As Will Rogers once said, you never get a second chance to make a first impression—and nothing makes a worse first impression than leaving a customer or potential client waiting in your lobby. The longer a client is left waiting, the more likely it is they’ll walk out the door, taking their business with them.
To eliminate frustrated departures, implement a solution to notify staff of waiting customers. The benefits of a client arrival notification system extends far beyond alerting employees to arriving guests, however.
What is a Client Arrival Notification System?
A client arrival notification system is often a feature of a visitor management system, and is designed to process guests and alert staff to the arrival of visitors. However, limiting the notification system to the simple function of alerting staff to visitors is no better than buying a fancy doorbell.
The true benefit of a client arrival system is how it enables your team to not only provide a better customer experience, but also to ensure the accuracy and security of customer information. To better understand the benefits, it helps to take a look at the businesses that use them.
The applications of a client arrival notification system extend to nearly every professional environment, especially those interacting with multiple clients on a daily basis and managing heavy appointment schedules (e.g. construction and building, co-working, aged care and health, government offices, retail, etc.)
These organizations often spend time dealing with tedious manual processes like managing sign-ins and outdated ways of alerting staff about client arrivals. Office reception areas, in general, can benefit from a client arrival notification system and the features it offers.
Benefits of Adding a Client Arrival Notification System
In addition to the timely notification of guest arrival, a client arrival notification system enables your team to streamline the guest check-in process and eliminate the problems associated with paper logbooks.
Notifications are sent digitally, minimizing the need for reception to call staff members, leaving clients unattended, or interrupting a meeting in progress. All they have to do is press a button on the notification system to notify the appropriate employee.
Let's take a look at some of the lesser-known benefits of client arrival notification systems.
Maximum Confidentiality
For healthcare and other industries requiring confidentiality of information, using secure digital systems for visitor management and notifications are a must.
For example, section IV of the AMA Principles of Medical Ethics states, “A physician shall safeguard patient confidences and privacy within the constraints of the law.” That law extends to all patient information, even their name.
With a client arrival notification system, patients are not obligated to reveal their names to a receptionist. All they have to do is discreetly enter their information into the system and wait for their doctor to come and see them. The same principle extends to law firms, where, oftentimes, a level of privacy must be managed to ensure the integrity of a client’s reputation.
Accurate Records
One of the best ways to ensure client records are accurate is to enable clients to enter the requested information themselves rather than expose their valuable personal information to a receptionist, or other guests who may overhear them.
Even if the client in question is a returning guest, they can promptly verify the collected information is still correct and make changes if necessary (e.g., address update, name change).
Improved Security
In addition to client arrival notification systems providing increased confidentiality, they also contribute to improving your building security staff, whose job it is to ensure only authorized individuals are on the premises. Client arrival notification systems enable security to monitor when visitors arrive, leave, and where they are located in the workplace.
Increased Productivity
Regardless of the industry, interruptions are a major challenge. Client arrival notification systems minimize interruptions and give over-taxed receptionists the necessary tools to work more efficiently.
Research shows that frequent interruptions impair cognitive ability and productivity. The study from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University discovered that frequent interruptions during a cognitive skill test caused test takers to perform 20% worse than those who took the test without interruption.
In today’s hyper-competitive business landscape, you can’t afford to have your team working at a 20% disadvantage. By utilizing a client arrival notification system to check in guests, your employees can better manage their reception duties as well as focusing on other important administrative matters. The end result is an efficient and productive team.
In Conclusion
With COVID-19 setting the direction in how, and when, businesses reopen, now is the time to update your front desk to assure clients, visitors, and staff that you’re doing all you can to protect their health and safety.
From anonymized data to visitor routing and arrival notifications, the SwipedOn visitor management system—with its client arrival notification—ensures your team is equipped to welcome, sign in, and properly attend to visitors.
Germany - Deutsch
South Korea - 한국인
Taiwan - 中文 - 繁體
China - 简体中文
