Connecting People

A few years back I was visiting a client’s office for the first time. A middle aged gentleman was at the reception desk in a not so large area on the second floor of an elegant yet modest office building. He greeted me with a warm smile just like someone would welcome a relative or a close friend to his house. Of course, that gentleman was multi tasking- he minds the visitors, attends incoming phone calls, makes outgoing calls based on the request of employees to talk to clients, employees or vendors at different locations.

Contrast this with another large company reception lobby I visited many times. The lobby of about 1000 square feet area, aesthetically designed with water bodies on both sides and a large bronze vessel holding lotus petals welcome you as you enter. There are couple of large TV monitors showing live news from business channels. The walls are adorned with impressive art works. When you walk 50 feet into the lobby you see two young ladies at the reception desk busy handling the telephone console and the computer monitors. They are quite oblivious of the visitors as they are aware that the visitors have been screened through a metal detector, their identities have been verified, face photographed by a web camera and printed on to a guest pass hung around their neck. Besides, there is a low ranking company employee accompanying the guest to the concerned official.

The obvious contrast is that the first one was a mid-size company office with limited guests and the second one, a large company office with hundreds of visitors coming every day. So one can’t find fault with the elaborate and multi-stage procedures for screening, receiving and documenting details of all the visitors. As organizations grow beyond a certain size processes, systems and automation take centre-stage and people tend to be busy controlling or using the systems.

In both places, the front office staffs are ‘connecting’ people. However, the difference is stark. While the gentleman in the first office was connecting the visitor to the official of the organization, he was also connecting with the visitor. In other words, he felt that the visitor is as much his guest as the company’s guest. The ladies at the second office did not feel the same way. They were connecting visitors to the company officials but not connecting with the visitors. Probably it is no fault of theirs. They might have been trained not to engage with the visitors for greater efficiency. And they knew that someone in need would approach them and ask for help. A thousand smiles per day at strangers is no easy task in any case.

From a company point of view both these companies must be thinking that they are doing the right thing. Both may be running successful global businesses and may not feel the need for any change. But the visitor’s point of view could be different. Would one like to go thru X-Ray machines and security procedures and computer guided processes amidst unwelcoming front office staff? Or would one cherish an occasional smiling face?

Does the smile at the front desk have anything to do with the company culture? I guess, yes. The company culture is not reserved for the warehouse or back office it is as much for the front office.

A great edifice impresses. A good smile impacts! 

“We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do”- Mother Teresa