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Premium front of house isn’t just about the reception desk

Keep a professional front at all times

As a hospitality business, you’ve worked hard to create the very best front of house (FOH) reception desk.

Highly trained reception staff are well presented and well versed in your expectations of providing the very best service to guests and visitors as they arrive in person.

But what happens to those who make contact via your website, by email or over the phone? Does each and every enquiry receive the VIP treatment it deserves?

Cover all bases

Effective telephone answering is critical to overall business success. In the perfect world you have your phones fully covered during the day; spare capacity and a robust plan to allow for any absences or emergencies; night hours manned to your same exacting standards; and the knowledge that however busy you are dealing with enquiries face to face, you are able to give your full attention to answering incoming enquiries.

In the real world the scenario can be very different. Of course it would be unheard of to ignore an ‘in person’ visitor in the reception area, yet all too often a telephone call is left ringing, unanswered or even diverted to a cold, uninviting machine in the background.  So, does this mean that not enough value is being placed on the call itself and the way businesses answer their telephones?

How often do businesses really think about the implications of a single missed call? In a hotel, for example, a single enquiry, say for a wedding booking, could convert to a sale running to many thousands of pounds.

Even at the simplest level, let’s take a medium-sized hotel as an example with an average room rate of £100 for round figures. In a typical day it receives 20 enquiries, with a conversion rate of say 70%. If just one call a day is missed, because the person on the reception desk is busy with a customer or on another call, that alone amounts to revenue loss of almost £1,000 a week. Multiply that for party reservations, conferences, spa bookings, mini breaks and the potential for regular custom and it can add up to a mind boggling maelstrom of missed opportunities.

Don’t forget about the night shift

There is absolutely no room for complacency when it comes to looking after customers over the telephone, whatever business you’re in. Smart businesses recognise that resourcing for the vagaries of customer contact demands, the peaks and troughs in call volumes as well as the need to cover extended hours, often 24 hours, is incredibly difficult and are switched on to the positive benefits of engaging with an outsourced partner.

What a huge difference it makes when you can be confident you are capturing every incoming call, regardless of the time of day and what’s happening for you as a business internally. Calls are answered seamlessly in your company name by your dedicated receptionist who sits alongside your regular team as though based in-house, as and when you need her. Businesses can choose to have all their calls answered or most commonly just those they are struggling to get to themselves.

Engage with a 24/7 provider and the consistency of response should be guaranteed whether a caller rings at 3pm or 3am.

It’s your call. Don’t miss it!

We give you amazing people and technology:

Telephone
Answering

Your own Moneypenny PA to answer calls exactly as if based in your office.

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Live Chat

Amazing people, briefed by you to manage chats whenever you can't.

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Pocket Phone System

All the functions and support of an office phone system, minus the hardware.

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