Controlling visitor access is critical to maintaining the security of businesses, residential communities, and multi-tenant properties. A visitor management system (VMS) can improve your building’s security and efficiency by streamlining the visitor sign-in process through automation and real-time notifications.
7 Benefits of Visitor Management Systems
Traditional visitor check-in systems are inefficient, time-consuming for your administrative staff, and lack robust security measures that today’s consumers need and expect. You need to know who’s on site, but you want to make visitors feel welcome. Modern visitor management systems simplify visitor check-ins and strengthen your building security. The advantages of visitor management systems include the following:
Enhanced Security and Risk Mitigation
A digital visitor management system integrates with your access control system and gives you better control over who enters the property. It protects the people in your building from bad actors gaining unauthorized access and increases your overall security. With a detailed record of every visit, including the visitor’s identity, the purpose of their visit, and the time they entered and left the premises, you have a comprehensive archive as well as real-time information in the event of an emergency.
If emergency services respond to a call on your property, they can quickly identify who’s on the property. This can help facilitate thorough evacuation procedures by allowing first responders to know whether everyone is out of the building. You can also use the visitor management system to immediately notify everyone in the building about critical situations such as lockdowns and provide instructions about how to proceed.
A VMS provides a unified platform that can coordinate across multiple properties. You can standardize data entry across locations for more accurate tracking and simple implementation of security measures. If you’re currently using a patchwork of different systems, a comprehensive VMS can enforce security standards and access control regardless of location.
Streamlined Check-in and Check-out Processes
Seamless visitor registration provides quick and efficient sign-in options. Your visitors don’t have to stand in line for a tedious, manual process. Instead, contactless check-in technologies free up your staff to focus on high-value tasks and personalized service.
Your employees will be automatically notified of deliveries and visitors, so they won’t have to constantly check in with front-desk staff. This increases everyone’s productivity by eliminating busy work.
A visitor management system can also automate the orientation process for first-time visitors. Instead of your staff having to individually explain policies and procedures to each visitor, they’ll automatically receive the information to review and refer to as needed.
Improved Visitor Experiences
A VMS enhances your professional brand by creating a polished impression of your organization. You can make your guests feel welcome through personalized visitor greetings that provide instructions and information for a frictionless visit. Pre-registration allows visitors to avoid lines and reduces frustration. Creating customizable workflows lets you manage the visitor experience based on the purpose of the visit. Delivery people need a different workflow than social callers, and a VMS lets you deliver each through one system. You can securely store visitor information for future visits and instantly send relevant notifications that could impact their visits. This can include information about parking issues, changes in hours, or building repairs or construction.
Improved Record-Keeping and Data Management
Paper logs are an inefficient way to keep track of visitors and storing them takes up office space. Spreadsheets are slightly more efficient but require manual data entry and don’t allow you to communicate directly with visitors. A visitor management system is much more effective for tracking your visitors because all your records are stored in a centralized, searchable database. You can quickly retrieve comprehensive records about your visitor log based on parameters such as visitor name, date, time, or purpose of the visit. You don’t have to worry about illegible handwriting or missing or incomplete data. A visitor management system provides long-term storage without the need for space-hogging file cabinets and storage boxes.
You can use your VMS to provide temporary access to particular areas for contractors, other workers, and guests. This allows you to keep detailed records of who was where on what dates. If you need to refer to this information, such as if you need to track a disease outbreak, you can quickly pull up names and contact information.
Real-Time Visitor Data Analytics
A VMS gives you complete visibility of the visitors in your building. Every visitor is logged in and out in real time. This ensures accuracy and captures all the details, such as login and log-out times, host details, photographs, identification documents, and digital signatures.
Your VMS can integrate with your other software tools, such as CRM or surveillance systems. Built-in reporting features can give you insights into visitor behavior that can help you develop more efficient processes. You can track visitor frequency, peak visitor times, or most visited areas.
With this information, you can better allocate resources and adjust for a more streamlined visitor experience. For example, you can add staff during high frequency visiting times or add drop-off stations in departments that receive more deliveries. In-depth data analysis can drive data-driven decision making for improving visitor experiences and security protocols. You can also trigger automated alerts for important visitors, urgent deliveries, or flagged individuals so you can take quick and appropriate action.
Improved Compliance
In a complex regulatory environment, compliance can be a difficult process. A visitor management service makes it easy to meet data privacy and protection standards and keep accurate visitor documentation records. You can maintain audit trails for accountability. While paper documents can be lost or stolen, a VMS uses encryption to securely store your visitor data. With secure access control, only authorized employees can access and retrieve visitor records, and all activity can be logged to provide audit trails for accountability. If there’s a security incident, an audit trail can provide critical information about who was on site at the time.
Integration with Existing Security Measures
A visitor management system can coordinate with video surveillance systems and centralized monitoring solutions for enhanced security collaboration. You can link directly with measures such as RFID badge readers at entry points to get a “visual verification” of the entrant at each entry event. A VMS system can be programmed to provide temporary access to selected areas without manual oversight.
Once a visitor logs in, you can automatically associate their movements with security footage so you can reference it later in the event of an accident or security incident. You can also compare visitors against internal block lists or databases such as sex offender registries.
FAQs About Visitor Management Systems
What is the aim of the visitor management process?
The visitor management process is a method of ensuring only authorized visitors can enter your location and that their presence is recorded while they are on the premises. It digitizes your visitor records, streamlines sign-in and sign-out procedures, allows you to track visitors in real time, and facilitates communication with visitors whether they’re on-site or not.
A VMS also integrates with your business tools and security measures. You can use it to tighten security measures, improve the visitor experience, and make data-driven decisions based on visitor traffic.
Compliance is easier with a VMS. It provides a centralized database where you can search for and access visitor records, create audit trails, and encrypt your records for secure storage.
Who needs a visitor management system?
Any organization that regularly receives and logs visitors can benefit from a visitor management system. Commercial real estate building managers need to track visitors to provide effective security for their tenants. Schools need VMS to keep track of student attendance and assist emergency responders in the event of a security breach or severe weather occurrence. Government properties need a strict FISMA-compliant VMS that coordinate with video monitoring and provides off-site cloud-based storage for disaster recovery.
Multi-family residences such as condos, apartment buildings, and student houses can use visitor management systems to improve security and protect their residences. You can use a VMS to control access to community amenities such as the parking garage and fitness center. Visitor management in hybrid workplaces allows remote employees to use office spaces to meet with clients or work onsite securely without full-time front desk staff.
Enhance Your Security Measures with a Visitor Management System
A visitor management system from Kastle Systems gives you greater visibility and control over who enters your property. With visitors constantly coming and going, it’s difficult to know exactly who is in the building at any given time. A VMS gives you that ability. It also coordinates with your existing software tools, like office calendar applications such as Outlook or Google Calendar, for seamless scheduling and credential distribution via email integration. Implementing a VMS provides a better visitor experience, reduces the burden on your staff, provides valuable data analytics, and improves your security. Reach out today to learn more.
