Meeting rooms: How to maximize their use

Meeting rooms are an important resource for many businesses, and in some cases, they are vital. Gathering places and essential workspaces for internal meetings, presentations, and collaborations, as well as revenue-generating assets. The purpose of this article is to explore the reasons why online meeting room scheduling software can be beneficial to your business both commercially and operationally.

Admin and paper work can be cut

An online meeting room booking system alleviates the burden of manual admin that can be heavy on those responsible for managing meeting room and facility bookings and scheduling.

By allowing people to use online conference scheduling software, they can avoid the tedious process of filling in lengthy booking forms and manually managing room diaries, with sophisticated systems capturing everything from the room layout to the delegate numbers and whatever other information they need.

The security of data

It’s essential that in a world where GDPR needs to be considered, that your conference room scheduling system ensures that both the information is both stored and transmitted securely in the event GDPR is one of the factors to take into consideration.

A robust room booking system should provide customers with the ability to view, access, and erase their data electronically.

Improvements to the organisation

As all new and confirmed bookings are stored in one place, and are visible to all parties, your meeting room scheduling software can improve your organisational effectiveness.

Whether reservations are booked online, by phone, or in person, all information is processed in real time by the central system. 

In this way, you don’t have to worry about double bookings and can always be sure of the availability of every room.

Upselling  

Meeting room scheduling software can help you maximize earning potential through offering upsell opportunities in the booking journey when you are renting out a meeting room (or a facility such as a 3G pitch, perhaps). Perhaps you will hire audio-visual equipment, book food and beverage options, or even provide the opportunity to book another room or additional dates.

The Management of Resources

Similarly, if your online scheduling system is used for internal (non-revenue) bookings, then it is an excellent resource for managing your resources. In this case, the equipment might be allocated to a booking, so that you will always know what is available. As an alternative, this is a way that you can communicate with 3rd party suppliers, such as caterers, by automating the confirmation of orders and reporting on what has been ordered, when and how much.

Management of room reservations

It is true that there are times when a room or facility is unavailable due to issues such as maintenance, temporary building closures, or internal events (for example, a school gym is unavailable during exam periods).

You can take rooms offline for those dates by using the best room booking systems, ensuring they are not accidentally booked.

Access at any time

It is possible to access a meeting room scheduling system around the clock, 365 days a year. An internal perspective, and in particular in an environment where employees have flexible hours and work remotely, this can make the booking process much easier, without requiring them to book during ‘normal’ hours.

Your available facilities are always bookable from a commercial perspective, which increases the chances of a sale since customers do not have to wait or call back.