choose the nearest empty room – even if it might be booked. This form of ‘room-sharking’ can create an unprofessional image for your organization and lead to misunderstandings.

3) Wrong deliveries of services for meetings

Managing catering and service orders for your meetings can be difficult for your kitchen and service providers. But it doesn’t have to be! With a powerful service tool, you can make it easy for both the people booking the catering and the kitchen who manages the orders. Many organizations struggle with catering services being delivered to the wrong meeting room. This happens because meeting updates are not sent automatically to the kitchen.

Another classic thing is that employees make changes right up to the meetings start. As an effect, it makes it impossible for the kitchen to deliver the right catering services in time. In some cases, employees even book their meetings and the catering services very close to the meeting start which also makes it impossible for the kitchen to plan, prepare and deliver the catering items.

For kitchen personnel, planning is the most important factor in order to deliver the ordered services at the right time. It is essential for a kitchen and other service providers to strive to automate time-consuming and routine tasks. This can be tasks such as tracking costs, printing production lists, and taking out reports, to concentrate, etc. With the right catering system, your kitchen can rely on the system to manage everything and get detailed reports to help plan the day.

4) Lengthy invoicing processes

As stated earlier booking a meeting consist of many steps. These include: inviting guests, booking the appropriate meeting room, and ordering the right catering services. Furthermore, you need to “welcome” your guests in the reception, and prepare and send invoices. A one-hour meeting with the necessary preparation can take up an incredible amount of time.

Managing invoices is often a critical hub for organizations. Especially large corporations can have a very complex invoicing process. Here catering invoices can get sent back and forth between different divisions before they get approved. Applying a system that automates and eases the invoicing process is something that can help you save a lot of time and money.

5) Reception staff not being informed about visitors

A great first impression is everything, and your reception staff is the first point of contact for your visitors. If your visitors are met by a receptionist who is not aware they are coming or has to call around letting the right people know about the guests, the first contact can be unprofessional and confusing.

Imagine your visitors checking in at your visitor screen and instantly being given the information they need – a printed visitor card, a Wi-Fi code, directions to their designated meeting room, and an automatic SMS and/or email sent to their host notifying them about the visit. No more hassle for your visitors as they don’t have to answer questions about who they are visiting, what meeting they are attending, etc.

With a great visitor management system, you can make your visitors feel welcome and well informed and give them a professional first impression of your organization. At the same time, you can improve productivity for your reception staff who won’t have to manually check-in visitors and guide visitors around.

6) Missing insights into your office space usage

Are you basing your decisions on gut-feeling instead of data? Don’t you have an overview of how your office space is being utilized? Not having the correct data can prevent you from getting the most out of your office space. Learning which meeting rooms are always booked, which are always empty and which desks and resources are in high demand can give you great insight into how to potentially expand or organize your office environment.

For more information about powerful insigts read our blogpost: Get Powerful Insights to help your office decisions

Getting the information you need, enables you to make informed decisions about your ideal number of meeting rooms, their optimal capacity and the resource requirements of the meeting management. 

If you recognize any of these factors in your organization and see a potential to improve one or more of these areas, you are welcome to contact us or book a meeting about what we can do for your organization.