It has recently been reported that students at a new £30million school in Nailsea are to be issued with hi-tech ID passes which will, amongst other things, monitor their attendance and report whether they are late for class.
This type of system is not new within a business environment as it is similar to the old style clocking on procedures, but it is relatively new in an educational establishment proving the adaptability and flexibility of ID card technology systems.
Each card will include the pupil’s name, picture and a special, individual identification code.
Pupils will need to swipe the passes on entering a classroom and if they are late for class, the card will automatically record the time they arrived on a central database for analysis. The information stored on the database will help tutors identify continuous latecomers or poor attendance for potential disciplinary/remedial action.
The cards will also be used for a cashless catering facility, whereby pupils will deposit money on their cards in advance and then use the credit on the cards to pay for their school meals etc.
Whilst all this may appear a little over the top for a school, the concept works well in a business environment, supporting values, governance and increased security awareness.
Plastic cards offer a multitude of applications from simple membership cards which do not need to be used for anything other than a physical check, to the more sophisticated cards incorporating chip technology that offer a business far greater access control.
Plastic card printing can be completed by many specialist suppliers to tight deadlines depending on the amount of information required on the card.
Whether you are looking for membership cards, gift cards, business cards or even hotel key cards or loyalty cards, there will be a supplier out there able to meet your needs.
If you wish to undertake the printing yourself because you are perhaps going to be printing a lot of cards on a regular basis, many of these suppliers will be able to supply you with the equipment to do so.
It is worth noting that plastic cards have all but replaced the old fashioned paper gift vouchers, partly because they are reusable. With the right equipment and cards, when a company gets one back, they simply wipe the content off and use it again if they want.
Today’s competition is fierce and every business needs to be prepared to make their cards that little bit extra special to attract business.
With this in mind, printed plastic card suppliers are able to print them in many colours.
If you ask your customers whether they are aware of your loyalty scheme and the associated benefits and rewards, could you or your sales personnel confidently state: “Yes, they are”?
Loyalty should be at the heart of any business’s marketing strategy, but research suggests it is possibly a bit of a forgotten art.
It is accepted that competitive environments demand a business makes special efforts to retain existing customers, so you may be surprised to learn that research conducted by global research company Ipsos MORI suggests that many customers do not actually feel affiliated to most schemes.
Such feedback is probably common within many smaller businesses, but what can companies do to promote loyalty from their customers?
• Keep your scheme in profile
• Keep your people motivated to promote the scheme
• Regularly review offers/deals/points awarded
• Regularly vary marketing material and approaches
• Make sure you keep your loyalty card scheme customers feeling valued
• Maintain the highest level of customer service
• Keep in contact with your scheme members
• Offer exclusive deals to scheme members
Customers are nearly always happy to join a scheme when they think they are getting an exceptional deal and service so it is important to ensure your people are fully aware of the benefits on offer with your scheme.
Get this right and providing your people are suitably motivated and enthusiastic, you should see improved take-up, increased loyalty and additional revenue through the tills.
Made from nylon, polyester, silk, bamboo and many other materials, the lanyard is fast becoming as much a fashion statement as a practical tool for business.
Necklace style lanyards are extremely popular to hold your ID badge in style and if you take the time to look around your offices, you will probably see many of them.
One thing is for certain, the brighter and smarter they are, the more likely they are to be used.
Whilst as a business, you may look to supply your people with perhaps plain blue lanyards to attach their ID badges to, it is unlikely that would be their preferred choice.
Lanyards do not offer much of a financial drain on the pocket, so it is worth considering providing lanyards that are a little bit special for your people, which could also incorporate some information promoting your company as well.
For the younger generation of workers, they will probably even like to have more than one lanyard, perhaps different ones to match their outfits, so bear this in mind when purchasing.
If you take a short time surfing the internet and look at the feedback or complaints many customers offer about why they do not like shopping in town centres, you will on many occasions see that their biggest complaint surrounds car parking fees.
Many business communities within town centres and villages have campaigned to get local authorities to look at reducing car parking fees or, at the very least, offer concessionary rates for certain users, only to find that because of financial constraints and the reduced government funding available, it is quite simply not thought possible.
Ask your own customers and they will, in all likelihood, support such comments and confirm that they would visit the town centre or the village shops more often if parking just wasn’t so expensive.
So what can you, as a business do about it?
