Receptionist

Organisation: HealthShare NSW

Job Title: Receptionist

Word Limit: 3000 characters

Location: Chatswood NSW

Demonstrated experience in a similar customer-facing administrative role within a large complex organisation and fast-paced work environment.

I am able to demonstrate experience in a similar customer-facing administrative role within a large complex organisation and fast-paced work environment in my current position as Receptionist and Administrator with CHIK Services / Myoffice. The work environment is very complex and fast-paced because:

• I simultaneously work as a Receptionist and Administrator for two different businesses (CHIK Services and Myoffice Central Coast) that have the same owner
• Myoffice Central Coast has over 40 clients for whom I provide reception and administration services
• I am responsible for a large range of tasks
• I work under extremely limited supervision

Also within this role, I perform tasks similar to those noted in the position description for the role of Receptionist at HealthShare NSW, including answering a busy switchboard which involves taking messages and handling customer enquiries, greeting visitors, booking meeting rooms and coordinating the office facilities. Recently, I oversaw office renovations and liased with our insurance company about problems caused by building contractors. I also prepare invoices, file documents, manage mail, generate new business, manage travel arrangements, take responsibility for office security and perform other general reception and administration tasks. I regularly receive positive comments from clients about my work.

As part of my work at CHIK Services, I manage the daily tender alerts service. Each day, we receive information about tender opportunities. I sift through this information and use my judgement to identify tender opportunities of interest to our customers. I compile those opportunities into an email and send the email to all customers subscribed to the tender alerts service. By doing this, I keep CHIK Services’ customers informed of relevant and current business opportunities that they may wish to seize, helping them to grow their business.

Further, I gained experience working in large organisation that has a fast-paced work environment when I worked at the large retail chain, Bi-Lo. The store was very busy and there were many customers. I worked as a cashier handling money, answered customer enquiries and cleaned the store. I carried out my responsibilities as quickly as possible and was polite and professional toward my customers. Despite how busy the store was, I always carried out my responsibilities according to corporate procedural guidelines. Consequently, I provided quality customer service in keeping with Bi-Lo’s protocols.

To supplement my experience, I successfully obtained a Certificate 3 in Business in 2012.

2 Demonstrated customer service skills and experience, with a strong personal customer service ethic.

I have worked in customer service since 2006 in administration, retail and hospitality roles and have worked for both large and small businesses. I am therefore able to demonstrate customer service skills and experience, with a strong personal customer service ethic, in a wide range of situations.

Myoffice Central Coast provides meeting rooms for clients to meet with their customers. In my role as Receptionist and Administrator, I demonstrate superior, personalised customer service every day when I greet visitors who attend the office. These visitors include the customers of our clients.

Specifically, I:

• Receive documents from visitors
• Make sure I know about any scheduled meetings
• Greet all visitors in a professional and friendly manner
• Perform administrative tasks (such as scanning or photocopying) for visitors
• Offer visitors refreshment and advise the Myoffice Central Coast client that their visitor has arrived

Consequently, I keep Myoffice Central Coast’s clients happy by giving their visitors a positive impression of their business.

Working at Myoffice Central Coast, I have further demonstrated my strong personal customer service ethic by using my discretion to ‘go the extra mile’ for clients where appropriate. For example, on one occasion, I received a call on behalf of one of my clients. The client’s business had a website featuring a job board and the caller was a customer who wanted to sign up to that job board. The customer could not work out how to sign up and needed assistance. Although I was unfamiliar with the website, I took the initiative to help the customer going to the website and going through the process myself. As a result of taking such a personalised customer service-focused approach, I ensured that my client’s customer, and in turn my client, received quality services, contributed to a positive reputation for my client and increased my client’s customer base.

Sometimes a Myoffice Central Coast client will ask me to perform an administrative task that is not part of the usual scope of services provided. Clearly, I cannot typically provide services for which the client does not pay, but I use my discretion to decide whether it is appropriate to agree to the request. For example, a customer used Myoffice Central Coast’s business address which is not part of the services offered. Given it was a long term customer I accepted the mail on their behalf on that occasion. As a consequence of me taking this approach, clients have a positive view of Myoffice Central Coast and I contribute to maintaining the client base by giving clients value for money without incurring additional cost to Myoffice Central Coast.

