Internet technology has evolved within the 21st century, COVID-19 has even driven faster adoption of automation for business. In particular, Visitor Management Solution's adoption has increased during the pandemic.
This guide will introduce visitor management from both macro and micro perspectives, including some of our thought-provoking key terms within visitor management to help readers understand our unique approach of improving workplace safety, productivity, efficiency, and visitor experience while cutting cost.
What's the evolution of visitor management systems?
Electronic visitor management system
Visitor management software
Integrated visitor management system
On-Grid/Off-Grid visitor management
Visitor Management is a task in facility management that tracks the usage of a public building or site, managing visitors' arrival and ensuring they have a great experience when they are at your building. Visitor Management usually involves a multitude of processes that keep visitors and employees safe, secure and in the correct place.
Visitor Management is relevant in many industries including commercial, retail, hospitality, tourism, finance, manufacturing, and education.
Depending on the type of organisation you have will determine what types of visitors you have. Examples of office visitors fall into three broad camps with different subgroups amongst them:
Visitors
Contractors
including sub-contractors, visiting employees from other offices, prospective new hires, delivery drivers, customers, VIP customers, business partners and cleaners.
How can you ensure your reception teams deliver the best-personalised service to each type of visitor? An effective Visitor Management Tool comes in hand to help you identify different types of visitor and design customisable workflows to treat them differently, enhancing your building's safety and the visitor experience.
Visitor Management is important to ensure the building's safety and the existence of the General Data Protection Regulation emphasises the importance of processing the visitor data appropriately.
The natural process of visitor management relies on manually collecting and storing visitor's data, usually with a paper-based visitor sign in book, which put corporations at potential risks. With the pandemic changing the way people work and challenging the old visitor management approach, organisations tend to look for effective visitor management solutions to improve workplace efficiency, productivity, safety, and visitor and employee experience.
Drafted in the European Union, it relates to any organisation that stores and processes the data of any countries that are in the EU. Even if the country you operate in is not part of the EU. GDPR is a regulation that strengthens individual's rights while ensuring the free flow of data in the digital market. The regulation amps up the role of several concepts such as visitor consent, deletion period, etc.
Any personal data of people in the EU such as names, addresses, date of birth, purchases, and bank details must now be stored in a specific way and for a specific time frame. In any organisation, visitor's data is commonly collected to deliver a better visitor experience or ensure the building's safety. Organisations collect the personal data of people who enter and exit your offices. Whatever the purpose is, the manual process of collecting, managing, erasing the data require techniques and experience which might lead to a single point of failure.
Lawfulness, fairness and transparency: Ask for consent
Purpose limitation: Have a clear purpose of why you collect personal data
Data minimisation: Only collect personal data you need
Data Accuracy
Storage limitation: Make sure you erase visitor data easily or upon request
Integrity and confidentiality: Make sure your data is encrypted
Accountability: Assign a Data Protection Officer (DPO)
Visitor management policy
Read more about how Visitor Management Systems can help you stay GDPR compliant
Visitor Management System's instant compliance approach
With Visitor Management System's above-industry-standard security features, you can expect to see the following:
Data encryption in transit and at rest
SAML-based SSO
Granular access rights and privileges
SCIM-based user provisioning
Custom data retention for visitor management GDPR compliance
SSL-only API security
Domain Keys Identified Email (DKIM)
Granted an ISAE 3000 Type I data privacy attestation
Traditional electronic visitor management systems use the web-based network to monitor and record visitor information. However, whether you were impacted by the pandemic, corporations are challenged to decrease the contamination risk in the building with reduced cost and improved visitor experience and implement a flexible and safe workplace to bring the employees back.
Here are the challenges of the traditional visitor management system that most people are not aware of.
Very few visitors are pre-registered
Reception teams are reactive to inbound visitors
Facilities managers have labour-intensive reception teams
The visitor management system is isolated from other systems that lead to more manual work
Very few Visitor Management solutions enable contactless sign in, there's still a need to touch the screen
Very few facilities managers understand the powerful combination of Microsoft Outlook, Condeco, and Visitor Management Systems.
