How the Best Industrial Companies Plan for Emergencies
The best industrial emergency planning requires a great planning team, careful consideration of the hazards facing your company, and thorough plans that are kept updated.
Physical Security Basics For Technology and Software Companies
Physical security is as important as ever for software and technology companies. Protect your digital assets from on-site threats with these precautions.
Company Culture and Dealing with PND Syndrome
Positive company culture is critical for your employees and customers. Learn about the values and culture of The Receptionist and dealing with PND Syndrome.
How Virtual Meetings Are Changing The Legal Field
Virtual meeting tools are changing how we work together, and the legal field is no exception. Learn how these tools help lawyers save money and time.
The Benefits of Safety Videos for Factory Visitors
It’s your job to keep factory visitors safe, and adding mandatory safety videos to the check-in process is one way to help.
Before You Purchase Your Software, Consider the Jobs To Be Done
Before you make a purchase, consider the jobs that you hire that product or service to do. We cover why jobs to be done matters for our company and yours.
How to Plan for an Office Move
Office moves can be stressful. The best results come with careful planning and buy-in from the whole staff.
4 Administrative Tools for Modern Private Health Clinics
Running a private health clinic can be complicated, but these software tools can make it easier.
Good Customer Service Isn’t Good Enough: Go Radical with Your Support
Customer support is often a business’s focus, but good customer service isn’t enough. We introduce radical customer service and how to achieve it.
Here’s How the GDPR Will Affect Your Visitor Check-In Process
Any company that values its customers’ right to privacy should be paying attention to the GDPR and how it affects visitor check-in policies.
4 Signs You’re Ready for an Office Upgrade
At what point do the costs of having insufficient office space begin to outweigh the costs of moving into a better one? Here are a few clues that your business is ready for an upgrade.
From Old School to New School.
We’re talking about why to shift from old school to new school ways of running your front office, including using visitor management software.
Can a Virtual Receptionist be as Friendly as a Live Receptionist?
Virtual receptionists have plenty of perks, but can they actually feel personal? Once you employ a few of these best practices, you may find that your visitor management software can be surprisingly friendly, personal, and welcoming.
Featured Business — Symmetry, LLC
As more companies turn to cloud hosting and outsourced enterprise application management, the security of data and who has access to it — both digitally and physically — is a chief concern among IT professionals.
At Symmetry, LLC, an…
How the “Internet of Things” is Creating the Office of the Future
The internet of things isn't just for manufacturing and building maintenance. It's showing up in white collar offices in these ways.
No More “Office Mom”: How Your Company Should Delegate the Tasks that Make Office Life Comfortable
Is someone in your office unofficially in charge of making it a comfortable and pleasant place to work? It’s time to give them official recognition.
How to Get Your Office Ready for a Visitor Management System
Before you launch visitor management software in your office, make sure you’re ready by taking these steps.
Why Your Company Might Need a “Director of First Impressions”
Today, it’s more important than ever to make a good impression on office visitors. Putting someone in charge of managing those impressions can have a big impact on your company’s bottom line.
The Role of Face-to-Face Meetings in a Digital World
Despite all the advantages of quick, convenient digital communication, in-person meetings can still give you the upper-hand in many business scenarios.
The History and Future of The Office Receptionist
The receptionist role has changed a lot in the hundreds of years that people have filled it, but the role remains an important one in any organization.
What Manufacturers Need to Know About Industry 4.0
Just as homes are becoming “smart homes,” factories have the potential to transform into “smart factories.” Here’s what you need to know.
A Few Time-Saving SaaS Tools for Every Modern Workplace
New SaaS tools for businesses streamline hiring, onboarding, training, and other distracting processes for businesses.
Featured Business — Alex E. Navidad, PLC
Alex Navidad is a Phoenix, Ariz.-based business owner and building manager who must constantly balance between offering value to his building tenants and managing costs.
So in 2017, when he began considering how to make the reception area of his…
Here’s Why Your Website Needs Live Chat
Live chat features can be a cost-effective way to reach both existing and potential customers right when they want to connect with you.
5 Ways to Style a Beautiful Reception Area
Here are five great ideas for reception area styles, along with some suggestions on how to bring each one to life.
Happy Employees Refer Their Friends: How to Build a Hiring Referral System
Put yourself in your employees’ shoes and develop a referral system that they’ll love to use, keeping the following three rules in mind.
Try These “Wow Features” in Your Reception Area
Make an impression on office visitors with a can’t-miss, statement-making feature for visitors to see as soon as they walk into the reception area.
Featured Business — MRZ
Technology continues to disrupt the way companies do business, and seemingly no industry is safe.