3. Demonstrated ability to take initiative and problem solve to deliver an effective and timely service, with a professional attitude toward work, customers and colleagues.

During my career, I have demonstrated that I am able to take initiative and problem solve to deliver an effective and timely service, with a professional attitude toward work, customers and colleagues.

This is demonstrated through the following examples. While working at Cafe Frendz, one colleague, a chef returned to the Café after the business had closed and became physically aggressive toward another colleague who was still on the premises. The chef’s behaviour was uncharacteristic and entirely unexpected. I was able to think quickly on my feet, and maintained a professional attitude to resolve the conflict. I realised that the chef had been experiencing personal difficulties and that this may be affecting his judgement. I worked with colleagues to diffuse the situation and highlighted the repercussions the chef could face if he continued to be aggressive. I also helped to move the colleague who was under attack away from the chef. By diffusing the conflict in this way, I contributed to keeping my colleagues safe.

In another example, in my role as Receptionist and Administrator at CHIK Services, I manage customer enquiries about a health newsletter that we publish fortnightly. Customers pay to subscribe to the newsletter for a 12 month period and subscriptions are sent by an external service provider website. At times, I receive customer complaints because they have not received their newsletter. I handle these complaints professionally, politely and promptly. I take the initiative to contact our external service provider and work with them to promptly identify why a customer has not received their subscription. I then organise for the service provider to remedy the problem, including organising to extend the customer’s subscription so that they do in fact receive a 12 month subscription. I then send an email to inform the customer that their subscription has been extended. As a result, I have received positive feedback from customers after resolving these issues and have ensured CHIK Services is complying with its contractual obligations to customers.

Finally, in the same role, I take the initiative to generate new business while managing the client database. I enter new client details, remove old clients and record businesses who have enquired about our services (i.e. potential clients). I call potential clients and see whether they are still considering our services. Often these businesses will have specific questions about Myoffice Central Coast’s, so I spend time answering their questions to give them a good understanding of our services. Some of these potential clients have later sought Myoffice Central Coast’s services. As a result of my ability to provide effective service and my professional attitude to work and customers, I have increased my employer’s client base, and in turn, increased profits.

4. Able to work collaboratively as part of team and work independently as duties require, with a flexible and self-motivated approach to work and an ability to accept responsibility and take ownership to achieve an outcome.

In my current role as a Receptionist and Administrator at CHIK Services/Myoffice Central Coast, I regularly work collaboratively as part of team and work independently as duties require, with a flexible and self-motivated approach to work and an ability to accept responsibility and take ownership to achieve an outcome.

An example of this is demonstrated when I trained an accounts colleague to provide reception and administrative services at times when I am not in the office. We do not have any training guidelines or procedures, so I was self-motivated and considered any possible tasks or equipment that she might need to use. I talked to her about my role, the tasks that I did each day and gave her some information about my clients. I then showed my colleague how to use the switchboard to answer telephone calls, explained the room booking procedures, showed her how to open and close the office and how to print and scan with the office equipment. I was supportive of my colleague and answered any questions she had. Even on my days off, I was flexible and accepted responsibility for training my colleague and this involved answering her telephone calls and assisting her to resolve any issues. My colleague is now trained to perform my role in my absence and has become more confident to the extent that she only calls me for help on the rare occasion as opposed to regularly. By training my colleague, I was successful in developing my employer’s people resources.

In addition to working collaboratively and as part of a team I am able to work independently. I typically work alone at the CHIK Services/Myoffice Central Coast office under very limited direction and supervision, which means I am responsible for making many day-to-day executive decisions. For example, I manage enquiries from potential new clients and then sign up new clients if appropriate. When a new client requests our services, I ask questions to determine whether they are the type of business to which Myoffice Central Coast would like to provide services. Based on their answers, I use my common sense, judgment and discretion to decide whether Myoffice Central Coast has the capacity to meet the expectations of the potential client and provide the desired services. I also ask questions to ascertain whether the potential client is carrying on a reasonable, legitimate business and to confirm that there is nothing untoward about their business that could cause difficulties for Myoffice Central Coast. After speaking to the potential new client, I carry out an ASIC search using their ABN. If I accept the business as a new client, I then negotiate service costs, using discretion. For example, when business is slow, I sometimes waive the joining fee. As a result of my efforts, I have increased my employer’s client base in an appropriate and effective way. 