Few facilities managers realise that with the right visitor management software you can have custom journeys for visitors, contractors and employees
We listed a facilities management checklist that includes types of potential risks within Visitor Management at your front of house, including compliance, technical, employee, and reputation.
That's why we think simply downloading an app on iPhone or installing visitor management software on an iPad is far more troublesome.
A revolutionary Visitor Management System effectively solves these problems faced by corporations.
Use technology to remove the manual repetitive tasks using a visitor management system.
Use technology to deliver a contactless express check-in that can efficiently handle more visitors a day.
Upgrade the reception staff to full meet and greet service and implement the human touch element of service.
Or repurpose your front desk staff, depending on the time and workload saved to tackle new areas like digital post.
Read more about tips for highly effective visitor management
A visitor management system (VMS) is a solution that allows organisations to streamline and automate their visitor management process, using technology to monitor, track, and record visitor information.
The combination of visitor management software, hardware, and databases enables preregistering visitors, effective communication, express check-in, interactive mapping, and efficient visitor management workflows.
Anyone can use a visitor management system! From airports and hotels to hospitals, schools and commercial buildings. The benefits of using a visitor management solution can be seen by any type of building in any industry.
Companies that are using visitor management systems include:
CBRE
Mitie
Ricoh
GE
Managing visitors is not a new task for business but it took a long time to go from the paper visitor log book to digital. The obstacles were the overlap of operations, facility management and IT, difficulties in introducing a unified system to multiple company locations with different processes and requirements. and the legacy on-site visitor management software is expensive and requires maintenance (Source: Forbes).
These obstacles lead to cloud-based visitor management systems that are cost and time-efficient, becoming known as software as a service, or SaaS, a software licensing model that makes it available to users all over the internet. Users can manage visitors from a web browser or an app.
Many cloud-based visitor management systems provide comprehensive customer support along with monthly or annual subscriptions that can be updated constantly, removing the need for manual patches and updates. There are several visitor management tools available in the market, let's take a look and help you understand how to choose the best solutions.
An electronic visitor management system is an electronic version of a visitor sign in books. Visitors or receptionists key in visitor details into the system. In some cases, visitors need to provide their names to the receptionist at their arrivals, and the receptionist will enter their name into the computer and visitors will be given printed visitor badges.
An electronic visitor management system might be gdpr-friendly as it protects visitors' privacy, but the manual processes are not removed, the receptionist's cost is still expensive.
A wide range of visitor management software is available on the internet for users to download. We pointed out the important software features are visitor pre-registration, effective communication, easy and express visitor check-in, wayfinding feature, and customisable workflows.
You can read more about the 5 visitor management software features that you need
However, visitor management software or apps need to be downloaded on iPad, kiosks, or mobile apps. Visitor management hardware including QR code scanners, badge printers, and thermal imaging cameras are the key to deliver the best user experience.
If we look at the current market offerings, they are
software only
iPad/app variants
Software vendors that started in something else and strayed into the visitor management
Kiosks that were not integrated
Read more about why we think iPad is not efficient and sacrifices visitor experience
3. Integrated Visitor Management System
Facing the challenges we've mentioned previously, integrated visitor management systems are not just digitalising visitor information and record. It offers integration with other workplace management systems, such as access control, meeting room and desk booking, wayfinding solutions, and they are designed to be customised.
For business, it means you can
Own the whole journey.
Be outstanding in each area as the system integrates with partners, that were best in class, that had the ability to scale and stay in the forefront of their respective fields.
Impress your visitors with a branded meeting invitation that carries everything they need
Maps to the building for their smart devices
Host details to aid host recognition and contact if required
The address for the taxi driver or Uber if required
A Bar code for express check-in once pre-registration is complete
Pre-registration elements, self-health checks, NDA's, visitor HSE videos or notices
Touchless and express sign-in
Functionalities such as wayfinding, host notification, facial recognition, visitor pre-registration, thermal imagining, voice activator, motion sensors.
