Republished on verkada.com with permission from SDM Magazine. See the original article here.

Integrators are no strangers to easing customers through a digital transformation. In recent years, there has been a substantial shift toward digitizing traditional workplace processes. For many, however, exploring cloud-based visitor management is still uncharted territory, 

Starting at the front desk, an enterprise workplace solution can unlock greater security, efficiency, and scalability. By integrating your customers’ visitor management technology into their IT infrastructure, you can help them address rapidly evolving security challenges, streamline operations, and improve end-user experience. It can also introduce cross-sell opportunities to permeate deeper into their IT ecosystem and provide more value.

Here’s why an enterprise visitor management system is increasingly a good idea.

What Does Cloud-Based Visitor Management Look Like?

In cloud-based visitor management software, the first thing a visitor encounters will be a tablet-based kiosk. All visitors have to do is follow the check-in flow on the screen, after which their hosts are instantly notified of their arrival.

Those tablets can facilitate all aspects of check-in – from verifying vaccination status and asking COVID-19 screening questions and obtaining signatures (i.e., non-disclosure agreements, and media authorizations) to printing temporary visitor badges, sending arrival notifications to staff, and unlocking doors remotely to grant access. 

On the backend, those check-in experiences can be incorporated into the broader video security and access control system. For customers, that means an integrated, cloud-based system that’s centrally managed and very secure.

What Are the Benefits of Cloud-Based Visitor Management?

There’s rhyme and reason as to why digitizing visitor management is met with sighs of relief from the workplace and administrative teams. The front-office staff appreciates the convenience of an intuitive interface, while operations and facilities teams have a centralized platform to simplify management while enhancing security. 

Overall, five primary benefits emerge:

1. Modern End User Experience

When it comes to product adoption – especially for new software – having a seamless end-user experience is the key to success. For visitor management, this applies to all user groups: visitors, hosts, and administrators. 

By bringing visitor management to the cloud, customers can create tailored experiences that welcome different types of visitors. With an intuitive dashboard, this creative process can be as easy as selecting a default check-in template, or creating a branded welcome screen and custom color-printed badges.

A cloud-based system can also enable guests to sign in through their smartphone with a calendar invite and notify hosts through SMS or email when their guests arrive. In this way, your customers can effectively enhance the check-in process for all parties involved, elevating guest experience while making your teams more efficient.

2. Enhanced Security

Being integrated and cloud-based, some visitor management systems can quickly verify information and screen visitors. For example, Verkada Guest can instantly screen visitors against the sex offender database.

This additional screening provides an additional layer of protection for customers in sensitive industries – for example, healthcare customers concerned with PHI or schools for student safety. Any unwanted visitor can be flagged in the system to prevent future entry, all while maintaining strict controls for security and privacy in mind.  

Verkada updates continuously, so the system is always running with the latest software and firmware enhancements. Automatic security upgrades help defend against the vulnerabilities associated with patchwork systems, offering better protection against unauthorized access, cyber-attacks, and other threats. 

3. Scalable Pricing

Ideally, your customer should have the ability to add as many guests, credentials, and sites to the system without worrying about incremental costs. Thinking of customers with thousands of employees and visitors spread across multiple locations, this level of scalability is a must. 

Look for a cloud-managed system that provides a single view across multiple sites, with a straightforward cost of ownership. A scalable pricing model should include unlimited visitor check-ins and upgrades as part of a  customer’s software licensing agreement.

4. Seamless Integrations

Visitor management should work in tandem with the rest of your building technology – particularly video security and access control. The better those systems connect, talk to each other, and plug into other tools (SSO, messaging apps, etc.), the more integrity the overall system will have. 

Here’s what that integrated view looks like in practice:

A natively integrated building system means that your customers can view and manage visitors, doors, and cameras in a single window—from anywhere. With cloud-based solutions, this could include the integration of: active directory (Okta, Azure AD, and other SCIM/SAML providers), integrations for instant arrival notifications (Slack), camera integrations for live monitoring and reviewing historical footage (i.e., COVID-19 contact tracing), or third-party watchlists (i.e., sex-offender screening.)

By integrating with cloud-based access control, operations staff gain the ability to remotely unlock doors from their smartphone. Without being onsite,  staff members can grant delivery personnel access to the mailroom, or provide contractors one-time access to specific doors across their facilities.

5. Centralized Visitor Records & Data Insights

Throughout a single day, your customers might receive hundreds of visitors (if not more). Their administrative team has to have a way to keep tabs on real-time visitor data. Verkada Guest archives all visitor data, so admins can search visitor data and pull specific records (which include a photo, documents, and other info).

In addition to faster searches, data can be easily exported into shareable formats. This helps speed up investigations and quickly understand who’s coming in and out of their locations.

Visitor records can also reveal important trends to optimize business operations. For example, there might be certain times of the day, month, or year when visitor volume spikes. Paired with video analytics such as Occupancy Trends, your customers can adjust their staffing needs accordingly.

Balancing Safety & Convenience: Give Your Customers Both

When it comes down to priorities, many customers will tell you ‘safety first.’ By introducing modern, cloud-based visitor management into their technology suite, you can provide more value as a partner and help them intercept or stay ahead of security threats.

From schools to corporate offices, there’s peace of mind that comes with knowing all visitors are closely vetted. At the same time, an integrated, easy-to-use visitor management system elevates the guest experience considerably.

The best visitor management software can adapt and grow with their security needs. But safety doesn’t have to come at the expense of a personalized welcome. The two can go hand and hand – and it all begins at the front desk.

To dive deeper and see Verkada Guest in action, join one of our live webinars. To learn more about whether Guest is a fit for your company, please contact [email protected].