Jane Streat, Head of Client Services at Lexington Reception, talks support staff and what they mean to our business.
It’s surprising the number of organisations that fail to make the most of skilled support staff to improve efficiency and address skills shortages. There’s nothing worse than walking in to a reception area and being greeted by a sign on the reception desk indicating that no-one is currently present to help. This might be the first contact that visitor has had with the business and it doesn’t leave a positive lasting impression – it suggests that there are better things to do than deal with them, completely the opposite of how a customer or guest should feel.
Operationally there are normally ‘good’ reasons why there’s no-one manning the front desk. But I would argue that customers should always come first and an unmanned desk is simply not an option at any time, irrespective of the circumstances.
This is where support staff can come in. We have a team of support staff, working across our business, who are ready to move at a moments notice and there to provide extra support across our client sites when employees need to go on training courses, during staff absence or to provide support during exceptionally busy periods.
They are experienced, flexible and there to make an immediate difference. They can also provide additional skills, which the team may need for a particular project. Enhanced support roles have many advantages and have been shown to benefit clients, guests and hard-pressed employees: they ensure we provide the high level of customer service 100% of the time and have the skills required to support clients effectively through all the requirements for their business.
Support staff help us move our business forward by sharing best practice across all of our client sites, helping to maintain a seamless service to our clients, and they themselves get an immense amount of satisfaction in having the variety and being able to work as part of a larger team across the business.
They are like our site based team acting as ambassadors and leading by example, inspiring others and encouraging a better understanding across our client sites of how our business operates as a whole, which helps consistency and drives best practice.
There are very few employers who don’t use support staff at some point in time. But the reality is very few organisations maximise the use of these individuals when they bring them in.
We work hard to ensure we select people with the right skills and invest the time to ensure they understand the needs and culture of the organisation they are going into so that that can really add a value straight away.
