Welcome to empowering your reception team. Never just a receptionist. Hello, my name is Angela and I work for VMG.

I'm the head of group operations and development. I'll start off by telling you that I've never worked in the veterinary sector before. So some of you may ask, what makes me qualified to share with you some insights and ideas I have on empowering your reception team.

And what do I know about the challenges and rewards of being a veteran receptionist? Well, firstly, I have extensive experience in both the hospitality and membership sectors, not to mention working within marketing in various industries. I started off my working career as a receptionist in a hotel.

And I worked my way up in the hospitality sector to a point where I was responsible for managing a front of house and reservations team of over 20 people. In marketing, the section that interests me the most is the people aspect of marketing. Now, some may think of marketing and for that fact, PR as a bit of a show, but if you root your work in the belief that your clients and patients are at the heart of everything you do, then it will come from the heart.

Now I know that, you know, we're all trying to find ways to improve our businesses and it's an important part to try and help us stand out from the competition. So empowering your reception team is a crucial part of this process. During this webinar, we'll discuss how we can empower the reception team to understand and believe in the value that they bring to the practise and the wider impact this has on clients, patients, and their own lives.

So let's look at the learning objectives. We want to understand what we mean by empowering our team and what this looks like in practise. We want to understand why it's important to empower our client care teams and to be able to identify the consequences for our teams and the wider business and ultimately our clients if we don't.

Recognise and understand what our client care team need in order to feel empowered in their jobs. Identify and develop strategies to empower our client care team. Recognise and appreciate the value an empowered client care team has on our clients, the rest of our team, and the business as a whole.

So, what does a receptionist do? We know receptions do a multitude of things. They answer the phone, they book appointments, they deal with queries, they deal with complaints, they deal with praise, hopefully too.

So how many times have we heard someone say, oh, I'm just a receptionist? What is behind that phrase? Cause I remember saying it myself when I started out.

And looking back, there are many reasons why I said that. First of all, I was young and unsure of myself, and I was given no authority to make any decisions, and I felt underappreciated. I felt like the lowest common denominator within the organisation, although ultimately, I had probably the most client interaction.

So I looked at a number of veterinary receptionist role adverts along with those for general reception and hospitality roles, and they have much in common around the words they use to describe the role and the types of individuals they're looking for. So things like being able to deal with customers, customer service, excellent customer care, being able to deal with problems, . You know, emotional intelligence, a real care and understanding and want to actually help people and make their lives a better experience.

So what does it mean to empower people? The word empower means to give someone the authority or power to do something. So you make someone stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their lives and claiming their rights in terms of their ability to be able to make decisions with the support of their managers and the wider team.

So you understand what we mean by empowering the team and what it looks like in practise. Different people may have different interpretations of empowerment, but as I've said earlier, it's about giving people the authority and the power and the knowledge to be able to do. And make decisions.

So to understand why it's important to empower our client care teams. So normally, you want to know what's in it for you. So, it frees up your time to take care of other more complex tasks.

It gives you confidence that they can successfully take care of everyday issues without that issue escalating and needing your intervention, which may take longer to sort out because it has escalated in such a manner. Safe in the fact that your team will make clients feel comfortable in their abilities to manage their issues. So for instance, if a Staff member has made a decision and the client is not happy with it and the staff member has to call you in and say, listen, I made the decision.

This is what I've said to the client, but they're not happy with my response. Being able to stand up and actually say, well, the staff member made the right call, they made the right decision. I stand behind what they've said.

It is a crucial part in building trust and making them feel safe in the fact that they can make decisions. And yes, they don't always get it right, but it's then to be able to take them afterwards and go right. That wasn't quite the decision that I would have taken.

Here is why I wouldn't have made that decision. Well this is how to make a decision better going forward. It's a learning thing.

It also allows you to grow the strong confident team through this constant interaction. What it means for your team. It gives them ownership of the situation they're dealing with.

It grows their confidence in managing and everyday client issues. It makes them feel trusted and valued as individuals, especially if you have their back when the client has actually challenged them on their decision. And if you have trained your team well, they will make educated decisions, make decisions that you would make if you were in their place with all the knowledge that you hold.

Gives them opportunities to develop and grow within the practise as an as an as an individual. Now, empowerment is not giving them more to do. It's about giving them the tools and the confidence they need to make decisions when confronted with an obstacle.

It can be something as simple as a computer not working. What to do about that, what to look at. Firstly, who to call, and having to call a manager is not the actual solution.

