As more companies are learning, with the rise of distributed office staff, meetings matter a lot when they’re run correctly. The foundation of a good meeting is having everyone at the right location at the right time. In order to manage this at a large organization, you need the right meeting room manager.
Here are five things to look for when shopping for a meeting room manager.
1. Simple To Use
In order to get everyone on your team on board with your software, it needs to be easy to use. Introducing a new tool or a new methodology into your day to day leads to people struggling to adopt it. The best way to streamline adoption is to ensure that no one has any major problems with it.
Find an interface that feels intuitive and easy to use. Test it out with the managers on your team and ensure that no one has any major issues with it. With some software companies, small amounts of feedback that lead to easy customizations are sometimes possible for developers to add to their next edition.
If you need to get rid of one feature or desperately need something developers haven’t thought of yet, let them know. You could inspire a big change.
At a minimum, users should be able to view, search through, and schedule any of the available meeting rooms. Attendees should be easy to see, add, and shuffle around. When a system makes booking a room and signing up for resources a breeze, more of your staff will jump at the chance to do it.
2. 24 Hour Access
Believe it or not, business isn’t always confined to those eight hours when your staff is sitting at their desks. Business gets done at the dead of night, via text, or right before bed. How many times have you made a last minute decision about something related to your business right as you’re about to fall asleep?
Let your staff make decisions whenever the inspiration strikes. Choose a meeting room software package or an app that’s available to them 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
If your employees mainly use Android devices, be sure to accommodate them. If they need something that works on iOS, choose an application to avoid leaving them out. Most of the best software out there works on any kind of smartphone or tablet.
3. Don’t Be A Guinea Pig
No matter how attractive the package you’re offered from a development team, you don’t want to be the first company to adopt any kind of app. That team ends up being the test market for the application, constantly on the phone with the developers asking for fixes.
When the communication element of your business is on the line, don’t take any risks with faulty software.
The number of startups out there building meeting room manager software is going to surprise you. However, your team deserves something that’s built by an established company and is ready to succeed. Relying on a tool built by a startup that folds after a couple of years leaves your team high and dry.
Buy your software from a company with a proven track record, an established portfolio of success, and a strong client base. Above all, ensure that the software always has great technical support to ensure that you never get stuck with any problems. Established software companies know how to give customer support better than even the cleverest startup.
4. Scalable and Synchronized
If you’re fresh out of a brainstorm that requires another meeting, two people often leave that room with the intention of booking your next meeting. This results in two people bumping heads over trying to book the same room online when you don’t have real-time synchronization. Without this feature, you’ll have miscommunication and confusion.
Having everything go to a central database ensures that everyone has access to the latest information. They’ll see when people are working, booking, and moving things around. You’ll prevent double-booking or any major scheduling conflicts.
Sometimes meetings change last minute. People get added, drop out, or rooms get flipped at a moment’s notice. You need to have real-time synchronization to ensure that everyone finds out ASAP.
If your company has several meeting rooms in a few locations, you’ll be able to add people to a group and bring them to your meeting room. You should be able to add people who aren’t located in your same physical region for a virtual meeting. This allows you to phone people who are in different time zones to get on-site and remote teams synchronized.
5. Manage Visitors
With the right piece of software on your side, you’ll be able to manage visitors and let them feel welcome with your scheduler. Visitors to a large company or a hard to find office can be thrown for a loop if the person at security or the front desk doesn’t expect them. If someone is there to wow you, that wow can turn into a frown by the time they meet yours.
Give them the star treatment and a positive first impression by expediting registration with your system. When you add visitors, they’ll have information quickly entered and only need to confirm it when they get to you.
That system should notify you as the host when your visitor arrives. This allows receptionists to print out badges and be ready for them. In some cases, you’ll get the chance to add their name to a digital display reading “Company X Welcomes Janet Visitor”.
Your Meeting Room Manager Starts It Off
When you have a strong meeting room manager to keep everyone informed and at the right location, you ensure that everyone is on task at the same time. This syncs up your entire team and gets all of the chaos out of the way before your meeting begins. For the best results, ensure that your manager has all the traits listed above.
To learn more about our conference room solutions, including meeting room management options, click here.
