Our office deals in customer services. To enhance customer satisfaction and deal with increased load of customers Our office has now posted 2 Receptionists (earlier 2 months back there was 1) at Reception. Reception is the nodal point from where customers are greeted, listened, taken note of their problem and directed to respective departments for solution. Both old and new receptionist's has reasonable understanding of their job and responsibilities. However we are observing they both can't work as a team. Both keep fighting on petty matters. Job at reception involves multi task orientation when you have more than 1 customer waiting at Reception, but both despite our repeated counselling keep fighting. Their job is easy if they divide/ share their work as a team however they are not getting along well with each other. This is resulting in poor customer service at reception and bringing bad image to our company. How to deal with this personality conflict? We cannot think of job rotation to other location as Receptionist profile donot match other jobs profile. We are holding ourselves from terminating one of them from duties as we feel both have good job knowledge. Seniors please advise.
From India, Delhi
34From India, Delhi
Hi, It might be as simple as that. The answer might be there in the question itself as you have pointed out Divide/Share their work. Better would be, instead of allowing them to "divide/share" their work you can best "divide/assign" works to them. This is my suggestion. Please Let me know if it works. Thanks, Sathish.S.Nair
From India, Madras
From India, Madras
That's what is the issue.Reception Coordination demands divide and share and they are actually doing it as divide and assign. Demand of the role of my receptionist is to work in close coordination in a rhythm where one picks up where another leaves the thread. Instead of sharing their assigning part makes them disown the other person in the middle of transaction.
From India, Delhi
From India, Delhi
Friends please share your creative thoughts. I am sure many must be facing such issues in their professional endeavors...
From India, Delhi
From India, Delhi
The company and business image branding is of paramount importance for any business. Business image is critical for business success. Once the image is tarnished, it is incredibally hard to gain it back. Further more, it could take months or years to build reputation, but could take seconds to lose it. Image branding must be protected at all costs - because it is the identity of the company. That said, here is what I would do if I were in your shoes. Bring them both (together) to the back office into a conference room (if I don't have a conference room, just to my desk, or the hallway, or even the water cooler). Make sure it is just the three of us. Have a very candid conversation with both of them and put them on notice. Something in the lines of, "Listen. You two are the face and image ambassadors of this company. You play the host. But you two constantly fighting with each other, even in the presence of our customers is damaging that very image you must be protecting. We have counseled you numerous times, but you have not changed. I value your knowledge and experience and it will be a loss to the company to let you go. But, with your current attitude and behavior, keeping you is becoming a bigger loss to the company. Therefore, here is the last pace of advise to you two. You have two weeks to clean up your act, work on your issues, get along with each other and start working together in a professional manner. If not, both of you will be gone by the end of two weeks.". Keep in mind. If you say this, mean it. At the end of two weeks, if they have not cleaned up their acts, they must be really out of there! Here is my business ethic. If I am running a business servicing customers, my business and my customers are #1 - above all, I mean ALL (myself included). No single individual is above the company. Anyone who tries to bring down the business/company, no matter who that is, must go! If I am the one trying to bring down the company (unknowingly of course), the moment I come to know about it, I would not hesitate a moment before removing myself. That's just me! Regards, --Som G
From United States, Woodinville
From United States, Woodinville
Thanks Som for your candid views. We want to use marching orders route as a last resort. Attitude problem is both of them. Not one of them wants to start a dialogue to amicably sort out the issue between themselves. One of the reason is both want to show the management how good individually they are in handling their task, but as a team they lack communication and therefore required coordination. Issue is that both wants to show up that I should be rated better , that is resulting in their complaints saying Sir, I did my part well but the other one didnot do her part. Does the members feel management has faltered any where in this process to correctly asses and tackle the issue? Please let us have members views as we feel such situations if management handles well will set the right example for all of us. There is no guarantee if we hire a new employee (by issuing marching orders to one of them), new employee shall be certified trouble free.
From India, Delhi
From India, Delhi
MK, It sounds to me as though the problem is not any one of them, but both of them. So, getting rid of one of them and hiring another in her place will not help you, because, the one you would be replacing is only half the problem. The other half (the one you retained) is still working in your office, and could create the same kind of problem with the new hire as well. Either both go, or both stay and learn to work together. In my opinion, you have only two options - 1. both must go, 2. both stay and learn to work with each other. I think I am also hearing quite an amount of hesitation in replacing them. If the hesitation is due to "I am not sure what I am going to get in the new hire. What if I get the same kind?" sort of thought, at some point you need to take that risk. The question is, do you want to take that risk today to do some damage control to your company image, or later when the company image is further damaged. That said, if your hesitation is due to something else, and you REALLY want to keep them and see them successfully work together, you could have them do some team building exercises (not going out and hanging out together, but some office activities together). Give them some joint office assignments (where they HAVE to collaborate with each other) and let them know if one of them fails, both fail. You could also make them understand that they are not really competitors but partners. ("I did my part, but the other one didn't" is not valid. Even if you did your part and she didn't do her part, both of you failed." is the message that they need to understand completely. Tag team them (I am sure you have already done that), but this time with a little difference. Let them know that if one of them fails, both will be reprimanded. Keep giving them a few such assignments every day for a few days, if required. If they still have problems working with each other after that, then at least your conscience would be clear when you let them go. Regards, --Som G
From United States, Woodinville
From United States, Woodinville
Recent development is that 1 of them has resigned due to some personal health problems on the advise of doctor for prolonged bed rest. Now how to proceed further from here.
From India, Delhi
From India, Delhi
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