Upcoming “hot” office management features based on industry chat
Our daily routine, office life & businesses were recently flipped upside down. The current, difficult situation caused by pandemic hasn’t been seen since the early 20th century.
We now live in a rapidly changing & developing world, where 3 months ago I would have probably said that there are very few things that could actually surprise me.
Writing this article today, I can say that the current situation with the pandemic has done the job. I would expect a lot of things, but I never thought that within less than a week we would be able to shut and lock down pretty much the whole world, and its economy which now will take months or even years to fully recover.
As the economy is now in the process of defrosting and our daily routine is now focused in creating and adjusting to the “new normal”, as the person responsible for sales in Roomzilla, I can tell you two things already:
- First, remember the industry Roomzilla is in. Traditionally, our business relies on people to show up to a physical place where there are rooms that need managing, be it an office or any other venue. One would think, probably the end of the road for a company like ours, right (the thought crossed my mind a couple of times)? Wrong! I see a lot more interest in a room booking and managing systems than ever before. Companies are now thinking not only about saving time on ghost reservations in meeting rooms, optimizing their office spaces, but also they want to provide as safe of a work environment as possible, so people will feel comfortable returning to the offices.
- The second thing is the difference in terms of interest within our product’s features. It was no longer than just 3 months ago I saw a totally different pattern in customers’ interest than I see today. Is it a completely different approach than 3 months ago? Not entirely, but the new approach definitely appreciates more features that not too long ago didn’t shine among the others as they do now.
And what are these top office management features you may ask?:
- Let’s start with our #1 feature which is the Check-in option on remote devices. It is a very important feature for many of our customers because this is the easiest way to avoid losing a room when someone doesn’t show up to a meeting.
If not checked-in, our system automatically cancels the reservation and makes the resource available for others again.
What has changed now is – I’m being asked about it as one of the very first and important things, but there’s a follow up question to this now:
What kind of check-in option do you offer for those who show up to a meeting and are not feeling comfortable with touching the screen which could have been already touched by hundreds of people.
So #1 hot feature for now is a touchless check-in on personal device via email - Going further with a product presentation I mostly stick to the regular flow until we reach the Active Floor map view. 3 months ago our customers did appreciate this feature as something cool to have. What has changed – this feature is now appreciated more than ever, because you can track the availability of rooms in real time on our maps. Let’s assume that you’re in need of finding an available room on the spot – you don’t have to walk around the office in order to find one. Just open our floor map feature and see what’s available. The same appreciation is given to how simple locating the room is. When attending meetings, people can spot the room easily on a map and find the easiest way to it.
Feature #2 is Active Floor Maps
I’d be really happy to present everything that is now helping our customers within the “new normal”, but I’m limited with the space here, and – while it’s my normal job – this time around, I’m actually trying to offer some real world insight and not sell you. Therefore, I’d like to share one more feature with you that’s received more attention lately, more than ever before.
We all know that our office space capacity has been currently limited because of the distance we have to keep between us and our colleagues.
This new standard applies to reducing the capacity of meeting rooms as well, where in many cases the allowable limit is now 50% less than before.
Our feature “Exact occupancy number” appears on a booking form in order to save the reservation. If you exceed the limit, you will not save the reservation.
Feature #3 is Exact Occupancy Number as an extra safety step.
As mentioned above, I’d love to share more information with you on how Roomzilla helps companies create and adjust to the “new normal”, so if I did manage to gain your attention and you’d like to hear more, feel free to reach out to meat oskar@roomzilla.net I’d be happy to pick it from there.
