Every building needs a way to safely yet efficiently manage visitors. Apartment residents and office tenants alike expect their guests to have quick and easy access to their buildings. But outdated solutions like manual visitor processing and paper sign-in logs are time-consuming and insecure.
So what’s the best solution to manage visitors in a quick, hands-off way? A touchless visitor management system.
In this post, we explain what touchless visitor management is and how it works. Then, we go over the benefits of hands-free visitor management and help you choose the best system for your property.
This post covers:
- What is touchless visitor management?
- How does touchless visitor management work?
- 3 benefits of touchless visitor management
- The best touchless visitor management system
What is touchless visitor management?
Touchless visitor management is a way to process and keep a record of the visitors who enter your property without requiring any physical contact.
Property managers have been using visitor management systems for decades to verify visitors’ identities and log every guest who enters the property. However, many outdated visitor management systems require visitors to use a communal object or talk face-to-face with a staff member to create a record of their visit.
For example, consider an old pen-and-paper system or a touchscreen kiosk. In both cases, every visitor would be picking up the same pen or touching the same screen. And if you have a staff member process visitors, that creates an unnecessary point of contact.
Watch how ButterflyMX works:
From hands-on to hands-free visitor management
After the COVID-19 pandemic, however, property managers and tenants alike saw the value in minimizing the amount of contact visitors made with shared objects and other people. As a result, buildings have started adding contactless visitor management systems that render the communal infection risk of a shared pen a thing of the past.
Properties of all stripes have been reaping the benefits of touchless visitor management. Commercial properties constantly receive business-related visitors like vendors and prospective employees. Meanwhile, multifamily properties need to grant safe access to delivery couriers and residents’ personal guests.
No matter what kind of property you manage, you need a way to verify the identities of approved guests while securing the property against intruders. Touchless visitor management is a safe, efficient way to do that.
Touchless visitor management requires two parts:
- Visitor credential. A contactless visitor management system needs to verify a visitor’s identity before the visitor can navigate the building. So, some visitor management systems use biometric data, like a scan of a visitor’s face, for these purposes. A better option that’s just as effective is depending on a visitor’s smartphone.
- Visitor management console. To properly enable touchless access, your building will need a system that can scan and verify the data that’s been transmitted wirelessly. For example, your contactless visitor management software might use a camera that scans a visitor’s QR code.
How does touchless visitor management work?
Touchless visitor management works by using technology to control building access, requiring visitors to prove their authorization to enter and log visitor entries while reducing or eliminating physical contact.
Before touchless technology, visitor management systems usually required a staff member to process and vet visitors. As a result, staff members couldn’t perform other important duties because they had to monitor the front entrance at all times.
But now, you can minimize person-to-person interactions by depending on an entirely automated, technology-powered system.
A visitor check-in app or a QR access code assigned by a tenant gives visitors an easier and more efficient alternative to hands-on visitor management systems. Instead of wasting time writing their names in a visitor log or using a bulky, multi-step touchscreen sign-in kiosk, a visitor can verify their identity and provide their information for your records with a few taps on their smartphone.
3 benefits of touchless visitor management
1. More hygienic
These days, hygiene and disease safety are a top priority of many property managers and residents. Cold and flu droplets might survive on surfaces outside of a human body for hours, or even days. Increase peace of mind among your tenants by removing one common vector of infection.
2. No risk of error
Contactless visitor management is more high-tech and less prone to error.
For example, if you depend on a pen-and-paper system to log visitors, what’s stopping someone from simply writing down the wrong name? And even an approved visitor might simply have bad handwriting, preventing you from fully accessing your records in the future.
3. Easier for staff
Contactless visitor management systems process visitors faster and save time for staff. Staff members who previously had to manually process visitors and enforce visitor policies will appreciate that they have more time for other tasks, like improving the resident experience.
By implementing an app-based visitor management system, you ensure that staff members no longer need to spend their valuable time checking visitors’ IDs or credentials and logging their arrival.
And if you need to review past visitor logs, you can easily jump to whichever date you want using software instead of painstakingly looking through a series of physical logs.
The best touchless visitor management system
The best touchless visitor management system is ButterflyMX. ButterflyMX’s powerful, versatile system lets tenants take more control of visitor access while reducing administrative work for your staff.
With the ButterflyMX digital visitor management system, a tenant can easily swipe on their phone to open the door remotely for themselves or their guests.
But there’s more!
ButterflyMX’s visitor management system consists of:
- Smartphone-based video intercom: When a visitor arrives at a building with ButterflyMX, they can either use a pre-generated access code to enter, or they can video call a tenant or staff member to request access.
- Virtual keys: Virtual keys are digital access codes that tenants and staff can send to planned visitors in advance. When a visitor arrives, they simply hold up the QR code on their phone to the intercom’s camera to unlock the door.
- Delivery Passes: To guarantee successful deliveries, tenants can send digital access codes to carriers. The delivery carrier simply enters their code at the intercom to seamlessly gain access.
For a completely touchless access experience, all you have to do is connect your video intercom to your automatic door. That way, when a visitor scans their virtual key or a tenant swipes to open on their smartphone, the door opens automatically — no physical contact is needed.
Takeaways
- Touchless visitor management is a more sanitary and more efficient alternative to hands-on visitor management systems.
- Contactless visitor management is more hygienic, reduces the risk of error, and saves time for staff.
- ButterflyMX enables contactless visitor management with convenient digital access solutions like virtual keys and Delivery Passes.
