How to Improve the Security of your Facility with a Check-in Kiosk

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses were suddenly thrust into a situation where they were responsible for ensuring their visitors weren’t putting their staff or other customers at risk by entering the facility. That’s why the vast majority of visitor management systems have implemented health screening tools to ask the visitor, for example, if they have recently been exposed or have contracted any contagious virus.

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Being able to automatically dismiss these visitors without ever involving your staff is critical for your staff’s health, because remember, visitors don’t even have to do anything beyond interface with the receptionist at your front desk in order to introduce a dangerous pathogen to your office. Beyond health screening, modern check-in kiosks also utilize “blacklist” capabilities. Blacklisting refers to the check-in kiosk’s ability to automatically reject a visitor if they appear on any kind of list, whether a government curated “threat” list or a list provided by you. These sorts of visitors are generally presented with a “Sorry, but you are unable to check in at this time” type of message, while administrators are notified via email or text in the background of the attempted check-in.

For almost every company using a visitor management system and check-in kiosk, knowing who’s in their facility is the primary reason for using the system. Particularly in emergency situations, it’s crucial to have an accurate head count and to know if someone is missing. Some visitor management systems offer a suite of tools to ensure that visitor check-in as well as visitor check-out are tracked to a high degree of accuracy.

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Things like automatic check-out times and “Are you still here?” text messages based on the type of visitor can really empower administrators who are attempting to perform visitor management functions using nothing more than pen and paper. Some visitor management systems also provide you the tools you need to communicate in real time with one or all visitors via text message, giving you the ability to send out a text blast letting your visitors know that, for example, you’ll be closing in a few minutes.

For almost every company using a visitor management system and check-in kiosk, knowing who’s in their facility is the primary reason for using the system. Particularly in emergency situations, it’s crucial to have an accurate head count and to know if someone is missing. Some visitor management systems offer a suite of tools to ensure that visitor check-in as well as visitor check-out are tracked to a high degree of accuracy.

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Things like automatic check-out times and “Are you still here?” text messages based on the type of visitor can really empower administrators who are attempting to perform visitor management functions using nothing more than pen and paper. Some visitor management systems also provide you the tools you need to communicate in real time with one or all visitors via text message, giving you the ability to send out a text blast letting your visitors know that, for example, you’ll be closing in a few minutes.

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From a security standpoint, businesses care about more than just the physical security of their facility and the digital security of their data. Legal liability presents a significant risk factor as well. Modern visitor management systems aid in mitigating your legal liability by serving visitors things like NDAs, or other legally binding agreements at the point of check in. By requiring visitors to sign something like an NDA,  you can help protect your business from the potential legal liability that may arise from a visitor getting injured for not following your safety policies, or ensure a succesful case if a visitor steals your intellectual property or other sensitive information.

It would be wonderful if the modern business didn’t have to concern themselves and spend money implementing such measures, but as security best practices evolve, so too will the strategies and tactics of those that seek to penetrate your systems. That’s why check-in kiosks and visitor management systems are a must in the 21st century, and as more and more businesses move to remote work, it’s more important than it’s ever been to have an extra “set of eyes” on your facility and who’s inhabiting it at any given time. Though others exist, many businesses are turning to systems like LobbyFox Visitor Management™ to fulfill their visitor management needs. LobbyFox can help keep your facility safe and your data secure, while providing a quick and seamless check-in experience for your visitors.

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