As more of Houston-based CPA firm MRZ’s services and interactions with clients moved to the digital space, it shifted the way the 100-person company…
4 Modern Tools for the High-Tech Office (Hint: These Will Impress Both Guests and Employees)
These well-designed, modern office tools can boost productivity for your whole team and make your office a more inviting place to work.
How to Structure Job Roles to Appeal to Millennial Candidates
By incorporating millennials’ top priorities into your job roles, you can attract better candidates and improve the rest of your company in the process.
For a Fun, Playful Office, Add These Elements
Play isn’t just for kids. It also has productivity and health benefits for employees. Plus, playful office features can be great for your brand.
Featured Business — eCycle Solutions
eCycle Solutions, an Ontario-based electronics recycling and information technology asset disposition (ITAD) provider, prides itself on ensuring that when a customer’s electronics enter its facilities, they are recycled in a way that ensures data security, worker health and safety, and…
4 Strategies for Recruiting Top Tech Talent
Companies that want to hire talented programmers need to offer more than just the basics. Here are 4 strategies that will get your job noticed.
Expecting a VIP Guest at Your Office? Here’s How to Treat Them Right
Make an extra effort for important office visitors. A little planning and some simple reception tactics make a big impression.
Using Your Office Dress Code to Impress Visitors
Whether or not there’s an official dress code in the employee handbook, your office’s silent dress code makes an impression. Is it the one you want to make?
Visitors Shouldn’t Have to Wait to Check In: Here’s How to Eliminate Lines in Reception
There are several simple steps you can take to make sure your company’s guests are never kept waiting in the reception area.
Is Your Company Coming off Poorly in Job Interviews? 4 Things to Check
It’s essential to make a great impression on job candidates throughout their interviews. Here are three ways to do it.
A Look Back at 2017
With 2017 officially behind us, we here at The Receptionist want to take a moment to reflect on what turned out to be our best year ever as a company.
We grew at an incredible pace, thanks to our amazing…
3 Ways Your Reception Area Makes an Impression
Your office’s reception area makes an impression on visitors. Whether that impression is good or bad depends on its aesthetics, staff, and tools.
Featured Business — Contours Studios
Contours Studios is a mindful movement studio that offers clients a high-end boutique studio experience with services that include Pilates, Hatha and Vinyasa yoga, Tai Chi, meditations, and movement training, among other services.
But with as rejuvenating as the studio’s…
Credit: Transport Executive
Attracting the Best Job Candidates: 4 Subtle Factors That May Tip the Scales in Your Favor
To attract the best applicants, smart companies take advantage of every opportunity to make a good impression.
Why We Respond to All of Our Reviews (Positive and Negative)
Responding to every online review is time consuming, but it’s an integral part of responsive customer support. Here’s why.
Should Your Logistics Company be C-TPAT Certified?
Government certification can be complex and take months, but the benefits of C-TPAT partnership for logistics companies are hard to ignore.
User Experience Basics for a Visitor Check-In System
If your visitor management system isn’t pleasant to use, it could backfire on your branding and automation efforts. Here’s how to test its usability.
How to Build Your Company’s Own Visitor Management System
If you’re considering having a visitor management system built specifically for your company’s needs, here’s what to keep in mind.
How a Service-Focused SaaS Company Handles Feature Requests
Feature requests for your SaaS program are valuable, but can be tricky to track and prioritize. Create a feature request management system with these steps.
Defining RADICAL Support®
Most companies settle for “good” customer service. But the companies who focus on exceptional customer service are the ones that really thrive.
Security Lessons from FedRAMP-Compliant Companies
Could it benefit your company to use some of the official security protocols required for hosting government cloud solutions?
Hiring a Front Office Manager? Check for These Soft Skills
You may know which technical skills your receptionist needs. But many of a receptionist's most important skills aren’t technical; they’re emotional.
Why You Need to Categorize Your Business Visitors
Every visitor management system should start with an analysis of who comes through your organization’s doors. Here’s what to consider.
Credit: musicoomph.com
8 Ways to Structure Your Business’ Front Office
If you hire a receptionist, they’ll likely be responsible for much more than checking visitors in. Here are some roles to consider.
The Best Customer Support is All About Real Relationships
Authentic relationships between your customers and staff are at the heart of the best customer support teams.
The 6 Ways Business Receptions Can Get Awkward (And How to Avoid Them)
We’ve all been in reception areas that give off weird vibes. Don’t let it happen at your company.
How to Design Your Visitors’ Badges
Visitor badges aren’t complicated — not at first glance. It might seem like designing one would be easy: Choose a template, fill it out, and move on.
However, poorly designed visitor badges can cause problems
When the information on these…
Should Visitors to Your Company Sign NDAs?
There are a lot of ways to accidentally expose sensitive information to your company’s visitors.