Have you considered attaching a refund of say, up to one hour’s car parking fee to any of your loyalty card customers that make a purchase in your shop? You can even impose a minimum spend to ensure you do not suffer too much financially.
There are so many comments complaining about income generation focused councils charging unreasonable parking fees and here is an opportunity for you to visibly support your customers.
You never know, you may not only get your existing customers visiting your store more often, you may even attract some new scheme members as well.
Although there has been increased awareness and publicity surrounding data breaches, as a business, do you know how many of your people in privileged positions have accessed corporate information without a need to or having the necessary authorisation?
You may be able to sit back and say with confidence that non-one has done this in your business, but are you absolutely sure?
There is always an inherent risk that the IT Network access administrators who you have probably given strict access control guidelines to for your other employees have a peek periodically, and without certain security measures put in place to monitor their access/activities, you could be leaving a loophole which could be exploited at any time.
It is therefore important that you build into any access control system, a clear segregation of duty and access control mechansim for your IT administrators and carry out regular audit verifications.
Remember, giving any individual complete access and control over your IT systems access controls leaves your business seriously exposed.
Segregate these access controls and ensure any person leaving the company has their access revoked before they depart, before you find yourself having to manage security/data breaches and have to work hard to minimise the impact of any associated negative publicity.
This will be particularly important if one of your IT specialists leaves the company as they will have exceptional knowledge of your systems and passwords.
It may even be prudent to change passwords to mainframe and sensitive systems as soon as any IT administrator leaves the company.
Many people like to use badge holders to keep their access, ID passes and technology cards easily accessible and visible.
Clear vinyl badge holders are the most popular because they ensure that the badges themselves are visible without people having to remove them from the holders.
Able to be worn either horizontally or vertically and generally the size of a credit card or a little larger, they are convenient and compact.
The ID badge is slipped into the holder through the top or the side and clipped to a lanyard by most people making them quick and easy to access. Most employers offer basic badge holders but do not impose any restriction on people purchasing their own.
To ease identification into certain sensitive/restricted areas of a building or premises, it is a good idea for businesses to supply different coloured badge holders for different areas. This will aid security and enable colleagues to identify unauthorised personnel from a distance thereby alert security personnel without actually putting themselves in a potentially difficult position of having to challenge somebody themselves.
There are numerous varieties of card holders and choosing the right one will very much depend on how much security you need and the type of work undertaken. As an example, a badge holder for a convention is different (or can be different) than one that someone would need on a daily basis working on a factory floor with working machinery.
A good idea is to have several different ones so that you can choose them as you need to.
Security of information, people and premises is very much at the forefront of most business’ minds, and it is extremely common to see employees, visitors and managers wearing ID badges.
These badges are attached in a variery of ways but by far the most common method is by using a lanyard.
Look at people walking around shopping centres or your local supermarket during lunch breaks or after work and you will undoubtedly see a variety of lanyard designs, made from many different materials such as silk or even bamboo.
Each ID/Access Control Card may even be attached to a separate lanyard and the variety of colours and messages included on the lanyards may again, vary immensely.
If your business uses Smartcard technology, bear in mind that these cards hold a lot of information and embedded technology, some of which could be sensitive and provide access to your network systems so make sure that your people use appropriate, secure lanyards to reduce the risk of loss.
To protect the smart card itself, it is advised that you should also ensure your people have secure badge holders. If your access control system does not demand the card be swiped or input into a card reader, then you would probably be well advised to obtain transparent badge holders which can be read through the casing.
The Evolis TattooRW is a compact, yet powerful monochrome printer that can erase and print the same card up to 500 times saving a business money when it needs it most. Something which could be extremely important in the tough, current climate.
The Tattoo RW is designed to print on rewritable cards which contain a thermochromic material making data (including text, graphics and barcodes) visible or vanish.
This is achieved by varying the temperature to which the card is exposed to and can be repeated up to as many as 500 times on a single card.
Couple the card savings with the fact that the Tattoo RW uses no ribbon and business’ can realise even further financial benefit.
Able to print badges, loyalty cards, visitor and travel passes along with library and student IDs, the Evolis Tattoo RW offers great flexibility and enables users to offer immediate passes and include for example, a message of the day or special offer information making it ideal for trade fairs.
The sleek design of the Tattoo RW together with the hermetically encapsulated card feeder which can host up to 100 cards keeping them totally dust-free, ensures it will sit comfortably in any environment, be it on a desk or at a reception area.
