Ensure your employee and visitor experience is memorable for all the right reasons

The design of even the most minute aspects of this experience makes a lasting impression––for better or for worse. A friendly smile, pleasant music, and welcoming greeting? Absolutely! Being handed a clipboard with multiple forms to wade through and sign? Not so much.Paying attention to the places we spend the majority of our day is an essential if overlooked part of any office manager or front desk employee’s time at work. The reception area is one of the most important of these spaces. Visitor experience is often the emphasis here, but what if there was a way to prioritize your employee’s experience, too?As the first point of contact for your visitors, the sign-in experience is a core area where there remains much to be desired for all involved. Buoyed by the convenience of on-demand services in nearly every arena of our lives, it’s no wonder that we increasingly expect more from it. Going digital with this critical component of your front desk communications management ensures:

1. A streamlined reception experience for both visitors and employees.
2. You can empower your front desk employees to make more time for the all-important human interactions that are critical to the overall impression visitors are left with when they leave.

Communicate your brand the moment visitors arrive

Crafting an enjoyable, modern sign-in experience for your employees and your visitors starts with ditching the manual-entry visitor log. More than 19% of today’s offices still use pen and paper or other methods of visitor registration. Delegating the bulk of the sign-in process to workplace software offers substantial benefit when it comes to facilitating a great experience for your visitors and your team.Namely, your front desk team can better focus on genuine, unhurried greetings and on the reception area environment as a whole.Digital visitor management can also improve:

1. Legibility issues which can affect security and compliance tracking
2. Having to track down colleagues by phone, email, or text message to let them know their visitor is there to meet them
3. Mediation of visitor to employee hand-offs

The bottom line? Remove logistical obstacles so that your team can focus on high-touch visitor management such as offering them a glass of water, or a tour of the office.

Empower your employees with workplace tools that works for them

Designing enjoyable and efficient visitor experiences for your workplace can involve team members across the company. With registration workplace software, every colleague in every department of your company has the chance to play a role in facilitating a successful visitor journey.Of course, different visitors require customized registration workflows. In some cases, sending forms and documents ahead of arrival is appropriate, such as an NDA for an interview candidate. With pre-registration, all of the detailed information your visitor needs to know can be conveyed via email ahead of time. Doing so better manages expectations for your workforce and for visitors ahead of their visit by:

• Allowing visitors to digitally-sign any legal documents in advance
• Pre-notification of relevant team members about expected visitors
• Reducing visitor sign-in time

Regardless, workplace software for your front desk allows you to tailor the types of information you want to collect from each visitor.

“What we keep hearing over and over is that people want a workplace that works, but they also want one that pushes the limits and is open to experimentation. It’s important to get feedback from staff on what’s right for them––creating dynamic workplaces that respond to the needs of employees. As a result, there’s a lot of pride there, and this shines through when visitors come on site.” – Matt Harris, Head of Workplace Technology, Envoy

Why a better employee experience impacts your visitors

Re-envisioning your communication management workflow doesn’t just improve the visitor experience. Have you ever been met with an “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure where they are” when showing up to meet someone for an interview? Chances are that front desk employee is just as frustrated as you are. Studies show that bad impressions are faster to form and to imprint on the memory, so a hard day at work could linger for both your visitor and your staff.Arming your workforce with the right tools and resource removes the guesswork so employees can best perform their job––and both your visitor and employee experience will benefit in spades.