The Importance of Visitor Management: Protecting Your Business and Improving Customer Service

The Phases of Visitor Management

Your company’s reception area is the gateway to your office. Visitors to your office come in different shapes and sizes. They could be anyone from potential new hires coming in for an interview, to important clients. Regardless of the types of visitors you’re expecting, it’s important to process them quickly and efficiently while giving them a warm welcome.

Visitor management consists of a few different phases: before the visit, the moment the visitor arrives, their stay, and the moment they leave. It’s important to carefully consider each phase of this process when receiving guests.

Inform Visitors Before Their Arrival  

Arm your visitors with plenty of information about the visit before they arrive. For example, you could provide them instructions on parking, how to get into the building, and the check-in process. By communicating important information about the visit beforehand, you can help to reduce pre-visit anxiety.

Schedule Approved Visitors  

An effective visitor management system will enable staff to schedule approved visitors. It will help to eliminate unexpected arrivals and departures of visitors, so receptionists and facility managers know who to expect and when. Since visitors are pre-registered electronically, visitor management systems also help to increase the productivity of your reception area and allow multiple visitors to be processed simultaneously.

Prepare Visitor Badges  

With a visitor management system at your fingertips, you can prepare visitor badges that feature the visitor’s name, photo, company name, and even a barcode for quick scanning and identification. When all visitors to your building wear identification, it shows your staff that they have permission to be there and make it easy to identify people.

Visitor Self-Registration 

Visitors can have the option to check themselves in when they arrive. This prevents them from having to wait in line at the reception area. All visitors have to do to check themselves in is enter their name, organization name, and phone number, and then print their badge. This frees receptionists up to complete different tasks and help other people. It also makes your company look professional and efficient.

Create a Professional Image  

By eliminating long waiting lines in your lobby and processing visitors quickly and efficiently, you can help to enhance the image of your company. Visitor management systems create an efficient and streamlined experience that visitors will remember and appreciate. Some visitor management systems integrate with Microsoft Outlook^®, so you can automatically alert hosts of their visitors’ arrival via email and also send visitors meeting confirmations via email.

Optimize Your Visitor Management Process with Resource Central

Resource Central is meeting and resource booking software for Microsoft Outlook^® and Exchange that allows you to log, identify, and report on visitors to your facility. Resource Central maximizes the efficiency of your front desk and reduces your receptionists’ workload by allowing visitors to sign themselves in and quickly receive visitor badges. Using Resource Central frees receptionists up and allows them to work on other important projects.

For more information about the visitor management tools included in Resource Central, please sign up for a free demo.