It's saying to them, right, if this happens, these are the processes you need to go to to check first, and then if we need to call in a technician, this is who you call, who you ask for, and what we do next. It's also about crucially giving them the opportunity to deal with issues that customers have. And I purposely didn't use the word complaint because clients have issues other than complaints.

And if we empower our teams to deal with them effectively, it will definitely free up your time and make clients feel more confident in the abilities of your team members. So we want to identify the consequences for our team, our clients, and the business if we don't. So for the team, the lack of confidence to deal with any issues will make them come across as less knowledgeable and less sure of themselves when confronted by a client who has an issue.

Frustration in themselves for not being able to take care of a situation on feeling unempowered by having to always call on someone else to deal with the issue for them. Feeling that there is a lack of trust in their abilities and their decision making skills. Decrease job satisfaction.

So not only will they become frustrated in doing their everyday tasks, but they'll become frustrated as individuals and that their job doesn't give them the scope to develop and grow. As people. For your clients, well, the lack of confidence in the ability of their first point of contact to adequately deal with their issue or questions is a huge issue because what you're doing then is you are building up a requirement of always having to speak to the manager, the vet, and then taking up your time dealing with issues that your customer care team so could easily do themselves.

Frustration for the client and having to waste their time waiting for a decision maker or a person to speak to who can make those decisions. Because sometimes, you know, you might be busy, you might be doing an operation, you might be out of the surgery and aren't there to actually give them the answers they want. And we know in this day and age especially, people want answers immediately.

And you also cement the fact that you are the only person they can talk to for a result, so they won't even try and ask reception. They'll ask, they'll come to the front and say, can I speak to the manager, because basically what they want is an answer to their query. They don't want to have to explain themselves a few times before they get an answer.

So they'd rather just cut out the middleman and go straight to the person who can make the decision for them. So we need to recognise what client care teams need in order to feel empowered to do their best. So when we think of staff benefits, we tend to think of the tangible stuff, but sometimes it's an intangible soft stuff which is missing and is important, if not more so.

Talk to your team members, find out what it is they need and want and what they hope to accomplish in the future. For instance, one institution I worked at, I went to reception and I spoke to a couple of receptionists. One receptionist was quite happy just to carry on being a receptionist.

She had no interest in moving upwards or sideways. She was just happy doing her job every day and the tools that she had to work with, she was quite happy in that situation. I spoke to another member of staff who was keen and interested and hungry to move up in in within if not her department, another department.

So then what we did there was we said right, so if an opportunity comes up in this other department for you to do some work experience, i.e. We'll take one of your reception shifts and move you to The membership department and you can work there for a shift if we when we need help.

Then would you be keen on doing that? She said yes, we did that 6 to 8 months down the line, a role became available in that department. She applied for it and got it, so it was a way for her to progress within the organisation, so not necessarily within her department, but another department where she showed an interest and an aptitude for learning.

They do their job on a daily basis, so ask them for ideas to get a better understanding of what they need to support them to becoming empowered to make decisions. So for instance, if you've got two people on reception and the one person says, well, I have to do some input on the computer and having people come up and ask me questions is very off-putting. So what should take me half an hour to do.

Actually takes me 2 hours and it's very frustrating and I lose where I am, so I have to keep on going back and things like that. So it might be useful to remove them from that front desk situation, put them in the back office, give them half an hour to do that task, and then they can come back and support their colleague. That way, they are happy in the fact that they've got the time and space to do that job properly within an a, you know, a time period that kind of fits that that specific task and that they don't feel frustrated when someone comes up to them.

So there's nothing worse as a client or a patient or whatever it is, whichever kind of institution you're in, to walk up to reception and feel like you are interrupting them, that you are Interrupting their everyday job because you are ultimately while they're there, they're at reception to help you, the client or the customer. So having them do other tasks which are better served being done back of house is actually crucial to empowering them to do their jobs. So you could say to reception, right, so when we've got The situation where you have to do this task.

By all means, one of you go to the back and do that task. Now you'll find not everybody is suited to admin and some people are good at it but don't like it. Some people don't like it but are good at it.

So it's trying to find that balance with the team and trying to get them to understand that we all have to do parts of our job that we don't enjoy, but they are necessary to get the work done. So education and knowledge is a very important tool to ensure your team feel empowered. So you're getting them to understand how different departments work, why they work the way they do.

Then they'll have a better appreciation of what goes into other people's jobs, because we all know that all jobs are important within an organisation. They all have their role to play in making sure that the client and ultimately the patient has a pleasant experience with the organisation. So Gaining that knowledge, having that experience of watching what the other departments do, understanding why they do things the way they do, will actually give them more power to be able to adequately deal with any queries that they may have about that department that the client may come with.

