How to Reduce Meeting Room No-Shows

Meeting room no-shows aren’t just an inconvenience – they can also be costly for your organization if you don’t keep them under control. A report from 2009 by Herman Miller showed that meetings cost companies between $30 million and $100 million per year. Studies show that an average of 40% of meetings are no-shows.

Meeting room no-shows take place when someone books a meeting and then cancels it but doesn’t cancel the room booking. As a result, unoccupied meeting rooms appear as reserved in the meeting booking system. Other employees who are looking for a meeting room may not find one available. A quick stroll around the office would lead them to determine that there are plenty of unused meeting rooms, yet none of them can be booked.

Oftentimes, recurring meetings are scheduled but are then forgotten. No one is attending these recurring meetings, but the rooms still come up as occupied in the room booking system. This can be frustrating for employees, who can never seem to find a meeting room when they need one. They have to spend a lot of time looking for a space to hold a meeting, which leads to lost productivity. Not only do companies pay their employees for this unproductive time, but they are also responsible for the cost of wasted space associated with no-shows.

Another issue with no-shows is e.g. catering ordered for the meeting. Catering delivered to an empty meeting room is a problem and an unwanted cost.

How to Solve No-Shows

Using resource scheduling software for Microsoft Outlook^®, Exchange and Microsoft 365 can prevent no-shows from occurring because when you cancel a meeting, the meeting room is immediately freed up for others to use. When combined with digital conference room signs outside your meeting rooms, resource scheduling software can even enable employees to confirm, end or cancel meetings right on the spot.

Using a touchscreen digital sign, employees can confirm that a booked meeting is taking place directly outside the meeting room, end a meeting early or book an empty meeting room. Employees can also extend a meeting room booking directly on a digital sign if a meeting is taking longer than anticipated. The digital signs sync with the meeting room scheduling software, so meeting schedules and meeting room availability remain up-to-date.

Resource scheduling software also comes equipped with reporting tools, so you can generate resource utilization reports to determine exactly where and how no-shows are taking place and correct the problem.

Improve Resource Utilization and Eliminate No-Shows with Resource Central

Add-On Products’ Resource Central is meeting room booking software that makes it easy for people to find and book available meeting rooms. Resource Central also prevents meeting rooms from sitting empty by streamlining cancelations and ensuring that meeting rooms are freed up and made available to others, as soon as a cancelation takes place. It even can send a notification to the meeting organizer e.g. 24 hours before the meeting takes place.

Sign up for a free trial or free demo of Resource Central today.