Compliance and Audits Made Easy with a Visitor Management System
Want to avoid wasting 58 days dealing with compliance audits and $14.82 mln on noncompliance penalties? Here’s how visitor management software can...
Visitor management software is crucial for streamlining the guest welcoming process. This article shines a spotlight on its workings.
Executive summary
- A visitor management system welcomes guests to your establishment by signing them in and notifying the host employees to create fast and efficient connections.
- The software ensures guests sign in securely, have their identities verified, captures visitor photos and electronic signatures, and digitally logs all activity.
- Utilizes touchless technology and temperature scanning to minimize interaction between employees and visitors in order to prevent disease spread.
Your office or company receives visitors frequently, including customers, consultants, contract workers, and anyone who is not a full-time employee of the company. A visitor management system ensures that all guests are handled properly and efficiently so they have a positive experience and minimize disruption.
This guide catalogs how visitor management software works. Skip ahead to:
What is Visitor Management?
Visitor management is any welcoming protocol an organization follows to ensure they handle, record, and track all the people visiting their premises.
A visitor management system can sometimes be as simple as noting down the name of the visitor, contact details, and the purpose of the visit. Other times, it may include more services like escorting the visitor to their destination, giving them a company badge, and notifying the host.
Modern workplaces use cloud-based visitor management software, a digital receptionist. These self-help kiosks provide strong digital security while efficiently connecting visitors with their hosts.
The approach to visitor management will depend on the type of organization, the level of security required, and the data and physical assets they need to protect.
Why is Having a Visitor Management System Important?
Visitor management software automates the entire welcoming process, bringing about the following advantages:
Creating a Good Impression
The presentation and organization of the company’s employees on receiving them impresses guests. Creating a good first impression on your visitors is a way of establishing a relationship.
Creating a memorable impression is crucial because it sets the tone of the visitor’s entire experience with your company. To have a lasting impression on your visitors, use these simple techniques:
- For a manual visitor management solution, ensure the front desk employees get training on receiving visitors, bearing in mind the magnitude of the task
- Have a waiting room and provide accompaniments, such as a newspaper, water, or coffee.
- Invest in direction signs and posters for ease of movement
Building a Strong Reputation
An excellent digital receptionist software can create a sense of trust and dependency between the organization and the visitor.
For starters, if your company’s visitor management software offers greater scrutiny, the customer will feel secure knowing that the organization takes its security details seriously.
A seamless Visitor Management System also helps employees predict visitor traffic. This, in turn, helps the company develop a solid brand reputation.
Safety and Security
The smooth working of an organization depends significantly on the security and safety of the environment.
A Visitor Management System ensures you maintain high-security levels by granting authorized people access to the premises and rejecting unapproved people. It gives guests peace of mind knowing they are on a safe and secure property.
The visitor Management System also prevents theft and vandalism of property since you can identify visitors and track their movements. To improve visitor management security, include features like:
- Visitor records with personal details
- Visitor badges with information of their name, the person they are visiting, and expiration date
- Visitor escort
Office Productivity
Having an organized, welcoming system ensures you cater to all guests and prevents disruption when visitors need to ask random employees for guidance. It allows employees time to concentrate on other tasks.
The visitor management system eliminates the need for employees to engage in repetitive, time-wasting tasks, such as handling visitors.
With every employee focusing on other complex tasks uninterrupted, there is an assurance that your organization will achieve higher productivity levels compared to a company without a visitor management solution.
How Does a Visitor Management System Work?
Visitors Arrive
Visiting a new place is not always a pleasant affair, as you have to go asking around and might even get lost in the process. Visitor management software identifies a visitor and attends to them as soon as they enter your premises. Employ these three tactics for an effective guest recognition system:
- Have an automated receptionist that uses its hardware or integrates with other systems to pinpoint a guest’s arrival.
- A physical receptionist who will recognize a visitor instantly
- Have signage to show the directions to different offices within the company
Next, make sure the system ensures the comfort of the visitors by showing them to the waiting room or offering an escort to their destination
Visitors Check In
Different kinds of visitors come to your organization, so you need to determine the type of visitor you are handling as they sign in.
One easy way to sort the guests is using their smartphone or a self-service kiosk. They will key in their names, purpose of visit, contact details, host, and complete any other visitor information your company might need.
At this point, it helps to think about safety by using a touchless visitor management system that reduces the need for employee interaction with guests.
Similarly, incorporate temperature scanning to prevent guests with high temperatures from accessing the premises, reducing chances of disease spread.
Additional security measures you can take include:
- Visitor photos
- ID scanning
- Electronic signatures
- Visitor badges
The Host Employee Is Notified
To speed up the reception process, it’s pretty helpful to connect the visitor with their contact person as soon as possible. Have a host alert notifications system that reaches employees via their preferred communication vehicles. This typically includes voice calls, to landlines or mobile phones, text messages, email, or instant messages to Slack, Google Chat, or MS Teams.
The Visitor Is Checked Out
The check-out process is as crucial as check-in. The software should be robust enough to record who is on the premises, the amount of time they spent in the building, what locations they visited, and what time they left.
Collaborate with credible technology companies to manage and store all the confidential data derived during the signing-in process.
Everything Is Logged
Visitor logging is important for many reasons:
- Maintain internal or regulatory compliance
- Run reports to quickly pass audits
- Internal analysis
- Contact tracing
- Identify when something went missing or how an unwanted guest got access to your workplace
- Best-in-class crisis management by using emergency notifications
The best visitor management techniques allow you to run reports at any time from any web browser.
Additional Features
Depending on your visitor management system, during the check-in process, you may be able to:
- Capture Visitor photos
- Collect Electronic signatures on NDAs or other legal documents
- Print visitor badges
- Have your access control system give certain visitors the ability to open select doors
During the visit, you can:
- Send text messages back to visitors, for example, links to job applications or exit surveys
- Send emergency notifications to all employees and visitors. And, track who has been marked safe and who first responders may need to search for.
What Makes Visitor Management Systems So Easy to Implement?
An efficient visitor management system makes usage easy because:
- It’s cloud-based software with a straightforward interface. With a strong internet connection, anyone can manage it from any location.
- It’s self-service so it does require operation by the receptionist or security guard.
- It can pre-book visitors before their actual visit.
- It works 24/7 even after you’ve left the office.
Conclusion – How Does a Visitor Management Solution Work?
A visitor management system ensures the identification of all guests, welcomes them to the premises, notifies the person they intend to see, and monitors their movement throughout the visit.