LAS VEGAS – March 10, 2021 — WinTech, LLC, a privately held technology company, today announced that it now offers photoreal digital humans created by Artificial Intelligence (AI) avatars from HourOne, in its ALICE® Receptionist visitor management. The new AI avatars will also help businesses automate COVID-19 related health and safety policies for guests as they enter an office or building.
The award-winning ALICE® Receptionist is a state-of-the-art secure visitor management system that fully automates the guest check-in and registration process. ALICE greets and checks in guests, verifies face mask coverings and body temperature levels, collects health surveys as well as prints visitor badges. If guests need to speak with an employee, ALICE can connect the guest with onsite or remote employees utilizing two-way video communications.
“We are excited to now offer AI avatars which will enable our customers to now fully customize the instructions and information presented by the photoreal avatars.” Says Wintech CEO Mike Yoder, “These new AI avatars give our customers the ability to communicate Health and Safety guest policies to visitors as they enter the building. We’ve seen guidance from the CDC as well as state and local governments change frequently as new information about the pandemic has emerged. Being able to quickly update guidelines and instructions for guests to meet those changing policies is a key component to helping businesses remain compliant with their internal policies as well as government-issued guidelines.”
“We are delighted to partner with ALICE Receptionist in its quest to improve visitor experiences through their visitor management technology. HourOne’s AI characters offer a novel way to provide next-level human-centric communications that allow flexible messaging, with the goal of improving communication,” says Natalie Monbiot, Head of Business at HourOne. We are thrilled to support ALICE Receptionist in helping businesses reopen safely.”
ALICE® Receptionist is one of a number of technologies that are helping businesses reopen safely in the midst of an ongoing worldwide pandemic. Using technology solutions to screen visitors upon arrival, enabling employees to communicate remotely, and managing alerts to employees when needed, are all part of how organizations are learning to conduct business in new ways with benefits that will last far beyond the COVID-19 pandemic
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About ALICE® Receptionist
ALICE® Receptionist is an advanced visitor management technology that effortlessly processes visitors to buildings while helping keep employees safe from outside threats. Using leading-edge technology, such as motion detection, ID Scanning, image capture, visitor screening, visitor registration, employee alerts, interactive information and voice & video over IP communications, ALICE® Receptionist is helping companies and government agencies around the globe to engage visitors to their buildings. For more information, visit AliceReceptionist.com.
About HourOne
HourOne is a video transformation company. We replace cameras with code, for the next generation of professional video at scale. We use advanced neural networks, machine learning and audio-visual pipelines to create synthetic characters that look and sound like real people. This way, a single character can deliver thousands of text lines to a video stream which people can interact with. We use a vast cloud infrastructure to maintain those characters, and to generate and edit thousands of videos across business verticals, such as e-learning, digital health and e-commerce. Behind each synthetic character is a real human being. Through contractual arrangements, we have permission to use their likeness in predefined commercial use cases, for which they earn a fee. We clearly label all commercial content as computer-generated, to respect the user’s right to know.
As we head further into 2021, the continuing pandemic and new variants emerging indicate that businesses need to improve upon their visitor registration processes with more than a temporary solution. Indeed, the new normal for office management has changed worldwide. Your visitor management experience will play a crucial role in how your customers, clients, as well as employees view and interact with your business each day.
For the general public’s health and safety, anyone with COVID-19 systems should not enter the premises. When considering these guidelines, one would ask how a company would be able to manage visitor interactions not only safely but effectively.
This article offers six recommendations on how businesses can implement practical visitor management strategies through ALICE Receptionist. The software provides a consistent experience through the ever-increasing changes we must adapt to in the reality of today’s world.
Read on to discover how to improve your visitor registration process in 2021. Learn how you can automate registration, help prevent entry to those suffering from COVID symptoms, in addition to notifying your staff when their visitors arrive without the need for in-person front desk interaction.
1.) Decrease Physical Contact
Social distancing measures are now a way of life for everyone. Avoiding unnecessary physical contact is key to reducing the spread of infection.
Refrain from welcoming visitors through physical contact like a handshake or even an elbow bump. If you still use pen and paper to record check-ins, make sure to disinfect them after each use. Disinfection also includes frequently touched surfaces as outlined in these guidelines. Door handles, worktops, handrails, etc., should be cleaned throughout the day. If you use a shield or barrier, ensure both sides get wiped after each visitor arrives.
Ideally, the check-in process should use little or no physical contact if possible. Virtual visitor registration software like ALICE Receptionist offers a hands-free kiosk solution that can replace the need for an in-person employee overseeing the front desk and allow employees to manage visitor entrances from a safe area. Motion detection activates when your guests arrive and welcomes them upon entry with an intuitive and easy to follow system for initiating communication.
