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Meetings are a necessary part of doing business. What is not necessary is the time spent on tedious tasks to arrange these meetings. Here we bring you 11 tips to improve meeting management processes.
Meeting scheduling is often reported as one of the most time-consuming, non-essential tasks during an average workday. In fact, office workers report spending close to five hours a week every week on meeting management.
With Outlook or Microsoft 365, there is so much the modern office can do to empower employees to get the most out of the workday. But when it comes to managing meetings across your organization, your Outlook falls short. Integrated meeting room booking tools eliminate the hassle of finding available meeting rooms and ordering associated services.
Not a fan of lengthy blog posts? No worries. This article is based on the E-BOOK:
The problem with meeting management processes
Meeting organizers are tasked with assembling a group of busy people at the same time and place. This may involve communicating back and forth with attendees via email or phone. Once everyone agrees on a time to meet, organizers must find a meeting room that fits their needs, reserve audiovisual equipment, order catering, and other additional services, register guests at the reception, and ensure the necessary information is available to the finance department. When finally finished coordinating a meeting, meeting planners may find that they have spent more time scheduling the meeting than they’ll spend in the meeting itself.
How much time is wasted on meeting management processes?
Setting up a meeting is time-consuming, costly, and cumbersome for service providers and service managers who are always hustling to stay up-to-date on impending needs and ensure everything is delivered to the right place at the right time. When it comes to meeting room booking and meeting management, the focus is often on the meeting organizer. However, there are teams throughout the organization who feel the productivity pinch at every meeting. Consider the facility services, company cafeteria, front desk, and finance department who all have a role to play. When a meeting management process is not efficient and harmonious with the rest of the company’s solution suite, such as Outlook or Office 365, there are opportunities for error and redundancies at every turn.
- Silo-ed systems
- Error-prone booking method
- Wasted time and resources
- Scheduling errors
- Damage to client perception and company image
- Inefficient use of meeting spaces and poor room utilization
- Additional services are delivered at the wrong time or to the wrong meeting room
These are costly mistakes for companies of every size.
It does not have to be this way.
With an integrated meeting room booking tool for your Outlook or Office 365 calendar, you can streamline the meeting management process and enhance productivity to new heights.
A growing number of companies are replacing manual, error-prone booking methods with meeting room booking software such as Exchange, Outlook, or Office 365. With extensions like AskCody Workplace, a meeting scheduling software inside the Outlook or Office 365 interface, companies streamline the meeting room booking process and enable staff to complete meeting room bookings instantly. Users can search for available meeting rooms based on personal search criteria, organize meetings, and invite attendees with just a few clicks.
With an integrated service booking solution for meetings, it gets even better. Booking Add-ons from AskCody lets employees book and manage meeting services such as catering, additional meeting room equipment, cars, or other resources directly from within Outlook. When users book a meeting with services, catering, and facilities management are instantly alerted to exactly what, when, and where services and equipment must be delivered. If a meeting is canceled, moved, or rescheduled, all assigned resources follow without any further management.
Ditch third-party applications when ordering from different vendors, win back productivity. A centralized meeting booking system such as Outlook can be accessed from any location, over any connection, and on any device. This is critical for today’s modern, mobile workforce. Employees must be able to book and reschedule meetings, no matter where they are.
Extending the functionality of Outlook with an integrated meeting room booking extension allows employees to ditch third-party applications and order associated services from directly inside Outlook in a single, streamlined process. That is a one-stop interface to control all bookings and associated resources from inside Outlook. This gives users better control of meeting planning and eliminates the need for several different systems to schedule meetings or for manual, unsynchronized systems so users can better optimize the time spent on booking and planning meetings.
Your organization will undoubtedly benefit from an integrated meeting room booking extension software. Meeting room management processes have a direct impact on your overall performance and financial standing. Free up time to do what is important to your business instead of spending time on cumbersome, unsynchronized processes. Employees gain the freedom to book and reschedule meetings on the fly without having to worry about notifying service providers or that orders for associated services will get lost. The value of an integrated, streamlined process:
- Save time and plan with ease – no need to switch back and forth between systems
- Handle all changes and cancellations automatically – also for vendor managers
- Prevent scheduling errors – everything is managed in one place
- Easy user adoption – employees work within Outlook
- Book additional resources with ease – even on the fly from any device
11 improvements an integrated meeting room booking tool brings to your company
1. Consolidate all activities related to planning and scheduling meetings
Meeting room booking software replaces disparate systems with a single, easy-to-use solution that consolidates all activities related to planning and scheduling meetings. Users can order additional services directly within Outlook. No more switching applications when booking and managing meetings.
2. Ditch the manual processes
No more paper-based booking methods, spreadsheets, and other outdated tools that add to the workload of busy administrative staff. Ditch the manual, back-and-forth processes of arranging meetings with phone calls, emails, and post-it notes.
3. No more third-party applications
Book what you need inside Outlook, and catering or facilities management instantly knows exactly what, when, and where you need it. No need for any other application. Just use your Outlook calendar.
4. Your orders stay with the meeting
Your orders stay with the meeting. Vendors are instantly notified if the meeting is canceled, rescheduled, or moved. No need to manually synchronize systems.
5. Tell at a glance what is needed
Vendor managers can see at a glance what is needed, how many people need services, and where services must be delivered. This is an instant, one-stop interface with an updated overview in real-time.
6. Prevent scheduling errors
All information about meeting rooms, schedules, and additional resources reside in the same system, which is updated in real-time. Providing users with access to up-to-date meeting information in a centralized location prevents double bookings and other errors around additional resources. Information is always accurate, and you won’t have to worry about synchronization between disparate systems.
7. No more meeting snafus
Never worry about double-booked meeting rooms, attendees showing up to canceled meetings, or catering being delivered at the wrong time or to the wrong meeting room. With an integrated booking solution, you can communicate changes and cancellations immediately to meeting attendees and service providers.
8. Handle changes and cancellations automatically
If a meeting is changed or canceled, the system is updated automatically. This means that attendees and service providers are notified immediately and have time to adjust their schedules.
9. Ditch mistakes, uncertainty, and frustration
Staff and visitors get a strong first impression of your company due to well-organized meetings. This also gives you the ability to keep important projects on track.
10. Save time for all meeting room users
No more back and forth communication jumping in and out of disparate systems. Meeting room scheduling software saves meeting room users, facility managers, office administrators, and other staff members time. It enhances your employees’ productivity and frees up time to focus on what is most important to your business.
11. Easy user adoption
Employees are already familiar with Outlook and its interface. An integrated booking tool that is built on top of Outlook simplifies the process of booking rooms and resources from directly inside a familiar interface. This encourages user adoption and keeps life simple for users.
THERE IS ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
Want to learn more about how you might improve employee productivity by booking and managing meetings effectively. With meeting management software you can enhance the utilization of your workplace and organizational processes. Read our ebook: 11 easy ways to improve meetings or set up a call if you want to get a demo.