Trust us: We’ve heard plenty of cringe-worthy stories on the topic from our customers. (There’s nothing like a confused, unescorted visitor stumbling into a confidential…
Here’s What Happens When Your CEO Takes Customer Calls
Many companies are happy to pay lip service to the idea of being customer-centric.
It makes sense: Companies exist to fill customer needs. If you don’t focus on those needs, your business will struggle.
That’s why most companies are smart…
Featured Business — B Sharp School of Music
B Sharp School of Music inspires students of all ages to “sharpen their minds through music.” The private music school, started by Heidi Garcia, operates out of an old Victorian house in downtown Lodi, CA, with a recently opened second…
Featured Business – Viva MedSuites
Coworking spaces are trendy among small businesses and entrepreneurs. But could they work for the medical community? Judging from the early success of Viva MedSuites, a medical coworking space that opened in Scottsdale, AZ, last month, the answer is…
A New Logo and Website
Over the past two years we focused on modernizing the look of our application and improving our features to make them easier to use and even more configurable. Throughout all of this change, there was one thing that had stayed…
Featured Business — Flying Axes
Looking for something fun to do for your next office get-together or birthday party? How about axe-throwing?
Never heard of it? Neither had Zack Pennington and the team at Flying Axes until they tried it during a trip to Canada,…
Featured Customer: Herkimer Central School District
Herkimer Central School District (HCSD) serves a small student body of 1,200 from kindergarten to grade 12 in Herkimer, New York, just 15 miles east of Utica. The teachers, faculty, and staff who run HCSD believe strongly in preparing students…
CCTV system security in warehouse of factory chemical blur background.
Food Defense Mitigation Strategies: How to Keep Your Facility Safe
You have a food safety plan in place, you’ve verified your foreign suppliers, and your delivery vehicles meet the requirements for sanitary transportation. Concerning FSMA, you’re feeling like everything’s “so far, so good.”
But you aren’t quite done yet. The…
Featured Business — Highfive
Do you remember your last team video conference? How long did it take you to set up the connection in the first place, and how many times did someone’s audio cut out right in the middle of a sentence?
Despite…
Featured Customer — CHS America
Community Health Solutions of America, Inc. (CHS) is an expert at providing comprehensive care coordination solutions. This includes holistic care management for members, providers, and hospitals. In addition to CHS, the Premier Family of Companies also includes Premier Administrative Solutions…
Feature Update: Visit Summary Emails, Photo Capture Updates, and New Printer Options
When was the last time you updated The Receptionist app on your iPad? We’re giving you a really good reason to do just that this week. Nothing works until you update your app so do that first. The Receptionist places…
Featured Business — K-TECHnologies
It’s a tall order to design, manufacture, and assemble electronic and electromechanical products that absolutely cannot fail — but that’s exactly what K-TECHnologies has been doing since 1997. Located in Buffalo, NY, K-TECHnologies offers electronic manufacturing services for the military,…
Who Has Access to Your Food Facility? How a Visitor Management System Can Help You Comply with FSMA
Implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is in full swing. And now that the food industry is becoming more confident in its ability to meet the food safety requirements of the Preventive Controls Rules, many companies are turning…
Featured Business — Mecaer America
Mecaer America, a division of Mecaer Aviation Group, is located in Laval, Québec, Canada. Mecaer designs and manufactures hydraulic and mechanical systems and components for the aerospace market. Its products include flight controls, landing gears, actuators, dampers, valves, and…
Featured Customer — Riverside EpiCenter
The Riverside EpiCenter, located in the Atlanta metro area, is a bustling event center that serves to inspire and empower the local community. The space spans a massive 113,000 square feet, containing the Bronner Center for the Performing Arts,…
Featured Customer — Luno
The future of currency is changing, and Luno is at the forefront of that transformation. Luno launched in 2013 as a way for people to safely and easily buy, sell, store, and trade Bitcoin, a form of digital currency that…
C-TPAT Security Requirements: Access Control and Visitor Management
Are you thinking about becoming C-TPAT certified? If you move goods across the border, this certification can be a boon for your business. To be accepted into the C-TPAT program, your company must meet a set of minimum security…
7 Benefits of Becoming C-TPAT Certified
If you move goods across the U.S. border, you’ve probably heard of the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) program. C-TPAT was put in place by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The program puts the…
Featured Customer – Denver Public Schools
Denver Public Schools’ (DPS) Emily Griffith Campus is constantly brimming with activity. It gets anywhere from 500 to 800 visitors per day. In fact, the only building in Colorado that gets more visitors is the capitol building!
