Top 10 Reasons to Say Good-bye to your Receptionist

A receptionist is usually considered the face and voice of your business. With cold calling, in-person purchasing, and many face to face appointments and meetings quickly going out of style, and with the advent of automation and computer based services, now might be a great time to reconsider whether keeping an in-house receptionist is worth the cost. While letting your receptionist go is a significant decision, keep in mind that such decisions must be based on valid and justifiable reasons, handled fairly and compassionately.

Here are ten potential reasons to consider when contemplating saying, “Good-bye” to your receptionist:

1. The best and fairest reason to dispense with a receptionist position is that it is currently unfilled and potential qualified candidates are difficult and costly to find. This is the time to consider alternatives such as automation, answering services, sharing tasks with other employees or even a co-work arrangement with other nearby businesses. Especially if you have few, if any, pertinent on-site visitors, the costs are hard to justify compared to a live answering service which can handle your calls, emails and chats remotely, without you having to worry about covering breaks, vacations or sick days.
2. Your receptionist’s office, besides executives’ locked offices, is the only place with heating and air conditioning. This one may seem silly to mention, but I have seen it again and again and constant employee visits to the front office can be quite costly. Since your receptionist’s office is the only one with heating and/or air conditioning, open to visitors and employees, you might find that warehouse and factory workers love to come up with excuses to frequent the front office. This translates into lost time, interruptions for the receptionist, and extra utility expenses – more money wasted. Some studies estimate that interruptions cost businesses three days of work per month, especially in view of other studies that report that it takes up to 23 minutes to refocus after an interruption. Multiply that by the workers that are actually coming into the office for a cup of water or coffee, to check paperwork or just popping in to say a friendly, “Hi!” to your receptionist. Even for small companies, these interruptions can add up to tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, much more than the cost of an answering service.
3. Did I mention that you could save the cost of heating and air-conditioning the receptionist office if no one actually worked in that office? Managers could schedule all on-site visits on one day per week, perhaps during just the morning or afternoon, thereby, substantially cutting down reception office costs of utilities, maintenance and person-power by 80%.
4. An unpleasant but often necessary reason to let your receptionist go could entail incompetence or neglect of duties. If your receptionist consistently fails to perform their job duties competently, or blatantly neglects certain administrative tasks, despite adequate training and feedback, it may be time to make a change. Perhaps the papers to be filed box is a foot high because she hates filing or the papers are filed incorrectly because he doesn’t grasp alphabetizing. Or, your receptionist consistently forgets to ask for and write down return phone numbers for messages, or they regularly transfer to the wrong department, despite numerous training sessions. You may need to switch to a consistent and dependable answering service that reinforces training and completeness of messaging.
5. Common complaints that often result in dismissal are attendance and punctuality problems. Chronic lateness, frequent absences, or excessive use of sick days can disrupt the workplace and affect productivity, particularly in a receptionist role where they are the welcoming committee and voice brand of the company. When others must step-in for a missing employee, tasks may be left uncompleted, messages may be mixed and calls mishandled. With an ever-ready remote service, these issues are easily avoided as phones and chats are always professionally handled with consistent branding and messaging, unaffected by breaks, vacations or sickness.
6. Another valid reason for terminating your receptionist would be insubordination, inappropriate behavior and violation of company policies. If the receptionist repeatedly disobeys company policies, fails to follow instructions from superiors, or indulges in harassment or discrimination in the workplace, you may have grounds to let her or him go.
7. Since receptionists play a crucial role in representing your company to clients and visitors, their customer service skills must be exemplary. If they exhibit rude behavior or have difficulty handling customer inquiries and complaints, it can harm your company’s reputation. A poor reputation can ruin your company’s profits, resulting in a ruined business. Keep in mind these company crushing statistics found on Helpscout.com: It takes 12 positive customer experiences to make up for one negative experience. (Ruby Newell-Legner’s “Understanding Customers”). 65% of customers said they have changed to a different brand because of a poor experience. (Khoros). After more than one bad experience, around 80% of consumers say they would rather do business with a competitor. (Zendesk). A whopping 95% of consumers say that customer service is essential for brand loyalty, and 60% of consumers report having deserted a brand and switching to a rival company because of poor customer service. (Microsoft Dynamics 365). If you think customer service is not important, think again; the success of your business depends on it!
8. If your company or market is financially tightening in these uncertain economic times, a receptionist position may be a logical place to eliminate, especially if most of the work can be done for substantially less, with better consistency by an answering service. Busget constraints may force a company to reduce its workforce for cost-saving reasons, as the cuts also eliminate the costs of insurance, taxes, payroll accounting, workers’ comp, benefits, vacation and sickness coverage, as well as utility and office expenses, adding up to much more than just the salary. Cost-effective alternatives include using a virtual assistant, an answering service, or utilizing a temporary or part-time person to cover one or two days a week when you are open for visitors. You may be tempted to call in other workers to take turns to cover the role, but take into account that their salaries may be higher per hour, the training needed for multiple people, the loss of savings due to not closing or limiting the office hours open and that they will not be doing their own work, perhaps slowing down an important area.
9. As the demographic makeup of a country changes, you may find that your long-time in-office receptionist is unable to communicate and relate to newer clientele who may speak different languages and practise unfamiliar cultural customs. While there may be questions whether this is a legal reason for letting a person go, it could be something to consider when the position becomes vacant. Do remember that bilingual and multilingual employees can be more costly and are in higher demand in our increasingly multicultural communities.
10. As one of the lower paid positions, rarely requiring much college or experience, receptionists are notoriously known for high turn-over rates. The costs of listing, searching, interviewing, onboarding and then training a new one every few months or years can be prohibitive. How much simpler would it be to train one person who trains a whole team of receptionists to be ready as needed, and without the excess human resources and payroll costs borne by your business. One solution is to use a Temporary Agency, usually at a higher salary cost, but it still means each new receptionist must be trained on your particular equipment and customer service. The more practical solution, at a much less cost, with much more consistency and substantially less training, is to hire an answering service or customer service solutions company, such as Hutchbug Solutions to replace the role of receptionist at your company.

Of course I am not advocating that more people should lose their receptionist jobs, heaven forbid; however, I am suggesting that, when the position is vacant, it would be wise for you to consider other cost-effective, reputation-enhancing, service-oriented and time-saving professional options as discussed above, i.e. Hutchbug Customer Service Solutions, which offers 24/7 multilingual telephone customer service customized for your brand, as well as email, chat services and virtual assistants. +++++++++ Nancy Matarrita Creative Communications Consultant