OK, so perhaps my title is overstating things a bit - just a bit. I've long felt that the receptionist is one of the key players in a law firm, and they're often overlooked or seen as non-essential personnel. But as the 'gatekeeper' to your law firm, the receptionist plays an important role in setting the tone for the firm's interactions with clients and other outsiders. They can truly make or break a relationship with a client - and that means that they can also make or break your firm.
The receptionist position can be the most difficult one to fill in a law firm, in part because many firms treat the position, and by extension the person, as unimportant. These jobs are often low-paying and attract individuals with little skills - including social skills. Approaching the receptionist position with this mindset is a big mistake. There are no unimportant positions in a law firm, and any person that is interacting with clients is contributing to the overall impression of the firm. Any person that interacts with clients must be carefully selected and trained, and the receptionist is at the top of this list, since they're likely to be not only the first person outsiders interact with, but also the person they interact with the most frequently.
Every person in a firm needs to understand their role within the firm, how that role contributes to the firm's overall goals and why their job is important to the success of the firm. This is particularly true of the receptionist. Having a bad receptionist is a mistake, but having no receptionist can be just as bad. If your firm doesn't have a designated receptionist, I'd reconsider. But if it's just impossible, the firm must still have someone properly trained to answer the telephone, which is not as easy as it sounds. And the firm must also have someone available at all times to greet visitors to the firm.
I visited a law firm recently that is set up for a receptionist - there's a lobby with a reception desk, but no receptionist. The law firm hadn't had any success with the position and has decided, at least for the time being, to allow that position to remain vacant. But what kind of impression does that leave on a visitor?
Clients or prospects arriving at the firm are likely to be nervous, anxious, and uncomfortable already - visiting a lawyer is usually not on the top of anyone's list of things to do for a good time. It is the job of the law firm, and of the receptionist as the person with whom the client comes into contact first, to put the client at ease and to make them as comfortable as possible in a difficult situation. Forcing clients to wait in the lobby on their own, not knowing what to do, forms an immediate poor impression of the firm. How does the client know if the receptionist just stepped out? How long does the client wait before someone happens to walk by? Should the client enter the office on their own and go looking for help? (A bad idea, not just for the effect it has on the client, but also because it's a security risk to allow anyone to just wander around your office on their own) A client that is put in this position is likely to form an opinion that the law firm isn't concerned about his/her needs. If they don't even have someone to greet visitors, what other aspects of the practice are missing?
For more great posts on receptionists, see Michelle Golden's post on Golden Practices: Directors of First Impressions Really Are, where she points out that "Receptionists are a leading indicator of doing business with a company or firm;" Tom Kane's post, How Much Do You Pay Your Receptionist? from the Legal Marketing Blog, which suggests that perhaps your receptionist should be the highest paid person in your firm; Gerry Riskin's post Seth Godin's Receptionists from the Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices blog, where he describes his firm's herculean efforts to find the right receptionist - and the huge dividends it paid for his firm; and finally Seth Godin's post, Receptionists, which seems to have started the others down the path of discussing this vitally important position.
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