In the last edition of the Office of 2023, we talked about the big shifts in the hybrid workplace in terms of the workforce and how people and tech interventions can effectively address these shifts.
In this edition, we get into the experiential side of things, starting with the visitor experience that your hybrid workplace needs in 2023 to ace the great workplace game.
The visitor experience is a crucial aspect of any workplace, and it has become even more important in the hybrid workplace era. With the rise of remote work and the need for flexible arrangements, the workplace is no longer just a physical space. Visitors could be anyone from clients, job candidates, or even team members who work in different locations.
The visitor experience is a sum of various interventions that an enterprise puts in place to ensure a seamless and engaging journey for the visitors on its premises.
In this article, we will explore the difference between visitor experience and visitor engagement and how enterprises can leverage the learnings from the best in their industries to roll out the right visitor experience that creates a lasting impression.
The basis of our insights and learnings here are the interactions we have had with over 120 large enterprise customers of Veris across various industries and use cases in the recent past. The learnings have been pegged under three larger questions that you may have to pertain to your enterprise:
- How Visitor experience is an overall outcome of various new age and engaging interventions at the workplace?
- What are the experiential learnings from the best in their industries that you can borrow from?
- What are the key tips necessary to roll out the right visitor experience that has a lasting impression?
How visitor experience is an overall outcome of various new age and engaging interventions at the workplace?
Visitor experience and visitor engagement must be seen as two sides of the same coin.
Visitor experience and visitor engagement can often be seen as synonymous words. But the two have different meanings which are important to understand to truly leverage what they each stand for independently.
Visitor engagement: The parts that constitute the whole
Engagement refers to the extent to which different tangible actions at different touch-points on the journey, engage and satisfy. Each individual touchpoint will evoke a different degree of engagement, for example, a seamless, touch-less check-in experience will engage a visitor differently than one that involves them visiting the on-site cafeteria services.
Engagement at each touch point can be dialed up or down based on the overall experience an enterprise wants to provide to its visitors. For example, for certain enterprises, ‘reinforcing’ the cutting-edge tech part of the experience may be a significant index to dial-up engagement versus another for whom security and safety may be more important or key to show than just a red-carpet hi-tech welcome. And still, there might be another for whom, both play a significant role.
Often what an enterprise chooses to dial up and focus on is dependent on several factors like brand values, budgets, security needs, the nature of visitors themselves, and the appetite for tech upgradation and advancement that it has.
Visitor experience, A sum of the parts
Experience refers to an emotion, the “overall” feeling that a visitor undergoes basis their experience on-premises.
The cumulative emotion brought on by interactions at every stage of the journey – check-in/ check-out, navigation on campus, seating and meeting experience, overall security etc. encompasses what we describe as ‘experience’. It is a more ‘wholesome index’ of determining the overall imagery an enterprise is creating in the minds of its visitors.
The next big question: what kind of interventions are required to ensure that overall experience is maximized?
This is where it is important to share certain interventions presented through studying industry trends and interactions with customers across sectors and verticals that will be important to ace the visitor experience game in 2023. These are as follows:
Intervention 1 – It is important to set up touch-points that create strong and welcoming first impressions.
For example, every visitor deserves a red-carpet welcome when they are on the premises. The first 7 seconds are critical as they mark the first moment of truth of a visitor’s interaction with the organization.
A good VMS that allows for a touchless, and seamless digital visitor check-in will ensure that the following two happen:
- A visitor is not unnecessarily getting delayed from attending an important, pre-decided appointment.
- The front-desk team doesn’t have to look unorganized and get exhausted by maintaining a manual tab of who is coming when and why. They can let the hosts know when the visitors arrive, flag off any unwanted people on the premises, and leverage the data for reporting.
Intervention 2 – It is important to set up touch-points that are personalized and responsive.
It is easier to form connections and create positive impressions when people feel they are cared for. Often this is possible by taking small and simple steps. The visitor experience is no exception to this norm. Calling the guests and visitors by their name, knowing what they’d require during their visit and knowing when to extend a helping hand etc. are all important factors in making visitors feel welcomed and cared for.
Intervention 3 – It is important to create a holistic workspace for everyone.
When visitors are on the premises, imagery cues are not limited to how modern a workplace looks. It is also about providing holistic experiences that consider the social and human aspects of a visitor’s onsite journey.
For example, with hybrid work models, little things like booking a meal of choice for the visitor in advance, assuring access to information in preferred languages, wheelchair access for the specially-abled etc. will play an equally important role as a contemporary kiosk at the entrance.
Intervention 4 – It is important to ensure scalability with standardization.
For large enterprises and enterprises that are quickly building scale, it is important to deal with complex workings and operations without impacting the quality of these operations.
Operations must proceed with minimal delays and confusion and as a visitor, the enterprise must be able to ensure that the same experience is delivered time over time.
Technology can and will play a critical role in ensuring that standardization with scalability is maintained.
Intervention 5 – It is important to undertake pre-emptive measures that are smart and data-driven.
Data-driven enterprises can capture key insights with respect to visitor experience -peak movement times and frequency of the same, behavioural patterns, admin requirements and other critical indices that on the whole will enable an enterprise to ace its visitor experience game.
Intervention 6 – Data privacy & governance for an improved Visitor Experience
While it’s imperative for facility teams to collect and process the details of the visitors including but not limited to personally identifiable information, a key concern among the visitors is regarding safety and privacy of their personal data.
Visitors wish to know why their information is being collected, who has access to this and for how long. While organizations have a legitimate interest to collect, storing and process this information for safety, compliance and operational purposes, the visitors’ rights to over their personal data have to be protected as well.
To conclude, a great visitor experience is not just about providing a touchless check-in or offering cutting-edge technology. It is about creating an emotion and an overall feeling for visitors that lasts beyond their visit.
To achieve this, enterprises must focus on both visitor engagement and experience, understanding that engagement is the parts that constitute the whole and experience is the sum of those parts.
By dialing up engagement and focusing on the right touchpoints, enterprises can create a memorable experience that leaves a lasting impression on visitors. In the end, a great visitor experience is not just about meeting visitor needs, but it is about exceeding their expectations and creating a positive image of the workplace that visitors will share with others.
In the next edition of the visitor experience series, we will deep dive into each of the above-mentioned interventions and understand through examples and suggestions how an enterprise can make them work based on their needs and scale.
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