First impressions are so important, and that doesn’t just apply to humans. It also extends to businesses. If you want to impress your office visitors, earn their trust, and ultimately win their business, you must start off on a positive note. And that positivity begins even before they enter your office for the first time.
From confirmation phone calls to surveys after meeting, every interaction with your visitors will leave an impression. Let’s make sure it’s a positive one. In this post, we’ll discuss several effective strategies you can use to impress your visitors each and every time. Let’s get started.
1. Streamline Your Registration Process
One guaranteed way to frustrate your visitors is by making them wait in a long registration line. No one wants to wait, but waiting while standing in a line can be even more painful.
You can reduce wait times and accompanying frustration by implementing a visitor management system like The Receptionist for iPad. With The Receptionist, your visitor can walk up to the system and quickly register. They can even do so without physically interacting with the kiosk.
If you welcome a large number of visitors to your office, you can scale up your visitor management system to include multiple kiosks. This way, your visitors will never need to wait in line to register.
You can also reduce frustration by preparing your visitors ahead of their visit. Using The Receptionist for iPad, you can pre-register visitors ahead of their visit and then send out a confirmation email with details of their upcoming visit. This can ensure that your visitors are prepared for their appointment.
2. Greet Your Visitors
A digital visitor management system like The Receptionist for iPad is not meant to replace a human receptionist if you already have one. Our system works together seamlessly with your human staff to ensure that your visitors are registered in a quick and painless manner. However, if you have a live receptionist, greet your guests. Ensure that every visitor who enters your office is greeted with a friendly smile and a warm welcome. This reassures your visitor that they aren’t entering a hostile territory and that their presence is invited.
If you don’t have a live receptionist, be sure that the staff who eventually meets with your visitor takes the extra step to say “hello.” Although this may seem like a given, some people are more straight-to-the-point and don’t always greet a visitor upon meeting. Make extending a warm welcome a mandatory part of your culture.
3. Keep Your Clean Office
An office that looks, smells, and actually is clean will guarantee a positive impression. No one wants to spend time in an unhygienic space, and that extends beyond your reception area. Don’t forget about restrooms, hallways, elevators, stairwells, and any other public space that your visitor may see. Professionally clean these spaces daily or more often if you experience a crowd of visitors.
Also, in our post-pandemic world, it’s crucial to offer easy access to hand sanitizers, wipes, and other disinfecting products. This shows your visitors that you care about their health while at your office. Be sure to place hand sanitizers in highly visible areas. Three of the best places to set up hand sanitizer stations are near your entrance and exit doors, next to your registration kiosk(s), and by elevators. You can also place provide hand sanitizer in other public areas, such as meeting rooms and individual offices. It’s always better to offer more than to offer less.
4. Practice Visitor Awareness
Every member of your staff should acknowledge visitors as they encounter them. When a visitor is walking down the hall to their appointment, there’s nothing better than being greeted by the gracious smile of a random employee. While some people are naturally gregarious, you can also train any and all of your employees to be welcoming and outgoing. This includes making eye contact with the visitor, greeting them with a smile, and asking if they may need help.
If you don’t explicitly train your employees to greet your visitors, then your visitors will have an uneven experience where some employees are friendly and others are not. This inconsistency can damage their impression of your business.
Also related to this point, ensure that your employees are visitor-focused at all times. Employees should eliminate personal chit-chat if there’s a visitor present. Why is this important? When employees talk to each other about their personal lives without acknowledging there’s a visitor present, the conversation can make the visitor feel like an outsider and even an intruder. To avoid awkwardness, counsel your employees to quietly work when visitors are around. Or, if they need to communicate, focus only on work-related conversations instead of personal conversations. This can make a huge difference in how inviting your office environment is to visitors.
5. Don’t Make Your Visitors Wait Too Long
While some waiting is unavoidable, it’s always a best practice to manage your time so that you don’t have visitors waiting too long before they’re seen. No one likes waiting, and the longer they wait, the more frustrated they’ll become. Analyze your average meeting times so that you can better schedule your future appointments. Aim to keep your visitors waiting no longer than 15 minutes before being seen. Remember that if the visitor’s punctuality is important to you, return the favor.
6. Be Prepared
If you know in advance that a visitor will be arriving for a specific purpose, be sure to prepare for their arrival. Have all of your documents in place and all of the questions that you need to ask set. If you’re able to get your visitor in and out in less time than you’ve scheduled, that’s a positive marker than will likely impress your visitor. It shows that you’ve streamlined your process to not waste anyone’s time.
7. Set Up Wayfinding Signs
If you aren’t planning to greet your visitor and personally escort them to your office or meeting area, then be sure to set up wayfinding signs that will guide the visitor in the right direction. Clarity is more important than cleverness. In other words, make sure that your wayfinding signs are easy to understand, first and foremost. If a sign fits your decor but isn’t immediately obvious and dead simple to follow, it will miss the mark.
In addition to wayfinding signs, consider adding a map at key locations (such as your reception area and elevator) that show exactly where they’re currently standing in relation to the rest of your office’s floor plan. This can help lost or confused visitors successfully navigate their way to the right location.
Also, evaluate the traffic flow from point a to point b. Is it easy for your visitor to follow? Instead of directing them through the quickest route, focus on the straightest and simplest path, even if it’s longer. This can eliminate frustrations and wrong turns.
8. Survey Your Visitors
Have you considered surveying your visitors? When you use a visitor management system like The Receptionist for iPad, you can easily survey your visitors since they’ve already registered with their email addresses. Simply reach out to the visitor via their email address and ask them for their feedback.
To get the most responses, keep the survey short and sweet (five questions or less). Of the most important questions to ask on your survey, be sure to ask how they’d their visit and what they’d change. You can also ask if they were successful in finding their way to your office. This feedback can help you tweak your processes and improve future visits.
Final Thoughts
Everything you do will leave a lasting impression on your office visitors. Use the above tips to ensure that you’re making a positive, and not a negative, impression.
Share this Post