Visitor management systems (VMS) are being implemented more frequently in schools, hospitals, and businesses of all kinds. While more expensive than a traditional log book, the visitor management system offers a more efficient and fool-proof sign-in process. It is the most secure way to sign-in visitors, thus improving building security for the seven reasons listed below.
1. Know who is in your building.
Visitor management software tracks all visitors to the facility while they are on your grounds. This reduces risk, liability, and provides enhanced security. Employees will also feel safer with the knowledge that seeing a stranger with a visitor badge on means that they have been registered, so they belong in the building.
2. Get the live status of all visitors.
To enhance facility security, a visitor dashboard shows the status of all your visitors, including those who are inside the premises, status of registered visitor passes, pre-registered visitors, new visitors, surrendered passes, expired passes, and more.
3. Print professional-looking visitor badges for your guests to wear.
A crisp, clean visitor pass shows that your facility cares about security. A visitor badge imprinted with your facility’s name and logo, or school mascot, deters forgery and promotes your organization’s identity.
A visitor badge printed from a VMS should contain the visitor’s name, where they are going, the date, and the time they arrived. The text should be easily readable from at least a few feet away. A photo can also be added to the visitor badge for further identification.
4. Standardize the way you register your visitors.
A visitor management system allows your organization to log the driver’s license information of every visitor, with a reader that captures the name and driver’s license number in seconds. This allows you to uniformly capture critical information of every visitor in a mistake-proof manner.
Using a driver’s license scanner with the system also means the visitor doesn’t even have the opportunity to enter phony information. Without having to hand-key information, you eliminate human error. Plus, there is no more deciphering handwriting from a manual visitor log book.
5. Maintain a database of all past visitor traffic.
Visitor information is stored in a computer database, which allows you to search, sort, analyze, and retrieve visitor data for any given time frame and generate visitor activity reports. These reports tell how many times a visitor signed-in, signed out, who they were there to see, how often, and when. That information is critical during security investigations or to audit billings of vendors and contractors.
6. Control emergency response.
In case of an evacuation or other emergency, you can print reports with the touch of a button. A list of all non-employees on the premises can be passed to Fire/Police personnel so they know who is still in the building. The reports are also valuable for the investigation that follows an emergency.
A visitor management system lowers operating costs by eliminating unnecessary staff. Many visitor management systems are self-serving, similar to check-in kiosks at airports. Signs guide visitors to your system, where they can register themselves with their driver’s license.
Second, electronic documentation of contractors cuts down on dishonest billing. Without an electronic visitor management system, you have to trust your contractors to bill you correctly for time spent. However, using a visitor management system, you can verify exactly when your contractors began and ended work because you know when they arrived and departed.
Finally, a visitor management system allows your company to “Go Green” and cut down on the use of paper. Visitor management systems eliminate the need for visitor sign-in sheets and log books. The manual system costs money in supplies and also in the time it takes to update and archive them.
eVisitor Software is a stand-along visitor management systems that can affordably increase your facility security and help you always know who is in your building. eVisitor makes it easy for facilities to log, identify, track, and run reports on visitors. Watch this video to learn more, then request a free demo today!
It’s easy and free to activate this feature. Simply call us and ask for “Red Flag, No Badge” to be turned on. Once it’s on, the above pop-up will come up when a red flagged visitor comes back. No badge will print and the attendant will need to follow the facility’s policy for handling red flagged visitors.