A Beginner’s Guide To Visitor Management Systems

Investing resources in the user or client experience is non-negotiable for any business, so much so that the lines have blurred between the product you’re selling and the experience around it. However, few businesses invest the same level of care and strategy into the visitor experience at their offices. Even if you never expect a client to visit your office, there are plenty of reasons to build a visitor management process that is simple, scalable, secure, and user-friendly.

Whether you expect a few visitors a day or hundreds, a robust visitor management system protects the integrity of your operation and creates positive associations for guests, clients, vendors, and employment candidates.

The classic sign-in sheet at the front desk is not just outdated, but it illustrates a number of challenges that modern visitor management overcomes. 

When relying on individuals to fill out the information, you are all-but-guaranteed to end up with a paper full of mis-spellings, illegible words, and omissions. It’s also a waste of your receptionist’s time to quality check the sign-in sheet and enforce compliance.

The paper sign-in process doesn’t allow for much variation. Let’s say you need different information for clients, vendors, and employment candidates. A single template won’t fit everyone’s needs. You’ll end up with confusing or frustrating everyone who uses it.

The same way that different types of visitors have different needs, different departments within your organization may have different criteria for accepting visitors. Especially if there are NDAs or other paperwork involved, you want to automate and simplify each step as much as possible.

A paper sign-in process also requires manual data entry if you want the information to be accessible to anyone who doesn’t sit at the reception desk. With a digital system, you can create visibility and facilitate continuous improvement as you monitor visitor patterns. If your building relies on badged access, you want a visitor management system that integrates with your security network to keep things straightforward for everyone.

Asking people to stop and write down their information can create unnecessary friction, just like it creates frustration for employees who need to constantly check with the reception desk to see if the right person showed up on time. A digital visitor management process can store a person’s information and call it up quickly and providing notifications to the relevant parties.

If you maintain multiple locations or multiple access points for visitors, say on a college or large hospital campus, the paper sign-in sheet creates fragmentation as soon as the first person uses it. A digital visitor management process allows you to keep a unified record of every visitor from every entrance across your organization.

A visitor management system is a complex web of needs, dependencies, and technological challenges. If you want to implement a system that goes beyond the basics and facilitates everyone’s needs, then it’s worth looking for an expert vendor.  I.e. Smart Systems works with an array of visitor management vendors, harmonizing the IT, security, and hospitality concerns that go with the modern office. We can help you plan a visitor management system that works for new construction as well as retrofitting digital systems to legacy buildings.

i.e.Smart Systems is a Houston, TX based technology integration partner that specializes in design and installation of audio/visual technology and structured cabling. For more than three decades, our team of in-house experts has partnered with business owners, architectural firms, general contractors, construction managers, real estate developers, and designers in the Houston market, to deliver reliable, scalable solutions that align with their unique goals.