Five Reasons You Should Ditch Your Log Books

Imagine walking up to an office door, unsure where to go, what to do, etc. If your visitors are directed to ring doorbells, knock on windows or navigate your tricky internal phone system, you are conveying the message that this visitor is not a priority. If the host fails to answer their desk phone, your visitor is left waiting in the lobby until another employee notices the visitor and begins the search for their host. Once again, the visitor gets the impression they are not a priority. Even worse, what happens when that employee ignores the visitor and continues past them without acknowledging them?

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Traditionally, logbooks collect confidential information about your visitors, like their phone numbers, the host they are visiting, and the company they represent. Any visitor who signs in after them, potentially for months (or even years), has access to this data. Not only do your visitors see that their information isn’t secure, but you are exposing your client list by allowing any subsequent visitor access to who you’re doing business with.

In the event of an emergency, your staff doesn’t have the time to track down paper log books without putting their safety at risk. Furthermore, visitors who failed to sign out or document their correct times in the book can leave your facility in chaos over unaccounted-for individuals. With a visitor management system, all information is stored within the cloud including a real time view of currently checked in visitors. While we hope emergency scenarios don’t occur, visitor management systems ensure that you won’t be tearing through papers to track down each visitor in the middle of an emergency situation. Instead, utilize the text blast feature to contact your visitors quickly with instructions from a premade safety template to keep both your staff and anyone else in the building informed.

If your company uses logbooks across multiple sites and buildings, collecting and maintaining central control will be highly complicated. Kiosk admin users can have an integrated view of activity across all of your locations. Information is securely stored in the cloud and provides a simple way to track, consolidate, and export visitor records on demand.

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Hiring a receptionist isn’t always a productive use of resources. Most companies have moved away from using receptionists and focused on promoting these employees to more important positions. Leave the front desk responsibilities to a Visitor Management System, and let your Kiosk be an essential part of your staff, for a fraction of the cost. In addition, you don’t have to worry about the consistency of information presented by your staff regarding procedures and safety training. Read more.

According to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), workplace violence typically falls into one of four categories: criminal intent; customer/employee; personal relationships, and worker/worker.Read more here. Displaying your employee's full names and phone numbers on a list hanging in the lobby for anyone to see exposes them to unwanted solicitation and potentially ill-intentioned people. You can reduce the risk of your employees being interrupted, or even harmed by people who don’t belong in your facility, by identifying the reason a visitor is here before sending an employee to greet them.