Support them, praise them when they handle the situation well, and work with them to improve it when it's not gone as expected. Now there's nothing worse as a receptionist that when you've been given some power to make a decision, you've made a decision, and then the person that you're dealing with says, well, I want to speak to a manager. Now when they come and tell you about the situation, what happened, what they did to resolve the situation, why the client is still unhappy.

You can then Right then and there, say to them, well, that was a good decision. I will stand behind your decision 100%. Let's go to the front and let's deal with it.

Then you say to the customer or the client, you go, James told you that this is our policy with regards to X, Y and Z, and that is exactly it. That is our policy. If you're unhappy, unfortunately there's nothing much we can do about that.

This, this is the way it has to be done for X, Y, and Z reasons. Now, obviously, during a discussion, you may come across more information that James didn't have about that person's query complaint or whatever it is, and then you may decide to change your mind. About the ultimate decision.

Now, when you do that, make sure you take that staff member aside and go right. I backed you, understood why you made this decision you did, but the reason I changed that decision is because of X, Y, and Z. So you might have got more information from that client or you might see things from a different perspective.

Letting that person learn from The decisions that you've made and why you've made them are a crucial part of their development. And obviously when they've made a good decision and you stand behind them 100%, obviously make sure they're aware of that too. So developing strategies to empower teams.

Have the team come together and agree what it is that they feel they can add to the practise within their area of expertise. Now, they may have skills that you're not even aware of. I mean, I know that we, you know, when we hire people, we see their CVs, but over time we forget about the skills that they may have that they don't utilise in their everyday job.

So having them come together and agree what it is they feel they can add to the practise within their area of expertise may actually surprise you. So it's about taking time to sit down with them and coming up with ways of working. Then have policies and procedure in place to support the work that they do.

So there are some people who love to have policies and procedures and go right, well this is what I have to do and this is how I do it. That's all well and good. You have other people who kind of think outside the box and they go, right, these are policies and procedures, but this is how the flex I have within that to do the job that I do to make those decisions without having to call on the manager.

But you need those policies and procedures and frameworks in place to support those who like to work in that manner and those who don't you like a little bit more flex in the way that they work, but at least they know they have the structure in place to support them. Have access to learning. Now obviously, I might be a bit biassed working for VMG, but as a person, I always feel like that you need to constantly learn.

So if you work within a certain organisation, learn about that organisation or help your teams learn about the organisation. Tell them about the history, the background, why things are done the way they are. And not only about the organisation, but within their roles, what kind of courses would they like to do, do they need to do to be able to give them The courage And the confidence to make decisions.

You identify the individuals who can support them in their journey. Have an open door policy, you yourself and any of the other senior managers that they may go to and ask questions and get some understanding of any queries that they may have. Show appreciation for the work that they do.

Now not everybody likes to go, oh, well done, you did a good job and continue like that. And some people do like the constant praise. You've just got to understand your team members and understand who needs constant praise and who will just be happy at the end of the week going, thanks for a lovely week's work.

You really did well. I appreciate you having done this, that and the next thing. So to show them that you are aware of what they're doing and what's going on and that they're not just a Robot sitting at the front desk kind of doing the everyday task.

So we've covered quite a few things in this presentation. And I just want to go over a few things. So we need to recognise and appreciate the value that empowered teams has on the rest of our business and other teams.

So you're building trust in the individual, in the team, in the department, and in the wider team as well. So each department will feel empowered to be able to make decisions. And have the knowledge to know that the decisions they're making are supported by other teams and the wider business.

It demonstrates the value of each department and how working together can contribute to a healthier and happier work environment. It highlights the benefits of the strategies used to empower the team, which you can mirror in other teams and the wider business. And obviously, it leads to a happier, more focused team.

They know what their capabilities are, they know what they're empowered to do, and they don't feel helpless in that they can't make any decisions. And clients will notice the difference, and this will lead to better client satisfaction and continued support. So there will be less occasions where they'll come to the desk and they go, I need to speak to the vet or I need to speak to a manager.

They'll know full well that that team is empowered to make decisions about X, Y, and Z, and if they can't, they know who next to approach. So it might be a veterinary nurse before it even gets anywhere near the vet. Obviously there are decisions and Situations where the vet is the only person someone can speak to, but for reception to feel empowered to know when those occasions arise and what to do about it makes the client also confident in their ability and what they are able to do.

So I hope you've enjoyed the seminar and if you have any questions, feel free to post them afterwards. I'm happy to answer wherever I can, or more importantly, be able to point you in the right direction. Thank you for taking your time.