DON’T Ring Bell for Assistance - Greetly Visitor Registration

Greetly’s mission is to modernize your office’s reception area. Nothing reminds us of the lobby dark ages more than the infamous “ring bell for assistance” sign. “Ring bell...” sends the message to your visitors that they just aren’t that important to your company and that you don’t care about your employees’ productivity. Otherwise, you would implement a visitor management system.

What “Ring Bell for Assistance” Says to Visitors

Take a second to think about who comes through your office’s reception area. Your visitors likely include your customers, your most important vendors, and prospective employees. It is important to create a great first impression for these high-priority visitors. From a functional standpoint, the goal for your reception area should be to make visitors comfortable and to efficiently connect them with their host employees.

Unfortunately, the “ring bell” sign will have the opposite results. Rather than conveying “modern office”, the $5 bell screams “cheap”. After ringing the bell, visitors will typically be confronted with the closest employee; someone who is unprepared to welcome the visitor, and who then needs to scramble to find the right employee.

How “Ring Bell for Assistance” Impacts Employees

Having visitors ring a bell also diminishes your company’s productivity. Research at the University of California, Irvine suggests that employees take 25 minutes, on average, to return to the previous task after every workplace distraction. Over the course of the workday, employees lose an average of 2.1 hours from interruptions.

The “ring bell...” sign also turns your employees into de facto receptionists. Given that receptionists have low job satisfaction levels, this surely has a negative impact on employee morale. This is especially true for employees whose workstations are closest to the reception area. It also takes employees away from the higher value tasks you hired them to do.

Become Smarter Than the Bell

The bell also leaves no trace as to who came to your office, who they visited, when they came and left, and why they came. Replace the bell with a visitor registration app. This will provide valuable information in measuring employee productivity and utilization. More importantly, if your office ever experienced an emergency evacuation, having a detailed visitor log allows you to verify the safety of everyone that was onsite.

Conclusion

Let’s face it, there are several ways your “ring bell for assistance” sign works against your company. From how outsiders view your organization to your self-inflicted productivity losses. Even if the sign only appears occasionally when your receptionist steps away from their desk, it's too often.

Create professional impressions with your visitors and improve employee productivity — get Greetly today. The iPad receptionist for the modern office will save you time and money.