How to Deal With No-Show Meetings and Improve Room Scheduling Issues

No-show meetings, alternatively referred to as abandoned meetings, have long been a thorn in the side of the corporate world. After all, they hold up precious resources that could be better utilised by another team. Now, before we delve into the topic any further, let us quickly understand what no-show meetings really are: They are the meetings when a room booked for a previously scheduled meeting remains to be booked even though the attendees have failed to show up. As we mentioned above, it prevents the resource from being used by those who actually need it. Unfortunately, it happens far too often and can result in a lot of frustration and unproductive man-hours.

These are only some of the fundamental ways in which no show meetings can take a toll on employees, their morale, and eventually the overall productivity. It is why organizations worldwide are always on the lookout for means and ways to deal with this rather tricky problem. Because this also affects customers’ ability to book meetings with your staff and engage with the business. No one wants that; so, here are a few handy tricks to help your company deal with this particular problem of no-show meetings.

1. Necessitate check-ins: Easily among the most effective ways to prevent no-show meetings is to necessitate attendees to check-in at a pre-decided time before the meetings. It will not only serve to remind them of the upcoming appointment, encourage punctuality, but also prevent the possibility of meeting rooms going unused. So say, you can use a meeting planning software to automate check-ins 30 minutes before the meetings. In case no one checks in, the room can then automatically become available for others. 2. Send reminder notifications: Yet another highly valuable means to dissuade people from skipping scheduled meetings is by sending them timely reminders. The frequency and the "when" will, of course, depend on the company, but one can easily make use of meeting planning software to send automatic reminders. To say, a few hours and an evening ahead of the scheduled meetings. It allows attendees to arrange their schedules in time, even if they forgot about the meeting. 3. Scrutinize reports of no-show meetings: One of the most effective ways to prevent something is to understand the root cause. In the case of ghost meetings, it is important to understand why they are happening across your organization. For that, you must analyze monthly meetings stats, share of abandoned meetings in the month, cancellation rates, meetings that actually end up taking place, etc. In fact, advanced software enable companies to easily monitor vital metrics to see how spaces are being utilized, gauge efficacy of measures to dissuade no show meetings, and so much more.

We understand no-show meetings can be quite frustrating, but now we know they can be prevented relatively easily. All you need is a robust meeting planning software and you will be able to address most concerns in this regard effectively.

Olivia Johnson is a technical writer, love to share stuffs related to technology & development.