What Are the Benefits of Visitor Management Kiosks?

This post will explore the many benefits of having a visitor management kiosk, which delivers a superior visitor experience by offering wayfinding, simpler check-in processes, improved information collection and security, integration with digital maps, and much more. 

Facilities and workplace leaders already understand why a visitor management kiosk is important, but this post will get granular about the positive role visitor management kiosks play in generating a superior experience for visitors.

More Employees and Visitors Coming Onsite

Hospitality matters in the office today more than ever, for your employees and guests alike. The recent increase of in-person time in the office has also driven more office visitors, as customers, vendors, investors, job candidates, and other organizational stakeholders come into the office to build relationships and do business face-to-face.

Offices in the US have seen a 147% increase in guest visits since January of 2023, according to our Office Trends Report: H1 2023, putting more emphasis on visitor management. When the experience of visitors is managed well, visitors add to your organizational and employee productivity.

On the other hand, having visitors roaming around because there's no sign-in process and asking random employees for help wastes people’s productivity and may even jeopardize security.

The Importance of Good Visitor Experiences

You have one chance to make that all-important first impression. When a visitor arrives at your building’s front door and can’t find where she’s going (there's no visitor sign or visitor kiosk in sight) or can't find a resource to help orient her, the emotions generated are a mixture of frustration, disorientation, and irritation. 

That's just bad visitor management in practice.

If the visitor is already running late, the complete lack of wayfinding resources and a visitor management kiosk means they’ll be even later. The frustration could boil over to impact the the person being visited, which isn’t just bad for business but a potential relationship-killer.

To avoid these visitor experiences, it’s essential for businesses to make appropriate investments in good visitor management, including having visitor management kiosks. Doing so reflects that your company actually cares about visitors, wants to make a good first impression, and values the time of visitors and the people they’re meeting.

Visitor Management Software & Digital Visitor Management Kiosks

We’ve all gotten used to seeing self-service kiosks at the airport for check-ins and at the supermarket or other retail outlets for check-outs. These kiosks are intended to make life more convenient for the people using them, and kiosks can be supplemented with human attendants working near them.

A visitor management kiosk is a secure device (i.e., a digital system) designed to streamline registration, visitor access, and the tracking of office visitors. These kiosks provide a more welcoming experience for visitors, while also improving business efficiency, wayfaring, information collection, and security. 

Typical Features and Functions of Visitor Management Kiosks

Visitor management kiosks can be customized to meet your facility and needs, but most of them share the following basic features and functions:

1. Visitor Registration

Visitors can input their name, contact details, and purpose of their visit into the visitor management kiosk. Some kiosks may have pre-registration options, where hosts can register their guests in advance. Many workplaces also create a workplace visitor policy that indicates how guests should check-in and find their way around.

2. Check-In and Check-Out

Visitors can check-in at the kiosk upon arrival and check-out when they leave. This helps organizations maintain an accurate record of who is present in their facilities at any given time, which helps with utilization planning, safety, and ongoing security efforts (all crucial elements of visitor management).

3. Notification and Alerts 

The visitor management system can alert hosts and alert staff via email, text message via a mobile phone or device, or other means when their visitor has arrived. That way, the host can greet the visitor at or near the visitor management kiosk, enable vistor access, and show her where to go next.

4. Database Management 

Visitor information can be input by guests at your visitor management kiosks and automatically stored in a secure database (while also ensuring GDPR compliance around privacy regulations), making it easy for organizations to search for past visitors, track visitor trends, and maintain visitor records for reporting, compliance, and security purposes.

5. Access Control Integration

Visitor management kiosks can be integrated with an organization’s access control systems, allowing visitors the ability to enter certain areas of a building or facility based on their credentials, as input by the host or the visitor themselves.

You can integrate your kiosk with communication software/systems such as Google Calendar so the host can customize and facilitate easy sign-in.

6. Kiosk Customization

A modern kiosk can be customized with a company's branding and the "look and feel" of its corporate offices. A kiosk is highly configurable and can display specific instructions in multiple languages, customized questions for visitors to answer, and provide information (such as maps or a listing of departments) that can help orient visitors.

7. Analytics and Reporting

The visitor management system can provide various reporting tools to analyze visitor data, helping facilities and workplace leaders make data-informed decisions about security and resource allocation.

What are The Benefits of a Visitor Management System?

Implementing a visitor management kiosk solution in your office can provide multiple benefits, depending on your needs, including:

1. Improved Security

A visitor management system gives you improved control over who enters your offices by tracking and verifying visitors. Visitor management kiosks also reduce the security risk of unauthorized access. A kiosk printer can be used to create visitor badges as part of the check-in and security process, taking workload away from building security personnel.

2. Better Productivity

A streamlined and digitized check-in and check-out processes managed by a kiosk reduces visitor wait times while alerting hosts when their guest has arrived. The automatic, digitized record-keeping features of the system helps eliminate paperwork and manual processes.

3. A More Professional Image

When your organization offers a modern, organized, integrated, efficient and professional user check-in process that happens in an attractive visitor reception area, you create a strong first impression that adds to your organization’s image/brand.

Taking advantage of customizable branding options makes it look like your organization took the time to care, something visitors will appreciate.

4. Easy Compliance and Reporting

Visitor management software helps organizations meet their compliance requirements by maintaining visitor arrival logs and visitor-related data, while also generating reports and analytics for auditing and decision-making purposes.

5. An Enhanced Visitor Experience

A visitor management system provides user-friendly self-service for your visitor check-in process. Kiosks provide clear instructions and wayfinding information to visitors, which reduces waiting times and the effort required for visitors to gain access.

6. Instant Notification to Host

Digital visitor management kiosks can instantly notify a host when her guest(s) arrive (via text messages to a mobile phone or device or other methods), improving internal communication and enabling timely greeting.

7. Cost Savings

A visitor management system reduces the need for manual, error-prone visitor registration processes, and having access to a kiosk could mean not needing dedicated staff for greeting and registering visitors.

8. Scalability

A visitor management system can scale easily to accommodate changes in visitor volume and organizational growth. Kiosks work well for both small businesses and large enterprises.

9. Analytics Supporting Decision-Making

Visitor management software provides valuable, timely insights into visitor trends, such as which days and times are the most popular for visits, which helps in resource allocation.

Analytics about visitors helps you make better decisions to enhance visitor services (even including kiosk site allocation).

Bottom Line: Visitor Management Matters

You can’t flub that first chance to create a good visitor experience. Instead, you need to invest in visitor management in order to gain the many organizational benefits we’ve explored in this post.

Robin is here to help - if you want the ability to create great experiences for your guests, reach out today.