A virtual receptionist is available with a simple voice command "help".
Visitor management software integration into room and desk booking systems, and ultimately Outlook.
Emergency digital roll calls via SMS to instant identify missing or employees or visitors who present concern.
As opposed to the traditional visitor experience which starts at the reception door, today visitor experience refers to the process that a visitor follows from being invited to your office, to leaving the building.
Good visitor experience infers that the visitor had a positive interaction with your company, meanwhile, a poor experience is likely due to broken processes, queues, frustration or negative interaction with your company.
The difference between these two experiences could lead to making or losing a sale, an employee, a business partner, or simply damaging your companies brand.
A good experience starts before visitor's arrival at your building and continues after they checked in. Businesses should support visitors with
All the meeting details they need
Clear directions to your office and the meeting room
A smooth check in so they are not late for the meetings
Intuitive Covid-19 safety
A warm welcome from the reception, who are aware of their arrival and offer immediate help if the visitor needs it
We believe in the concept of a "Connected Workplace" to deliver the best visitor experience. What do we mean by that? Different systems pass only key data to each other to enhance the experience or make processes more efficient. The simple but significant concept: On-grid when systems are linked and connected or Off-grid, where some systems exist, however processes, are largely manual and costly.
Is your visitor management system Off-Grid?
Many Facilities Managers and building operators are plagued by unconnected visitor management software, here is an example:
Microsoft Outlook - every meeting in Office 365 has a meeting host and guests.
In an unconnected workplace that data sits there serving no real purpose, except the meeting attendees, who may not know how to get to the building or how to access the meeting room.
Visitors have no idea if the building is COVID-19 safe, how long it's going to take to access the building, or what processes they should follow when they arrive.
It takes more manual processes to ensure the reception is aware of some of the visitors they are expecting.
The reception team are largely reactive to visitors and have manual processes passing information from one system to another.
On-Grid visitor management user experience
In a connected workplace, visitor management systems connect to Microsoft Outlook, wayfinding, Room and Desk booking and each system inform the other, making the workplace intuitive, informed and intelligent.
An example of this is how our Visitor Management Systems can remove 40% of the reception team's manual processes but captures up to 100% of expected visitors.
The benefits of a visitor management system are huge from:
Removing the unnecessary manual tasks means you can
Reduce cost in the front of house
Repurpose staff members
or upgrade to a full meet and greet service
Maps to the building
Wayfinding around the building
Pre-registration to remove any risk of a congested reception
Different visitor workflows depend on the visitor type, be that employee, contractor or external visitor
No queues in reception i.e less contamination risk
less meetings starting late because visitors are delayed in reception
Health and safety practices and workflows
Safety video auditable viewing trail
Self Health surveys
All reinforced by "no compliance no active bar code for check-in"
These are all powerful reasons to initiate change.
The efficiency of visitor management can be measured by the involvement of manual processes and parts of workflows that require multiple touches. We introduce the concept of Digital Efficiency in the workplace and publish a free digital efficiency calculator tool for you to know how digitally efficient your visitor management is
Digital efficiency does not only mean getting the latest technology but embrace a solution that can help the organisation constantly adapt and evolve with an ever-changing marketplace. We encourage you to challenge your workflow step, process and data source.
Read more about how we calculate digital efficiency and how you can improve it.
to introduce cost saving achieving an ROI for their technology investment
to create a budget to upgrade their staff to meet and greet staff or floor walkers
to repurpose staff to other areas of the business
Introducing a visitor management solution that does not operate on its own, removing the manual processes between different systems to improve visitor management efficiency.
Vgreet visitor management system is the key to an intuitive workplace. Its integration with Outlook, meeting room and desk booking software improve the efficiency of visitor management by:
The visitor details keyed into Office 365 for meeting scheduling automatically populate the visitor management system.
Once schedule a meeting, a branded invite with meeting details and QR code for express check in is sent to your visitor.
