Originally published by The Mercury News. Re-posted with permission.
It’s good to make a great first impression when welcoming visitors or clients into your organization’s reception area. The reception area is the face of your brand, and you should make sure that it has an immediate warm, welcoming, wow factor.
A sleek reception will not only relate to the positive aspects of the organization, but it will also act as a catalyst for conversations before you get down to real business. Here are the must-haves for the reception areas in a modern office.
With the advancing technology, it would be very awkward to have your visitors or clients line up for hours to write their names and sign to be allowed to access the next point. Too, data privacy is very crucial, and it’s rare to find a customer who is satisfied with having their details exposed.
Having a proper visitor management system will ensure that you meet and exceed the expectations of the number of clients while keeping their details safe. Greetly.com offers a comprehensive visitor management system that makes the reception smarter and impresses the visitors. In today’s times, office security is of prime importance and a smart visitor management tool is your best option to ensure optimum security.
Introducing greenery with indoor plants has positive wellness benefits as they help to brighten the reception area with a little color. Depending on the intensity of the natural light the reception area gets, there shall always be plants to suit it. Even though most reception areas have low access to natural light, it’s advisable to choose indoor plants which require low maintenance.
Apart from brightening the area, the indoor plants also provide your visitors, staff and clients with biophilic elements that help to enhance their moods. In addition, indoor plants improve the reception area quality by removing volatile organic compounds like carbon dioxide.
When designing the lighting system of your reception, it’s important that you pay attention to the details and finding the right balance that will ensure that the reception area won’t appear too stark and clinical or too warm and homey. In your reception, make sure that all bulbs in poor working conditions are repaired or replaced immediately after they are noticed.
You can also use fluorescent tubes that mostly emit light in the blue and white spectrum, making them perfect for illuminating the reception area. The positioning of the bulbs is also crucial as it ensures that the light is properly distributed in the whole room.
Using magazines with dog-eared pages that have been leafed through beyond their publish date is a complete turn-off for too many visitors and clients who might visit your organization. You should invest in a collection of table books for displays that are relevant at that time.
Make sure that you use that as an opportunity to show that you are a cultured brand in that chosen industry. The topics chosen should offer a wide knowledge about the products being displayed, and the content contained should often be updated to ensure that it meets the market’s requirements.
Choosing comfortable furniture for the office reception is never a lap of luxury. In this case, you have to keep in mind that your clients or visitors won’t be kicking back for a couple of hours on Netflix and so you don’t have to keep them sinking too far into a couch.
A layout that works well with your reception design is important as it helps to avoid cluttering the place. The color of the furniture should not be too reflective on being hit by light rays as it will make the customers very unstable.