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What is the experience of a newcomer when they approach your front door? Are they treated like a vagrant or a potential customer with a $1.0M purchase order? When visitors come into your lobby, the receptionist does not know if they are current customers, potential customers, lost truck drivers, vagrants, or laborers looking for work or a vendor’s sales representative trying to make a sales call with one of your procurement department’s buyers.
Assume every new visitor to the front lobby potentially wants to give your firm $1M in new business. Your $40K receptionist can potentially lose you a $1.0M unless you train him or her how to properly react and professionally greet every new visitor who enters your company’s front door. Assume everyone is a potential customer. One never knows who the next visitor is, so safely assume the person has a $1M purchase order.
Instructions for all your people in the front office who greet all newcomers through the front door:
- Respect everyone. All visitors are to be regarded as potential clients and treated as if they are ready to give your company millions of dollars of new orders.
- Ignore manner of dress. Disregard manner of dress or appearance. Pay attention to the person who just entered the front door regardless of the way they dress. You have no idea who they are or why they have come for a visit.
- Acknowledge newcomers frequently. Do not ignore new visitors even if you are busy; politely tell the new visitor you will be with them as soon as possible, or in just a few moments. Say, “Good morning, please forgive me, I promise to be with you in just a moment.” Who can be mad with that request?
- Politely ask visitors to sign in and offer them a seat. Ask that the visitor sign in (name, company, phone, email and purpose of visit). Offer this person a seat and smile genuinely. Smile every time for every person without exception. Think to yourself that you need to smile because your job depends upon it.
- Remind visitors you have not forgotten them. If you are busy with something or someone else taking longer than normal, again tell those waiting that you will be with them in just a moment, and apologize for their wait.
- Allow restroom breaks to visitors as a courtesy. To be courteous, allow all visitors to use the company restroom if they request. Do not hesitate when they ask; be very accommodating and helpful and give them instructions on how to go there and return.
- Offer company brochures to take. Point out the company literature if the visitors request it. Politely show him the racks of information and add that they are welcome to take whatever they choose. Give them more formalized (and expensive) brochures and catalogs that may be available at the front desk when it is appropriate if that is your procedure established. When in doubt, give advertising to the requestor. You cannot get in trouble for trying to sell the company and its products. You will regret being stingy with the buyer who is trying to locate and interview a new $10M per year vendor and you are the one who worried about giving him a $3 brochure.
Provide feedback to sales from the visitor comments heard and recorded. Remember to convey to the sales department the frequency of requests and complaints from the visitors concerning the company literature.
- Visitors were looking for photos and did not see enough of them in the brochures.
- Visitors wanted more information on quality control measures and did not see it included in the literature provided to him.
- Visitors wanted information about company’s locations and capabilities at each company site and could not find it.
- Visitors wanted to know more about the market, the company’s equipment, the geographical areas served, types of products made, services provided or more information unique to the industry.
Anything that seems to be missing, that is mentioned, should be relayed to the marketing personnel so they can create or adjust their materials they prepare.
Remind employees they have someone waiting. Call your internal employee again to remind them they have a visitor waiting in the lobby. If your internal employee is busy and someone is waiting on them, be pleasant with the waiting visitor and pay attention to them. Let them know you are not going to forget them and you have reminded the employee he is waiting.
- Call the internal employee to remind him someone is waiting and after a reasonable time, .
- Call back and tell him how long it has been.
Remember: Ignore any negative comments from an internal employee; it is irrelevant when it comes to serving potential customers.
If your company employee is rude or not courteous, call their manager to inform them of the visitor waiting in the lobby. You cannot worry about internal problems with employees; you must protect a potential customer at all costs. You also never know if the employee with whom you are having problems also creates other problems with customers.
- Ask the employee if someone else can come up front to the lobby at least to greet the visitor, talk with them briefly, and to pay attention to a person who has taken time to drive or fly in to see our company.
- Tell the visitor you have notified the person they want to see so the visitor knows you are paying attention to them. Ask if there is anyone else they were there to see.
- Always smile and act interested, regardless if you are or are not.
Remember: Whether you are interested or not in the visitor is irrelevant. Your job is to convince the potential customer that our company is the right choice for them and right now, they are the most important person you have to help. This guy may bring a million-dollar order to your firm and claim it all stemmed from his original first encounter with a great friendly receptionist.
- Remember everyone is watching you. Remember your behavior is monitored by everyone else who is present in the lobby. Treat all visitors admirably because you are being watched by all of the other people in the lobby. They have nothing to do but to sit there and evaluate your behavior so do not disappoint them or the company. There is always one who may be a customer.
- Please be respectful of those looking for work. Be kind to walk-ins looking for employment. Give suggestions of other companies in the neighborhood which might be looking for new hires. Offer a list of state unemployment offices with addresses and phone numbers to give to the person if they will accept it. All of your actions are being watched by others so understand the ramifications of any negative behavior. It will not hurt at all to be kind to these visitors and show your humanity.
- Regard every visitor as a potential customer because you do not know. Treat every visitor as if they are a potential client holding a $1.0M purchase order for your company, and do not act any other way. Your professional actions will always pay off for you and the company.
- Keep all visitor logs for future reference – they are potential sales referrals. Make sure all logs are dated and retained in chronological order. They may be needed for reference in the future, especially by the sales department.