Meanwhile has the capability for complex bookings, requiring cleaning, catering, video services and car parking for visitors.
Your reception and facility managers are fully aware of the up-to-date visitor list and any meeting changes.
Visitor Management Systems play an important role in access control and help you identify different types of visitor and design workflows to treat them differently enhancing your building's safety and visitor experience.
We discussed why visitor management systems should integrate with access control systems, the 5 key benefits are
Customise your visitor's access level
Digitally track your visitors
24/7 Building Security
Efficient background operation with Microsoft access visitor management system
Integrate with market-leading access control systems
Read more about the Visitor Management System's access control feature
COVID-19 has driven faster adoption of automation for business, Visitor Management Systems reduce visitor's check-in time with visitor pre-registration process and automating the visitor management process to reduce the reception traffic in the building.
Vgreet visitor management system sync with Outlook to send a unique pre-registration invite.
That has a barcode that's activated once you complete registration.
This means your visitor management process will allow visitors to check-in in 3 seconds , touchlessly.
A QR code scanning kick start the visitor check-in process.
Visitors can check in with voice activation, facial recognition, motion sensors, temperature screening with digital receptionists' support.
Give visitors and employees psychological safety reassurance when returning to work.
Vgreet visitor management system can see a return-on-investment £80k in year 1 and £175k in year 2, the price offers a great ROI compared to the cost of FOH and reception staff. You can calculate the price and how much money you can save with Vgreet here with our free ROI calculator.
Research shows that a free visitor management system does not exist. The cost of not having a visitor management system is a far more important topic.
£2,900 every time you lose a receptionist: time to recruit (£1,000) training (£1,000) uniforms (£900).
A single person reception costs 25-30% more than their salary for holidays, sickness and peak time manning levels to cater for.
Vgreet visitor management system saves money for different types of receptions, but the questions are not just about the price of it. We calculated the actual cost of a visitor management system, and the price that businesses are paying is beyond the amount of money.
Take your digital efficiency, savings from repurposing the staff, and saved budgets to upgrade your service into consideration. Calculate each of them here
Start walking the customer journey and think of your visitors. Spend one day with an employee, a contractor and a visitor and watch how they use your building, what things do and don’t work, question them about what needs to change.
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Different types of reception face different challenges, calculate your workplace's digital efficiency to understand how many staff you actually need at busy times and how your visitor management solution can enhance front desk service.
Click the image to watch the video of how to break the traffic paradigm!
Budgets as a term are replaced by returns on investment and returns on the experience you delivered.
With visitor management techniques and best practices in mind, question if your visitor sign-in system has touchless procedures, ensure employee safety in reception, and impress your visitors nobody else can.
Capterra or Google Reviews are helpful websites to compare which visitor management solution suits you the most.
Read more about how to choose the best visitor management system supplier.
There are three key points to remember when trying to gain buy into an idea or project:
One of the most helpful things you can do to encourage stakeholder buy-in is to involve them early on in the project. By doing this, you allow your stakeholders to familiarise themselves with your project aims and the solution you are exploring. Use the Visitor Management Business Case Toolkit here as it contains:
A traditional v.s. digital guide so you can compare the two approaches
A calculator tool to access which areas you want to move from manual to digital and what impact they will have
A breakdown of the quantifiable areas you'll impact, compliance, safety, productivity, experience or efficiency
Whose efficiency and productivity will be impacted positively by digital changes staff or visitors
Finally, some simple calculators to assess your return on the digital upgrade, whichever direction you prefer:
Savings
Upgrading to white glove host meet and greet service
Repurposing staff to other areas
A short stakeholder workshop is an effective way to hear out any concerns or worries that they may have before the project gains traction. During the session, you can answer questions and concerns, or take note and get back to them after the session. Your stakeholders will appreciate the chance to make comments before you go ahead with the project.
Keep your stakeholders up to date throughout your project. Depending on how influential they are to your project will define how often you do this; whether it's a daily update in Scrum, a weekly phone call, or an email update, be sure to communicate at an appropriate level.
