Delivering Excellent Customer Service: 9 Front Desk Training Best Practices You Need To Know

Every employee in your business plays a role in delivering satisfactory customer service that makes your customers want to return. Out of all of them, however, your front desk staff is at the front line of your customer experience.

Thus, to transform your customer service, you need to have effective front desk training.

Why Is It Important To Have Proper Front Desk Training In Your Company?

Customer service has a significant impact on profitability for large-scale organizations down to small businesses.

Consider the following statistics:

• 83% of customers are more loyal to businesses that acknowledge and address their concerns, according to a 2023 report by Khoros on customer service.
• You can increase your company’s profits by at least 25% if you increase your customer retention rate by 5%, according to a study by Bain & Company on customer loyalty.
• Only one in five customers would forgive a poor customer service experience, as reported by Qualtrics XM Institute in a 2020 study, “ROI of Customer Experience.”

Your front desk stands at the forefront of facilitating satisfactory customer service. Thus, it’s vital to invest in implementing the most effective training protocols that will equip them with the skills to accommodate your guests.

9 Front Desk Training Best Practices

1. Review and realign job scope with employee performance and bandwidth

During operations, the workload of your front desk staff may fluctuate depending on customer volume and business growth. While you can cut back on the workload based on the original job scope of the employee, you can take this as an opportunity to upskill and promote (if possible) the employee.

How to implement:

• Actively monitor individual employee workload compared to their original responsibilities
• Discuss and offer promotion opportunities to excelling employees
• If they refuse the offer, cut back on their workload, or delegate it to another employee with additional compensation

2. Conduct regular individual and group performance reviews

Performance reviews allow employees to have a clear picture of their impact on customer service. It’s ideal to conduct performance reviews on both an individual and group level, as team synergy may be absent despite the excellent individual performance of each employee.

How to implement:

• Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) that target vital areas of front desk operations
• Conduct two quarterly meetings to discuss performance: the first being an individual assessment of each employee’s performance, and the second being a team meeting to assess group performance
• Provide specific feedback on how key performance areas can be improved on an individual and group level

3. Reiterate your company’s products and services

One of the most important roles that your front desk plays is in answering customer inquiries about your business offerings. Ensuring their complete knowledge and understanding of your products and services will equip them to answer your customer’s questions sufficiently.

How to implement:

• Create and provide access to a digital version of a catalog or guidebook listing and detailing each product and service of your business
• Collaborate with your sales team or product development team to conduct quarterly presentations about your products and services
• Gamify the learning process by giving digital quizzes at random intervals that have small incentives for completion

4. Manage and clarify career advancement opportunities

When your business is able to have significant growth, promoting your current front desk team is essential to match and support the progression. Clarifying meaningful career growth opportunities drives your staff to grow in a systematic manner.

How to implement:

• Determine whether horizontal or vertical role advancements are possible with your current growth and team size
• For vertical progression, provide training opportunities on management and strategy
• For horizontal progression, instruct the employees on additional skills they need to learn to excel

5. Maintain fundamental skills and provide upskill opportunities when possible

No matter what stage of growth your company is at, your front desk team should maintain a standard level of their skills. At the same time, it’s very beneficial for both your business and the employee to provide them with upskill opportunities that match their current role and the needs of your company.

How to implement:

• Conduct refresher receptionist training sessions on a regular basis
• Adjust workload based on your staff’s abilities in line with company needs
• Integrate new technologies and techniques that help improve your staff’s skills

6. Facilitate an environment where staff can share their suggestions and concerns

Your staff may have valuable input on what kind of training or improvement may help increase their productivity at work.

How to implement:

• Encourage your staff to send their recommendations or concerns via email
• Hold open forums where you discuss previous agenda and concerns with your staff
• Distribute forms on a regular basis that allow your staff to rate key metrics and share feedback

7. Engage in regular 1-on-1 discussions with each employee

Your employees may be experiencing stagnation in their work. Having a private discussion with each employee lets you have a detailed perspective of their needs and desires while giving them a sense of belonging that can help break their stagnation.

How to implement:

• Assign each employee to schedule their 1-on-1 meeting at the beginning of each quarter
• Delegate their supervisors to discuss with their assigned employees
• Ask every employee about how they’re feeling about their work, what they think can be improved, and what their long-term goals are in terms of their career

8. Send “mystery shoppers”

Mystery shoppers are people you hire to engage with your front desk staff to evaluate their day-to-day performance. They provide a controlled means of testing your staff’s ability to deal with specific customer situations outside of a training environment.

How to implement:

• Diversify the selection of your mystery shoppers based on your target demographics
• Assign specific mystery shoppers to real-life scenarios (e.g., asking questions about your company’s offerings, being frustrated with a misunderstanding over appointment scheduling, etc.)
• Keep the identities of mystery shoppers anonymous

9. Establish trust and camaraderie among your front desk staff

Employees are more motivated to improve when they’re surrounded by colleagues whom they trust.

How to implement:

• Conduct role-playing activities (e.g., call answering or call handling) where employees can learn and share feedback with each other for improvement
• Hold team-building activities on a regular basis for your front desk staff as well as employees from other departments to build rapport
• During times of tension, facilitate a discussion to understand each side and dissolve the conflict through reasonable compromise

Elevate Your Customer Service To Launch Your Company Into Success

The front desk plays an essential role in any business. They greet and accommodate customers, address their concerns, and perform administrative tasks while the rest of your staff do what they do best. Thus, to ensure general success for your business, invest a great deal into effective front desk training for significant returns in customer retention.

To bring your front desk to the next level, you have to go remote. WelcomeWare is a live-streaming virtual receptionist software and hardware solution that empowers your front desk staff so they can deliver the best possible customer service experience for your guests across multiple locations.