The campus is…
Featured Customer — Eclipse Screen Printing
Have you ever wondered how your microwave buttons work? Ask Eclipse Screen Printing, a company that has specialized in technical screen printing for the past 22 years. They print the membrane switch that you use every time you heat…
Happy Administrative Professionals Day!
Happy Administrative Professionals Day! To celebrate our customers, we held a contest and asked you to share some stories of the amazing things administrative professionals do for your offices. More than 10% of our customers participated and we got some…
Featured Business — America’s Health Center
The cost of running a healthcare business continues to rise, making it difficult for providers to offer affordable services and still make a living. This situation prompted Nick Porterfield to develop a way to help healthcare providers reduce their office…
New Feature: Visitor Evacuation List
Do you know who’s in your office right now? If an emergency happened, would you be able to ensure that all of your visitors get out? It’s not fun to think about, but emergencies can and do happen. Because of…
Featured Business – Salem Christian Homes
A distinguishing feature of many of our customers is that they care passionately about helping others. That’s certainly true of the non-profit organization Salem Christian Homes. In the 1960s, there weren’t many educational opportunities available for people with developmental…
Featured Business – Fixt
Luke Cooper loves convenient and efficient solutions. That’s why he founded Fixt, an on-demand mobile device repair service. If you have a problem with your phone or tablet, a technician will come to your home or office, fix the…
3 Common ITAR Compliance Mistakes
In the last article, we reviewed the basics of ITAR compliance. At the end, we noted the high cost of failing to comply. Here, we’ll look at three of the most common ITAR compliance mistakes that can lead to…
ITAR Compliance: What It Is, Who Needs It, and the Penalties for Ignoring It
If your company is involved in exporting any defense products, services, or related technical data, you’re probably already familiar with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). And if not, you need to be! These export control laws are designed…
Documentation and Records Management for ISO Certification
Documentation and records management is at the heart of many certification and compliance programs today. It’s also just good business practice. According to a widely cited study by Information Week, between 3% and 5% of an organization’s files are lost…
What is ISO Certification? Does Your Company Need It?
At The Receptionist, we’re always interested in learning more about why our customers chose to implement a visitor management system. For many, like manufacturers and companies that regularly bid for contracts, visitor management is required as part of a certification…
Our Top 5 Office and Visitor Management Articles for 2016
2016 — What a year! We’ve seen huge advances in technology (like that VR headset you got for Christmas). We lost some people we held dear (RIP Carrie Fisher). And someone finally revealed the secret to happiness (but you have…
5 Legal Agreements to Increase Your Office Security
Are you concerned about office security? If you’re like most of the office managers, IT administrators, and executive assistants we talk to every day, you probably answered “Yes — very!” Because security is so important for every business today, we’re…
Featured Manufacturing Business – Optimum Design Associates
Bay Area-based Optimum Design Associates is a sophisticated printed circuit board design and assembly company whose client list includes Honeywell, Boeing, Intel, Applied Materials, and other tech firms on the leading edge of their respective markets. Being an industry leader…
Featured Business – Spa Suites on 116th
Located in Carmel, IN, Spa Suites on 116th is an innovative company that not only rents out suites to beauty professionals, but also provides them with extensive business support. This includes design, marketing, business coaching, and a host of other…
Featured Manufacturing Business – Modus Advanced
Modus Advanced is a leading manufacturer and supplier of die cut gaskets, custom molded rubber, and other materials used in industries such as automotive, medical, defense, agriculture, and construction. Although they are a small company, operating out of their California…
Win a Free Massage for You and Everyone in Your Office
Do you need a massage? Silly question. Of course you do!! And so does everyone you work with. With the holidays and end-of-year deadlines approaching, we all feel a little pressure this time of year. (DYK that Christmas is the …
Featured Business: Merrick Academy Charter School
As the first and longest-running public charter school in Queens, New York, Merrick Academy has to keep up with changing trends so it can continue serving its students and their families effectively. When Merrick Academy noticed that its reception area…
10 Essential Elements of an Emergency Evacuation Plan
Extreme weather, bomb threats, combustible dust explosions: all events that require companies to switch on emergency gear. Since these situations invariably cause panic, having a solid emergency evacuation plan in place is the best way to handle them. OSHA has …
3 Types of Software Modern Manufacturers Should Invest In Today
You already have ERP software, inventory software, and supply chain management software. But what about the non-production aspects of your business? Do you still use handwritten logs and ledgers? Do your salespeople still keep lead and customer information in their…
Featured Business: Fairfield County Bank
Since 1871, Fairfield County Bank has been serving its community in scenic southwestern Connecticut. While the banking business has gone through innumerable changes over last 145 years, Fairfield County Bank continues its commitment to service that’s personal and efficient. When…
New Feature: Customized Voice Prompts
Can I customize the audio prompts that visitors hear?
Absolutely!…