How to Cover Your Reception Area During The Receptionist's Absence

The reception area should never be left unattended. 

You might be shaking your head and wondering what you’re supposed to do if the receptionist needs to go and deliver a message or fetch something from another room. Well, it simply can’t happen! If you want your reception area to be as impressive as possible, you need to ensure that when a visitor walks in, they’re never left wondering who they need to report to or why there’s no-one there to help them. 

It doesn’t make for the best first impression, does it?

So, whether you have two reception desks or you just stick to the one, you need to ensure that there is someone there to attend to visitors when they walk into your commercial reception area. 

It’s true that there are going to be times when the receptionist needs to get up and go somewhere. For instance, a receptionist needs to have regular breaks and they need to take their lunch break too. In that case, who should cover for them?

There needs to be someone else in the office who is trained in reception duties, who can cover for the main receptionist whilst they’re out of their reception chair. That person needs to shadow the receptionist for a time, so they can pick up on the nuances of the job and then, they’re able to stand in whenever necessary. Lunch breaks and coffee breaks need to be arranged between those two members of staff to ensure that they never clash, and there is always availability for one of them to cover the reception area. 

This is also very useful if the main receptionist ever takes ill. If the receptionist calls in sick and can’t come to work that day, who is going to cover the reception if no-one else has been trained? Sure, it might cause a little upheaval in the main office, as one member of staff will need to leave their regular office desk and go and cover, but it’s vitally important that they do so.

Having someone to shadow and cover is a great idea for all important customer-facing roles. These are jobs which cannot be left unattended, if you want to ensure that your customers are kept happy and anyone who visitors your space has the best impression of you as a business.