Front office

Front office of Simply Fresh Laundry

The front office is the part of a company that comes in contact with clients, such as the marketing, sales, and service departments.^[1]

In the hotel industry, the front office (also known as front desk) welcomes guests to the accommodation section: meeting and greeting them, taking and organizing reservations, allocating check in and out of rooms, organizing porter service, issuing keys and other security arrangements, passing on messages to customers and settling the accounts.

In professional sports, the term refers to upper management of a club, such as the General Manager and other player personnel decision-makers.

Function

The function of front office is to directly get in touch with customers, and is usually the first place that customers get to when they arrive to the company. The front office can discover more information about the customer by asking them questions, also helping the customers out.

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.

Staffs working in the front office can also deal with simple tasks, such as sorting out emails, helping out on printing and typing works. 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.^[2]

Other simple tasks, like taking customers’ jackets or serving drinks to customers might also be one of the front office staff’s job.^[3]

Example

Hotel

Every company should have a front office, and which the reception in a hotel is the front office. 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.^[4]

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.^[5] The receptionist in the front office will pick up phone calls from customers too, welcome customers and also help customers checking out at last.^[6]

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.^[7]

Banking

The front office of investment banking, mainly deal with sales and trading, which help to boost up profit as much as possible. As this is the most important role in the front office, employees received the highest salary compared to staff in the same position in other industry.^[8] Investment Banking

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.^[9]

Challenges faced by front office

Front Office Staff

The motivation of the front office staff might be low as they are doing repeated work and usually their pay are the lowest compared to other staff in other department. This is a very important issue as these staffs will get in touch with customers the most and this might affect the profitability and efficiency of the company. The staff’s might have high level of stress as they might always meet bad-tempered customers. They might get a lot of complaints as well so it is hard for front office staff to maintain their good services.^[10]

Hotel

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.^[11]

Phone call might not be picked up by front office staff due to large amount of work needs to be done, and customer might not be happy about this. This will affect the reputation of the company again, as customers can’t call the front desk as soon as they want to.^[10] Front office staff might also get annoyed by customers, as they might not book a room beforehand, and the front office staff can’t get angry at them.^[12]

Solutions

Front Office Staff

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, leading to better services provided in the front office. It is very important for staff to always simile and be happy to customers.^[10]

Hotel

Phone should be fixed, so the company can track the calls that are missed, therefore they can get to the customers as soon as possible and answer their questions.^[10]

See also

• Front of House
• Virtual office
• Service design
• Receptionist
• Front office (Investment_banking)

References