As offices become more digitized, implementing visitor management software to supplement particular roles can help you streamline your operations and lighten workloads for employees. When it comes to helping your receptionist and front desk team, a visitor management software or (VMS) and other receptionist software can make their lives easier while giving you more control over the flow of people and data in your office. With a visitor management software system, you can help lighten the load on your receptionist and supplement their work by giving them the tools to boost productivity and capture essential data for your business.

Understanding Your Receptionist

Receptionists often have one of the most challenging jobs in an office. They oversee visitor and employee management, greet visitors, ensure workplace safety, and serve administrative functions when needed. With everything on their plates, the first step to lightening their workload is understanding their day-to-day challenges. 

Common issues for receptionists include:

  • Too many responsibilities: Receptionists can be responsible for everything from greeting and guiding visitors to managing employee calendars and scheduling. Sometimes receptionist responsibilities even exceed what can be expected of one person, like executing administrative tasks while managing your office security. Understanding all of the hats that your receptionist or front desk team wears can help you identify what solutions and benefits a receptionist software could provide. 
  • Unclear job descriptions and roles: Since receptionists can cover many responsibilities in an organization, they often get roped into tasks outside of their job descriptions. It’s easy for them to get caught up in extra work that eats away at their time to perform their roles as defined in their job description. This can prevent them from accomplishing everything they need to and leads to potential for friction in the workplace.
  • Demands of hybrid work: As companies switch to remote, in-person, or hybrid setups, receptionists need to adapt on the fly. They oversee workplaces that are spread out across locations, creating new challenges that nobody has solutions for yet. 
  • Too many points of contact: Receptionists wear many hats and they can be faced with urgent communications across platforms. Many times they need to field physical visitors while answering phone calls, responding to emails, and managing other front desk tasks.

Visitor Management Software as a Supplementary Receptionist

While digital receptionists and visitor management systems sound like a receptionist replacement, that’s far from the truth. A VMS cannot replace the human element a great receptionist brings to an office, but they can supplement a receptionist’s work for the digital age. Now more than ever as people work in hybrid offices and capturing data becomes key to a company’s operations, VMS can support a receptionist and take menial, analog tasks off their plate to free up their time to focus on workplace safety and increase their productivity.

The Benefits of VMS for Your Receptionist

  1. Managing visitors: One of the key features of any VMS is visitor management where you can keep track of visitors, who they are, and why they’re visiting. As a digital solution, all of this data gets compiled so you can oversee all traffic in your office.
  2. Keeping office spaces safe: Instead of acting as a bouncer and knowing who should and should not be allowed in, VMS can show receptionists who is pre-approved to visit. With features like custom QR codes, it makes it easy to monitor who is in your workplace.
  3. Compiling data: With a VMS, it’s easy to log and manage visitor and employee data in one place. Central management of visitor and employee information means receptionists can save time when looking for records and administrators can oversee information from anywhere.
  4. Managing a hybrid environment: With digital tools, it’s easy for receptionists to manage office spaces and have visibility into available coworking spaces for meetings and independent work. 
  5. Centralize requests: VMS makes it easy to compile different requests and information so receptionists don’t have to control the flow of important records. With a central receptionist software, employees who are granted access to the records can view information they need when they need it.
  6. Free up time: The biggest benefit of a VMS for receptionists comes from the digital aspect. Digitizing processes and data can help lessen the time for menial data entry tasks and management, letting receptionists move to more important work.

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Receptionists are key members of any team as they perform many roles and take on lots of responsibilities. But, in all those responsibilities it’s easy for them to get sidetracked and have their time occupied by menial tasks that VMS can easily and efficiently replace. 

If you’re ready to support your team’s productivity and responsibilities with a VMS, get in touch with us today!