2.) Implement an Automatic Visitor Registration Process
When managing your guests’ arrival in 2021, it is essential to consider registration options even before they visit your place of business in person. What is your lobby’s area size, and how many visitors can you efficiently and safely address within a specified time? These are all questions that a building or operations manager must consider to avoid potentially risky situations.
Guest scheduling ensures that evenly spaced visits reduce physical interaction and ensure that appropriate distancing is maintained by guests. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encourages businesses to pre-book all guests. This process can occur via email but ideally should integrate into your workflow and calendar.
When your visitor arrives, they should experience a seamless check-in that takes as little time as possible. Automating this process and enabling guests to check themselves in is a crucial benefit.
ALICE’s Virtual Receptionist recognizes guests from the pre-booking stage, and the software lets visitors scan their ID like a driver’s license or a QR code on their phone. Once identified, the system could issue an adhesive badge or printout for further uses. A long-term benefit ALICE provides to this process is that the system is highly effective in streamlining group check-ins by removing the requirement of human oversight. As our world gradually becomes vaccinated and moves toward a time where larger gatherings are encouraged, your system is ready to accommodate.
3.) Customize Your Greetings
As guidelines continue to change weekly, your Receptionist needs to know how to greet visitors correctly and maintain up to date practices. Keeping personnel up to date with what feels like almost daily changes can get laborious or time-intensive.
ALICE Receptionist overcomes continuous staff training through custom greetings that inform visitors of your company’s specific guidelines. Pre-recorded videos are available to showcase your current policies and ensure a consistent message for every guest.
Instead of creating signage, manually updating displays, and manning an individual at the door to explain the status of your office, ALICE Receptionist can enable a ‘Not Accepting Visitors’ video to demonstrate that you cannot admit guests at this time due to the outbreak.
You can also include your organization’s documentation and update it as required. That means no re-training employees, and that your visitors are always kept up-to-date with the information they need at their fingertips.
4.) Offer a Pre-Check-In Questionnaire
A good check-in process should include a questionnaire to assess the risk of public health issues. A simple ‘yes or no’ response can help to spot potential health-related problems.
For example, do they have flu-like symptoms or a high temperature?
When answered, specific responses can indicate a risk that would inform visitors that their entry is not permitted at this time.
If an issue gets flagged, visitors have the option to contact the person they came to see through video conferencing and reschedule their meeting with them.
Alice Receptionist’s features a pre-check-in video questionnaire that can also inform visitors of your internal policies with a custom video.
5.) Provide a Custom Induction
As every business is unique, each will undoubtedly have a different initial interaction necessary for their guests and business needs. For example, multi-organization buildings have guests who arrive for different tenants. With ALICE, each individual company should have the ability to offer individualized induction documents based on their visitors’ requirements and the business’s needs.
Due to ALICE’s ability to identify employees as parts of different organizations, the system will always offer the correct induction experience based on their host organization’s needs. You’re able to upload your company’s branded PDFs and custom videos requiring guest interaction if you set that as a condition to entry. The software even remembers past visits and won’t display the induction process for return visitors until you choose to repeat it.
6.) Notify Your Employees More Efficiently
After a successful check-in, your host employee needs notification that their guest has arrived. Traditionally, receptionists would do this by phoning the host through the internal network. But what if they’re not at their desk? Or still in a meeting where they can’t take a call?
To help improve this part of the visitor check-in process, consider a more efficient approach.
ALICE can automatically notify hosts through email or a text message delivered straight to their mobile phone. That means no more awkward ‘he’s not at his desk’ replies and having to ring around the building to find them. Guests can also navigate the employee directory, select an employee to contact, and speak to them via an audio or two-way call on their phone or computer.
Improve Visitor Registration Process with ALICE Receptionist
Visitor registration remains a crucial component in keeping your employees and guests safe in 2021. However, we’ve learned that the best systems remove the need for contact yet maintain that human warmth to welcome your clients.
ALICE Receptionist’s visitor registration software provides a safe and efficient way to handle check-ins. It helps manage the front-desk systems that would typically require a live person to work. Our virtual kiosk solutions remove the problem of social distancing yet still provides full receptionist service for an exceptional experience.
Designed with remote flexibility in mind, ALICE lets visitors contact your employees directly. You can add custom induction documents and questionnaires to automate checking-in.
Contact us to see how ALICE Receptionist can improve your visitor registration during 2021.
Virtual office solutions are here for the long haul. With fewer employees working in the office or onsite, more job responsibilities have shifted to technology solutions to serve clients. To stay relevant, company owners need to engage visitors as well as customers safely and efficiently to build success “virtually.”
How you manage visitors can leave a lasting impression on potential and existing customers. Whether your guests visit your corporate headquarters, satellite office, or worksite, companies need an effective way to greet, direct, and serve customers in an increasingly tech-driven society.
