Your First Impression Is Your Phone

I recently worked with a firm that had someone answering their phones with the personality of a doorknob. In addition to the stunning personality, the receptionist's fuse took about 2.1 milli-seconds to burn. He had no patience with anyone calling in and populated his monosyllabic responses with deep sighs and a lot of eye-rolls and hand gestures (I even saw him mimic putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger). Now, I understand he isn't on a videophone, but trust me, the callers could see these gestures nonetheless.

What's particularly ironic about this story is that we were hired to help this firm retain more clients. As we progressed through the audit and planning process, I realized that no amount of planning or marketing materials would compensate for the client's point of first contact - the person I'll call Deadly Dan.

Deadly Dan's issue is that he HATES answering the phones. He loathes it with a passion unequalled by anything else in his life. However, part of his job when signing on with the firm was to provide this service, and there's no getting out of it, or around it. My point to the managing partner was that unless this phone issue was addressed, nothing we could do would offset the damage. The managing partner wanted all clients to feel like they were exceedingly important (which they are!). Most felt like they were simply annoying and bothersome. Deadly Dan was killing any good will or relationship building the attorneys had worked so hard to accomplish.

If you're curious how your clients feel, have a good friend call up your firm. Give them some talking points so they can ask your receptionist a few questions about the firm and how to get additional information. Ask them for their honest feedback. Good receptionists can be the backbone of a firm. Bad ones can do a lot more damage than disconnecting clients from voicemail.