5 Skills Every Receptionist Needs

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Receptionists are key front-of-office staff, instrumental to many industries and organizations. They’re typically the first person visitors engage with and have a large part of the responsibility for upholding the company’s reputation. While receptionists need to provide good first impressions, they’re often tasked with many other major responsibilities around administration and security, like responding to incoming mail and ensuring no unauthorized visitors enter the building.

1. Strong Technology Skills
Receptionists often perform several administrative tasks, from receiving visitors and answering phone calls, to scheduling appointments for clients and customers. These administrative tasks often require the use of different hardware and software. Many receptionists are already expected to have previous experience using phone systems, printers, copiers, and be familiar with creating documents and spreadsheets.

Knowing industry-specific software can be a big advantage as well. For example, knowing how to operate a visitor management system to streamline the process of signing in visitors, or having prior experience with applications like Calendly or Google Calendar to schedule meetings for key staff members.

2. Great Soft Skills and Emotional Intelligence
As the gatekeeper to your organization, customer-facing staff must have great soft skills and emotional intelligence. Today’s consumers and visitors can be tough to deal with, and one poor customer complaint can seriously damage your brand. In fact, 39% of customers will avoid a company for two years after one bad customer service experience.

While soft skills are often passed over for hard skills, it’s important any customer-facing staff are empathetic, friendly-yet-firm, punctual, and possess key relationship-building skills. Not only will receptionists be dealing with guests, but they’ll also be working with other staff members and contractors.

3. Fantastic Communication Skills
Receptionists are constantly interacting with guests who enter the facility, people who call in, and employees checking in and out. They may also be responsible for handling basic customer service issues and responding to email inquiries online.

Juggling customer service activities and administrative tasks is no easy feat, especially when you’re constantly being interrupted. That’s why it’s increasingly important for receptionists to have robust communication skills. To understand information quickly and accurately, receptionists should learn how to be a good listener, engage in active listening, provide clear and concise information, and be empathetic and respectful of others. They should also have excellent writing and editing skills for drafting and proofing professional emails.

4. Excellent Time Management Skills
Receptionists have to complete many tasks within a day. Balancing all these responsibilities while being constantly interrupted can hurt productivity levels.

Having good time management skills allows you to structure your work effectively to accomplish goals. A good way to start is to set short and long-term SMART goals. They can also work on managing their calendars to prioritize their time more effectively.

Whenever anyone is struggling to finish all the tasks required, consider delegating (where possible) and scheduling tasks beforehand. Receptionists should also avoid multitasking since it causes productivity to drop by 40%. We recommend leveraging software tools like a time tracker to manage time more effectively or to use other SaaS tools that can help keep things organized.

5. Independent Approach to Work
Since receptionists are often isolated from the main office, they need to be independent workers. Having a team of receptionists can help boost morale and productivity. However, if there’s only one receptionist at your company’s front desk, they need to have high initiative and be ready to deliver, even when the manager or boss is not there.
Often, receptionists are not only responsible for administrative tasks and signing in visitors, but they also need to work on special projects or provide support for individual executives. It’s these circumstances where the receptionist needs to adjust the original job description to fit the new requirements in a changing business environment.

And finally…
Receptionists play an extremely important role in an organization. They set the first impression for guests entering an organization, which can have a huge impact on the way clients view the business. Furthermore, they often provide key administrative support and can also lend a helping hand with special projects. While the role of the receptionist is evolving, the five key skills every receptionist should master include being technology-proficient, possessing emotional intelligence, having great communication, organizing time well, and adopting an independent approach to work.