ETIQUETTE
As the receptionist, you always need to remember to have a smile on your face, greet everyone that comes in or goes out of the office, always maintain good posture and a good attitude. You want to make sure your voice is loud and clear. Our goal is to make this visit pleasant for the homeowners, special visitors, potential clients, vendors, and even managers.
Always dress professionally and make sure you have on a dark blazer along with always wearing your name tag. You may participate in causal Fridays by wearing jeans however you will still need need to make sure you are wearing a dark blazer, your name tag and the appropriate shoes.
VISITORS
Anytime anyone walks into the office, you must greet them. If they are approaching the front desk, you must say “Good Morning” or “Good Afternoon” and ask “How may I help you today?”. When they are leaving the office after you have helped them, you always want to say “Have a great day!”.
If any vendor, specialist visitor, or resident has a scheduled meeting with someone, just take down their name and let them know they can have a seat while you let the team member know they have arrived.
Vendors or other special visitors:
- Vendors will occasionally come into the office to pick something up like a check or key. During Holidays, they stop by more often to drop off goodies for managers or for the office and will ask if certain managers are available. We can always check the EIO Board to see if they are in. If they are in, we can inform the vendor we will send them a message to see if they are available (just because they are in, does not men they can come out to meet the vendor). If per their EIO they are not in or they are in but not available to come out, we just let the vendor know that unfortunately that manager is not available but they can drop off what they have and we will ensure they get it. and send them a message
- Special Visitors are often board members or any other guests that 9/10 times have an appointment with someone. We will of course confirm they have an appointment and if they do we will obtain their name and let them know to have a seat and we will let the person they are here to meet that they have arrived if they do in fact have an appointment. If they don’t, we will still obtain their name and let them know we will see if that person is available. Chat the manager on EIO or call their extension and see if they are available.
Homeowners/Residents
The first thing we want to do when a homeowner/resident requests to speak to someone, is ask if they have an appointment. Below is how you should proceed depending on their answer.
- Appointment: When a homeowner comes in and they have an appointment with someone, ask for their name and let them know they can have a seat while you notify the team member they are here to see.
- No Appointment: When a homeowner/resident comes in asking to speak to someone and they do not have an appointment, we can check EIO to see if the person they are wanting to speak to is in. If they are not in, we will apologize and let them know they are not in the office however we can send them an urgent message to give them a call to discuss or to schedule an appointment. We can offer their email address and even their senior contact information. If they are upset and keep demanding to speak to someone, you can see if their senior manager is in or any other senior manager. If the person they are wanting to speak to shows as available on EIO, we will let them know that we can send them a message to see if they are available and gather the following information if you don’t already have it:
- Name
- Address or name of the Association they are here in regards to
- The reason for wanting to speak with the person they are requesting to speak to.
At this point, let them know they can have a seat while you check if they are available.
Chat this information to the person they are here to see and ask if they are available to please come out and assist. Follow up with a phone call if they don’t respond within 2 minutes to check if they are at their ask and ask them if they can please come out to assist the H/O. If they don’t reply to they chat or the phone call, inform the homeowner/resident that unfortunately they are not available and offer to send them an urgent message to give them a call to discuss and/or to schedule an appointment. You can of course offer their contact information also and escalate to senior managers as needed.
HOLDING CALLS
Community Care has the option of sending calls up to the front desk to hold for a manager or any other team member at Action listed on the EIO Board. Our Goal is to reach someone as soon as possible. Below are the proper steps to ensure a smooth transfer and/or result:
- When the call is being transferred to you by someone, make sure to check EIO to make sure it shows them as available or else you can’t hold the call. Also always obtain the following information before they transfer the call to you from the phone rep:
- The name of the Association the caller is calling in regards to
- The caller’s name
- The reason for the caller wanting to speak with the person they are holding for
- Once all the information has been provided to you, chat the manager or person the caller is holding for and give them the info provided to you and let them know the person is refusing to get off the phone until they take the call and to please let you know once they are available to have the call transferred.
- If they do not respond to your chat after 2 minutes, you can try to call their extension.
- Please be sure to pick up the phone every 3 minutes to advise the homeowner we are still trying to reach the manager. At this point, you need to ask them if they wish to continue to hold or if they would like for you to have the manager return their phone call.
- If after 3 minutes the caller is still wanting to hold and the manager has not replied to your message or answered your call, you can check to see if their senior manager is available to take the call.
- A last resort is to page that manager should the person who is holding is very upset and still refusing a call back.
PAGING
Very rarely you will you have to page someone in the office but it is an option should you need to get a hold of someone who is in the Irvine office urgently. Whether it’s because someone is in the office or someone transferred a call to you that requires someone to be paged to take the call.
- To page:
- If you have a caller is on hold, select the “New Call” option before paging or else it will drop the call you are holding.
- Press PAGE on the phone.
- The phone will ring and then beep.
- Use the below script when paging (you say this twice):
- First Name, Last Name, Please Extension 2000.
- First Name, Last Name, Please Extension 2000.
- Press the release button to hang up the paging call.
VOICEMAIL
When someone leaves a voicemail in our general voicemail box, they go to our Afterhours Five9 voicemail inbox. If a voicemail is available, and you are “ready” for voicemails, you will see the voicemail section in the menu light up red to let you know one is ready for you.
This is what a voicemail looks like when it comes in. You hit accept to process it.
From here you can play the message. Once you have heard it you will either handle the voicemail or pass along the message to the correct team member. No matter if you will handle it or forward it, voicemails MUST be noted under the property address of the person who left the message when we have that available to us.
If you need to forward the voicemail to someone, you will click on the download button, compose a new email in Five9 from CC Priority, drag and attached the downloaded voicemail, and email it to whoever it needs to go to.
- Subject: VOICEMAIL: HOA Name & Address (If any is provided)
- EMAIL MESSAGE: Attached is a voicemail that was left for you on___(Date & Time)___.
Once you are done with the voicemail, you hit “VM Processed” in the top right corner to complete it and move to the next one.
All messages used to be logged in the Phone Log that is saved in the: T:Drive -> Community Care -> Reception ->Voicemail. We are no longer required to note them on this log since we are now noting their address when we have their address available to us to note. You can still use this log to type out of your notes if you want to but again this is no longer required.
