Visitor management is the technology that tracks visitors to any building. This visitor could be a delivery person, a customer, an interview applicant, a consultant, a client, or even a family member. Most companies and organizations use a visitor management system as a welcoming protocol to ensure all visitors are recorded, handled, and tracked correctly. If you own a company and get many visitors, you can try the visitor log monitoring system from Force 5. They offer visitor management solutions for companies of varying sizes.
Visitor management systems can be as easy as noting down the name, contact details, and purpose of the person’s visit, or it can also include escorting the visitor to their destination and giving them a company visitor badge. Most companies today use cloud-based visitor management systems that provide good security while efficiently connecting visitors with their hosts.
How Does a Visitor Management System Work?
Every visitor management system follows a flow to track and record visitors. Below are the steps of how a good visitor management system works:
Visitors Arrive at your Building
When new visitors arrive at your building, you must identify them and attend to them as quickly as possible. You can implement the following steps to ensure an effective visitor recognition system:
- Deploy a digital receptionist that integrates with other systems to notify you of a new arrival
- Employ a physical receptionist who will speak to the visitor
- Keep signage in different areas of your lobby to direct visitors to different sections of your office
- Add the visitor to your Android device or iPad that is placed in your front office.
Once the visitor’s entry is recorded, they can be escorted to a comfortable waiting room or directly to their destination.
Visitor’s Check-In Flow
A simple way to make a note of all your guests is through smartphones or self-service kiosks. The visitor can enter their details in the check-in form set up by the admin. The check-in flow can include steps like photo capture, NDA signature, and OTP verification. You can also include ID scanning and electronic signatures.
The Host Gets Notified
You should connect the guest to their host as soon as possible. Maintain a host alert notification system that will inform employees via their preferred communication channels. These channels can include voice calls, mobile phones, landlines, text messages, instant messages, Google chat, or email.
Visitor Check-Out
The check-out is as important as the check-in process. Your visitor management software should be able to record and monitor who is in your office, the amount of time they spent, the areas they visited, and the time they left.
All Information Gets Logged
It is important to log in all information in detail for various reasons, including:
- To maintain compliance
- To run reports for audits
- For internal analyses
- For contact tracing
- If something goes missing or if an unwanted guest enters your office.
Why Should You Have a Visitor Management System?
A good visitor management system will have several benefits. Below are a few important benefits:
To Create a Positive Impression
Creating a good first impression of your visitors is critical to building strong working relationships. This impression will set the tone for your visitors’ complete experience in the company. You can use these simple steps to create a good impression with your visitors:
- Ensure your front desk employees are trained to receive visitors.
- Keep a waiting room with accompaniments like water, coffee, and newspapers
- Keep clear direction and wayfinding signs and posters to help visitors find their way around.
To Provide Safety and Security
Security of your office staff and other assets is important for your organization to function smoothly. A good visitor management system will only grant authorized people access to your office premises and reject any unapproved people, thereby maintaining high-security standards. It will also give your visitors peace of mind that they are inside a safe property. The system will also help prevent vandalism of property and any kind of theft as you can track and identify visitors with ease. You can improve your visitor management security with features like:
- Visitor records containing personal details
- Visitor badges
- Visitor escorts
To Build a Strong Reputation
Good visitor management software can help build trust between the visitor and the organization. If your visitor management software offers detailed scrutiny, the visitor can rest assured that the organization takes its security seriously. It can also help employees predict visitor traffic and help the company develop a strong brand reputation.
To Improve Productivity
Having an organized visitor management system ensures your visitors are guided to where they need to go easily, and will not disturb random employees to ask for directions. This lets employees focus on the task at hand. The system will also eliminate the need for employees to unnecessarily engage in repetitive questions and tasks like handling visitors. This will, in turn, improve the entire organization’s productivity as the employees can concentrate on their work and try and finish tasks without any distractions.