KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Hospitals, sports events centers, and conferences all benefit from bringing in vendors for their patrons—but they also need to carefully regulate access control.
- Facial authentication software makes onboarding vendors easy and ensures navigation is easy to regulate with minimal staff.
- These systems not only address a range of vendor credentialing challenges, but deliver benefits for everyone in the building that lead to revenue opportunities.
There are many institutions such as sports venues, event centers, campuses, and hospitals that regularly welcome vendors of all kinds through their doors. These business partners provide mission-critical services to guests, students, and patients alike that can be as complex as custom medical equipment all the way down to a quick hotdog and a beer.
However, just because vendors are necessary guests doesn’t mean they can bypass security. A major medical center, for instance, has a number of restricted areas that protect patient data, privacy, and health in addition to safeguarding expensive equipment and carefully regulated pharmaceuticals. Main elevators and doors usually require a check-in with security staff, and badges have to be scanned to enter almost any internal area. Sports facilities and conference spaces also have plenty of out-of-bounds areas for vendors besides the field of play or center stage.
This can make vendor credentialing a significant challenge for large organizations that put a premium on safety and security. Fortunately, facial authentication software offers promising solutions that not only ensure consistent access control for vendors but can actually reduce your reliance on expensive resources without sacrificing reliability.
Options for Customers, Headaches for Operators
Major sports stadiums can employ upwards of 1500 concession workers for a single game, and traditionally, every single one of them has to be issued a badge for access control within the building. Whether it’s a quick scan or a manual check, these systems are difficult to regulate effectively and rely on large numbers of security staff to operate.
The high turnover rate in the food service industry highlights the challenges staff-managed strategies present when it comes to vendor credentialing. Whether it’s operating a cafeteria at a museum, a coffee shop at a hospital, or a burger stand at an arena, any new employee has to be onboarded into the system. That includes identifying every access point they are allowed to clear and getting that information to staff members or card readers in a timely fashion.
Inefficiencies and red-tape delays in this process can make it hard for staff and vendors alike to do their jobs, and that translates to lost productivity and diminished guest experiences. It may also lead to practices like badge sharing that fundamentally undermine security protocols, and even with pictures on physical credentials, the burden is still on individual staff members to manually check and familiarize themselves with every new face.
Optimizing Vendor Credentialing with Facial Authentication
Facial authentication software offers an ideal solution that doesn’t rely on throwing more expensive employee hours at the problem. These innovative platforms leverage biometric facial data to create a vectorized face template for vendors to manage a range of credentialing challenges.
When a vendor is onboarded, the picture that’s used for their badge can also generate a biometric token they can use at any access control point. When they arrive at one of these areas, a quick scan from a tablet loaded with facial authentication software retrieves all relevant information.
These systems are extremely fast and accurate, and the best of the best are suitable for environments like hospitals that require the highest standards for reliability and precision. Plus, the ability to use it as 2-factor authentication ensures that physical credentials are always paired with a picture to avoid confusion or issues with badge sharing. With the access control updates being shared among the entire system at the same time, there’s never any question about who should be where.
Highly Flexible Solutions for a Variety of Use Cases
While these platforms make it easy for major healthcare systems and sports facilities to streamline their vendor credentialing, it’s not the only way it helps everyone capitalize on their opportunities. Facial authentication software reduces delays caused by long lines and inefficient legacy systems that can frustrate fans at the stadium and delay vital services at hospitals and clinics. It also retrieves all necessary information in 300 milliseconds, so vendors can focus on the work they’re there to do instead of waiting on the front desk.
Facial authentication software can also be paired with a variety of different checkout services to create facial payment systems that can speed up lines at the ballpark and facilitate transactions for patients and their families.
These are just a few of the benefits that facial authentication platforms can deliver for organizations of all kinds that need to manage human logistical challenges, and all of them make life easier for the people your institution serves while reducing overhead and boosting ROI.
Revolutionizing Vendor Credentialing
Many businesses that focus on serving people can benefit tremendously from inviting a wide range of vendors into their facilities. With facial authentication, it’s never been easier to leverage the value they represent, and the top systems turn this efficient vendor credentialing service into a memorable guest experience that generates revenue for your business.
Learn more about what facial authentication software can do for your industry, and how it can be tailored to your business needs.
