Front office
Front office or reception is an area where visitors arrive and first encounter staff at a place of business. Front office staff will deal with whatever question the visitor has, and put them in contact with an appropriate person at the company. Broadly speaking, front office includes roles that affect the right side (revenues) of trading statement of the business. The term front office is in contrast to the term "back office" which refers to a company's operations, personnel, accounting, payroll and financial departments which do not interact directly with customers.
The front office receives information about the customers then will pass onto the other department of the company. The front office can also contact with marketing and sales department when the customers have questions on it. The company needs to give training to the front office manager because this position will contact with customers the most.
Staff working in the front office can also deal with simple tasks, such as sorting emails and helping on printing and typing tasks. Front office staff need to use different skills on technologies too, such as using the printers, fax machines and phone. This is the reason why training is needed before the staffs started to work, although some might only be simple tasks. The most common work for the front office worker will be a mix of getting in touch with customers and also helping out internally in the office.
Front office is related to a service delivery system, where employees engage with customers. It uses the parameter of labor intensity to figure out the distinctive characteristics of a service.
Hotels
At hotels, front office refers to the front desk or reception area or the core operations department for the hotel. This would include the reception and front desk, as well as reservations, sales and marketing, housekeeping and concierge. Here is the place where customers first arrive in the hotel, which they can check in in the front office. Employees working in the front office will also help customers about problems and complaints.
The front office in the hotel industry, also called the reception area, which the receptionist is the one who get in touch with the customers, most importantly, confirm their reservation and answering their questions.
The employees who work in the lobby of the hotel are also part of the front office as they get in touch with customers directly. They will show customers the way and carry the luggage for them. There are different parts in the front office of a hotel, which included reception, providing services when customers asked, mailing information, concierge and employees who manage with money (cashier).
Sports
In some sports activity, the front office usually gets in touch with the players and organizes activities for them. The front office staff is usually the one has the highest position in the sports team, who can control the whole team.[1]
Challenges faced
The motivation of the front office staff might be low as they are doing repeated work and usually their pays are the lowest compared to other staff in other departments. This is a very important issue as these staff members will get in touch with customers the most and this might affect the profitability and efficiency of the company. The staff members might have high levels of stress as they might always meet bad-tempered customers and they might get a lot of complaints, making it hard for front office staff members to maintain their good services. The staff face many challenges and stress due to stubborn customers.
One of the biggest challenges that front office staff might face in the hotel industry would be over booking. This might lead to low reputation to the company as bad communication and organization skills are discovered. This might also lead to unsatisfactory of customers
Continuous training should be provided to front office staff, as this will improve their services, which is needed to provide for customers. Paying higher salary to staff can also increase their motivation
The phone system could be configured such that the company can track the calls that are missed by the front office. This can help them get to the customers as soon as possible so the business can answer their questions.
References
- ↑ "What does front office staff do?". wiseGEEK. Retrieved 14 October 2014.