How to Deliver a Great Experience Despite Social Distancing

Delivering a Great Experience Even While Short-Staffed

In today’s day and age, it’s important to provide ample service to tenants, patients, and visitors even amidst the outbreak of COVID-19. Despite this serious health threat, businesses still need to operate and deliver a good experience. However, reduced staff, shortened hours and the need for safe social distancing make that harder than ever.

What if building visitors could easily get information and reach your tenants with a satisfying self-service experience? You’d limit their exposure and your staff’s to the normal daily requests for directions, need to sign people in and other ways that the public comes into close contact with your invaluable property team.

Visual and virtual solutions are easier than you think. Adding digital building directories with Virtual Receptionist capability to your lobby and all of your entranceways is an effective way to show tenant listings and admit visitors to buildings. Today, this has the added benefit of mitigating understandable health and safety concerns amidst the COVID situation.

No one plans to experience staffing shortages and disruptions. But COVID-19 has many working from home and only core staff at buildings. Visits from business colleagues may be rare, but many businesses including grocery stores, pharmacies, hospitals, doctor’s offices, some essential office buildings, and many others are still open. Everyone wants to adhere to social distancing protocols. However, many have relied on volunteers, slat directories or security guards to sign people in and direct them. Welcome to a new era. We now need an evolved way to think about the reception area. We need to guide tenants, patients, and visitors to their destinations without disrupting or infecting others.

The Value of Immersive Technology in the COVID-19 Era

At TouchSource, we believe that immersive technology—technology that you can engage using sight, sound, sensors and/or touch—allows for great information delivery at a safe distance. How? With digital wall displays, you can show directory information visually without the need for staff to tell a visitor where to go. Public health posters, such as CDC information on washing hands or symptoms of COVID-19, can be visually displayed and seen from a distance on larger-sized screens.

With digital wayfinding maps on a touch screen, a visitor can view directions quickly and scan a QR code to their mobile device to take the information with them. Keeping screens disinfected and clean is easy.  In addition, you are likely showing compassionate messaging on your social media channels. Take this opportunity to connect your social channels with your in-building experience and deliver that same compassion in person.

Yet another tool called Virtual Receptionist allows visitors to contact the tenant from the directory listing. At a touch, your visitor triggers an outbound call on arrival using the directory. It’s ideal for secure buildings, buildings with tenants who provide after-hours services and healthcare, and when you need to step away from the reception desk. Here’s how it works.

• Auto-dial software allows visitors to touch the screen and dial the listing’s provided number
• A handset or a speakerphone can be included in the cabinet options for calling your tenant
• No analog phone line required—it operates over the internet

Added Security for All Buildings

Another benefit of Virtual Receptionist is the added security it brings to your building. Patients and visitors need to call someone inside to let them into the building after hours or for buildings with limited staffing. This ensures that only people who are supposed to be in the building make their way inside. The Virtual Receptionist can be directly tied into your door locking system. That lets building tenants remotely unlock the door when they confirm who their visitor is. No need to disrupt work and spend 10 minutes retrieving guests from the lobby. In addition, if you can’t be onsite, you can still see what is happening through TouchSource LiveSpaces.  If you can access your building’s network, you can easily and remotely launch a camera view from your directories to see what is happening in your spaces.

A Good Visitor Experience, A Good Staff Experience

So, don’t just put paper posters up to remind people of social safe distancing. Use this time to design an intentionally good high tech virtual visitor experience. It turns a challenge with COVID-19, into an opportunity to serve visitors better and securely— using visuals, voice over IP, and scan-to-mobile services during regular and after normal business hours. As important, it adds public health protections for property managers and security staff while delivering a high tech, beautiful amenity to your building.

We know people are moving fast to adjust to the new world. Call us to discuss these services and how they both fit your security and health safety budget while providing everyday great information along with news and digital art.