The role of a Receptionist

If you were to google ‘A receptionist’s duties’ a few years ago, you would typically find the role described as: answering phones, taking messages, typing and having a pretty, friendly smile.

Man, how this role has changed over the years.

Your receptionist is your businesses’ first point of contact and it is therefore essential that your receptionist is friendly, helpful and inviting. However, a lot more duties have been added to this role.

Here at Varntige, our receptionist role has evolved to more than answering the phone and taking messages. Our receptionist is often seen as the go to for any job that needs completing within quick time frames.

One of the services Varntige offers to our clients is that of answering phones and dealing with queries for our client’s businesses. As the world has moved to a more digital platform in the last few years, this includes having access to online calendars to allow our receptionist to manage our client’s emails and calendars too by booking/rescheduling meetings for them etc. It is important that a receptionist has the ability to multi-task.

Here at Varntige we use Voip softphones. This allows us to have access to a number of different phone lines. We can either have a new number assigned to a client directly or a client’s existing number can be ported to us. This enables our receptionist to have full control of the phone system, ensuring all phone’s work properly. As our team of VA’s often work from home too, it is important to have all phone lines working correctly so that everyone is reachable and able to contact their clients. Our receptionist ensures this all runs smoothly.

The typing skill that most receptionists had on the top of their CV in the good old days, has also evolved into a more perplexed role. Where documents are no longer just a plain straight forward document, but are now created in different software programs dependent on what the document would be used for such as presentations etc. Our reception here at Varntige has evolved to a role that requires more knowledge, more editing skills and basic design.

Having a receptionist who is willing to and more importantly, able to take on many different tasks at once to assist the different departments in a business, most certainly helps complete the business circle.