Is your visitor management system creating an impressive first interaction with your customers? If you are hesitant in answering or wondering what areas of the interaction flow you should be concerned with, we’ve put together nine ways that excellent visitor management improves the user experience.
Constant Availability
If you run a small business, it’s possible you don’t yet have the resources for a full-time receptionist at your office to greet and guests, induct visitors, announce visitations, or provide directions. In the instance you do have a live receptionist, there are numerous reasons to limit in-person contact in today’s world.
A virtual system like ALICE is always available. ALICE greets visitors no matter when they stop by and never takes a sick day. Your team members don’t have to worry about losing potential customers or interactions if they can’t be there. ALICE is there to guide them.
Direct Visitors Without Delay
Arriving at an empty reception area can be frustrating for visitors, especially those who require assistance. This can become a friction point, and the beginning of a negative customer experience before the personal interactions even begin. What if they had immediate help to check-in for a meeting and could find the information or people they need without delay?
The ALICE visitor management system serves as a virtual receptionist that is available anytime. With helpful features to recognize visitor arrival, video prompts that initiate action by asking the customer what help they require and intuitive easy-to-navigate flows designed to aid visitors through a check-in process for scheduled appointments. To ensure your customer service can add a more personal touch when needed, ALICE also has an employee directory that can connect visitors to your designated internal resources through phone or video communications.
Protect Your Business
While some businesses don’t necessarily need to staff a front desk receptionist, some companies require in-person activity. Not having the ability to greet guests as well as screen visitors for various health and security concerns can put the business, employees, and other customers in a potentially risky situation.
A virtual solution like ALICE can help keep your office safe and secure, ensuring a confirmed checklist of security questions or screening activities are completed consistently. Through recent technology updates, guests can now check-in with the ALICE receptionist when they arrive, receive a health screening, temperature check, and confirm that visitors are wearing a mask before accepting entry.
Safety and security will always be a priority for the success of your business. With a virtual solution to welcome and process guests, you have an untiring gatekeeper to screen every guest and help prevent a potential public health issue within your building.
Print Visitor Badges
Approved visitors deserve recognition! While onsite, a visitor’s badge helps employees welcome and greet guests. A badge also confirms that guests have passed through the ALICE screening process, successfully checked-in, and are approved to be in your workspace for a meeting.
Guests feel more welcome and your office stays more secure with a personalized visitor badge. ALICE can generate badges that include a photo, name, organization, and more to help visitors feel official and more than “just any” guest.
Deliver Information On Demand
In this age of digital technology and Googling for a quick answer, waiting an hour (or day) for a returned phone call or email can feel like an eternity. The ALICE visitor management software can deliver information on demand. From videos to documents, preloaded websites, and even the local weather, visitors have the answers they need when in the office—right away.
Scheduling Without Delay
Few things deter a meeting with a client (or potential new customer) then scheduling delays. When visitors can’t connect with you or your assistant to get an appointment on the calendar, they’ll eventually give up and find a company that has time for them. Using the ALICE visitor management system means guests can schedule a virtual or in-person meeting at any time using a calendar system.
Keep Employees Informed
When a visitor arrives and successfully checks-in with your virtual receptionist, ALICE keeps your employees informed through designated communications like an email, text, or request for a meeting. Guests should never experience delays in responses to inquiries. ALICE makes sure your guests connect with employees no matter where they are in the building or remote environment with an alert using the Employee Directory feature.
Verify Visitors
An efficient visitor check-in and health screening system is crucial to impressing visitors and creating a feeling of security and safety for team members as well as guests alike. However, you can’t be sure who gained access to your business and employees without verifying IDs during a workplace visit. In the past, this would require a paid individual to process and verify ID in person.
Using the ALICE visitor authentication and management system to scan and verify IDs eliminates the previous need, in addition to the cost, for this role. With a visitor screening database, ALICE can match a government-issued identification card to your approved guest list to increase and maintain your business’s security.
Deliver Safety Information
When guests arrive, making sure they understand the safety protocols for your workspace is an absolute must. After check-in, ALICE is designed to present company-approved documents or videos explaining topics like safety requirements, emergency exit locations, and mask protocols. Keeping this information current is easy to do and ensures your team is always up to date. This visitor management system process lets guests know the measures your business takes to maintain a clean facility and protect employees and guests, creating a favorable atmosphere of safety and security.
Make Sure Your Visitor Management System Delivers the Best Experience
Visitor management is a critical aspect of building customer relationships and growing your business. The best experience helps guests connect with your services and employees.
Make sure visitors are safe, approved, and feel welcome! Contact us to learn more about how ALICE can greet and direct visitors while protecting your company’s security and safety.