Not sure which visitor registration system is the right fit for your company?

Once you have the right visitor registration system in place, it will become an essential part of your daily routine. Since it’s the first thing your guests will interact with, choosing the best system is not something to take lightly. There are several areas to consider. (Not sure if you actually need a visitor management system in the first place? Check out our guide for the 12 questions you need to ask yourself first.)

After talking to our customers about their buying process, we’ve put together a comprehensive list of questions to consider when looking at visitor registration vendors. We hope you find these helpful in speeding up the entire consideration process!

Visitor Experience

• Is the sign-in experience intuitive enough so that visitors know what to do from the first screen?
• Is there a sign-in option for repeat visitors (so they don’t have to keep entering in the same information)?
• Can visitors digitally sign any document (non-disclosure agreements, waivers, etc.) during the sign-in flow? Is it possible to change the type of legal document depending on the person’s purpose of visit?
• Is it possible for the visitor to take a photo during the check-in process?
• Does the design of the app feel modern and beautiful?

Admin Experience

• How easy is it to add new locations?
• Can we register visitors in advance so that the sign-in experience is faster and the front desk knows which visitors are coming in daily?
• Can we easily customize sign-in fields?
• Can we send notifications to employees that their guests have arrived? What kinds of notification options are available (SMS, email, chat, etc.)? Is there an option to send notifications to a person on behalf of someone else (i.e. an assistant to an executive).
• Can we easily customize the branding on the tablet? In case we’re hosting an event, can we use a different image on the welcome screen than our logo?
• Are we able to easily search through visitor records for a specific date or name?
• Can we export and print specific visitor data?
• Can we set specific admin permissions based on an employee’s role?
• Do they offer analytics? What kinds of analytics are available?

Visitor Badges

• How easy is the badge printer to get set up? What badge printers do they work with?
• Can we print color badges?
• Can we design custom badges (outside of the normal template)?
• Can we pre-print badges for groups?
• Can we have multiple badge printers per location?

Platform

• What are the requirements to use this software?
• How much flexibility is there in the software so our company adapt it to fit our own processes?
• How easy is it to get up and running with the solution? How long does it typically take for someone to get set up?
• How scalable is the platform? How many employees or locations can the platform manage?
• Can we manage unlimited devices?
• Do they have international language support? What languages do they offer?

Security

• How secure is the platform?
• Can we sign out visitors at the end of their visit?
• Is there a way for us to customize the badges for security purposes (i.e. a way to tell if someone has not signed the NDA)?
• Does the system integrate with SAML Single Sign-On?
• Is there a way to alert the security team if specific visitors sign in or are pre-registered?
• Are we able to do compliance exports of visitor logs in case of audits?

Vendor Reputation

• How long has the company been around­? How many customers do they have? Do they have examples of customers that are using them successfully?
• What are their reviews like? (Reputable review sites for software vendors include: Capterra, GetApp, and G2 Crowd)
• What are people saying about the company on social media sites like Twitter?

Data

• How long will our data be stored? Will they delete our data at any point? Are there time or volume constraints?
• What happens if the tablet goes offline? Will the visitor data be stored locally until the internet connection is back?
• What is the company’s privacy policy?

Integrations

• Do they provide integrations that link with some of our existing services? (employee directory, team chat, security apps, etc.)
• Are these integrations out of the box?

Support

• What kind of support do they provide? (i.e. phone support, live chat, email, etc.)
• What are their support hours?
• How comprehensive is their help center?
• What kind of reputation does their support team have? Can they give you any stats around NPS, CSAT or CES? Do they actively measure and track these stats?