5 Ability to organise self, multi-task in a busy work environment with competing priorities and demands, and cope under pressure at busy times.

I have proven that I have the ability to organise myself, multi-task in a busy work environment with competing priorities and demands, and cope under pressure at busy times. I presently work as a Receptionist and Administrator in a very busy and fast-paced work environment and have a large range of responsibilities (as discussed above in selection criteria 1). On a daily basis, I juggle a busy switchboard, requests from visitors and regular administrative responsibilities as well as one-off tasks. I keep calm, use my discretion to prioritise tasks and stay organised.

Some of the ways that I manage competing priorities and multi-tasking are as follows:

• I am flexible and multi-task. For example, when I require additional information before I can complete a task, I request that information and then start a new task while I wait for the information. When I receive the information, I can return to the original task.
• I understand the key business of my employer and prioritise my work to align with the goals of the business. For example, I give priority to answering the switchboard. I will stop and answer the telephone even if I am half-way through another task, because if I do not, my client’s call goes unanswered. When this happens, the client would likely call and ask why I did not answer their telephone. By giving priority to answering client’s business lines, I prevent clients from becoming dissatisfied with a key Myoffice Central Coast service.
• I monitor priorities as new tasks arise and re-organise my work if necessary. For example, each time I receive an email, I check to see whether it requires urgent work.
• I use common sense to determine the priority of a task. If, for example, my Director needs me to book a flight and I know that when I searched for possible flights there were only a few seats available on her preferred flight, I make sure that I book the flight before I do less important tasks. I also take note of, and heed, any deadlines.
• I have systems to keep myself organised and keep track of my progress. For example, I use my calendar in Microsoft Outlook and I make lists and print out my tasks.
• If a task simply cannot be finished by the end of the day because there were tasks of higher priority that I needed to do, I give the task priority the next day.

At times, a customer of a client may ask me to do something which adds to my already large workload. For example, on one occasion, one of our clients, a lawyer, was meeting with his customer. The customer needed hundreds of pages of documents photocopied and each page was in a plastic sleeve. It was a lengthy task, but I multi-tasked and managed to photocopy the documents as well as carrying out my normal responsibilities.

Consequently, I provide quality and personalised service every day to both my clients and my client’s customers, by managing my time and keeping calm under pressure. I regularly receive glowing feedback from my Manager for the work that I do.

 Experience in using a computerised telephony/switchboard system and Microsoft Office suite, and audio-visual equipment. Capacity and willingness to learn and use new IT systems and equipment quickly.

I have experience in using a computerised telephony/switchboard system, Microsoft Office suite, and audio-visual equipment. In my current role as a Receptionist and Administrator at CHIK Services and Myoffice Central Coast, I regularly use a computerised telephony/switchboard system and the Microsoft Office suite. My organisation has over 40 clients on behalf of whom I provide virtual reception and administrative services. As a crucial part of my role, I answer calls for each of these clients using their business name. Using my initiative, I have learnt the names of all of our clients and have a basic understanding of their key business. This allows me to respond to simple customer enquiries on their behalf, as well as take messages where appropriate. As a result, I provide a personalised service on behalf of Myoffice Central Coast’s clients, thereby making a positive impression on their customers, and in turn, building client confidence in Myoffice Central Coast.

As a Receptionist and Administrator, I use:

• audio-visual equipment during telephone conferences
• Microsoft Office Excel to manage client databases
• Microsoft Office Word to prepare quotes, meeting minutes and procedures
• Microsoft Office Outlook to send and respond to emails, manage my calendar and my director’s calendar and make room bookings

My proficiency in these programs and equipment means that Myoffice Central Coast can provide a range of services to its clients.

I have also demonstrated that I have the capacity and willingness to learn and use new IT systems and equipment quickly. For example, when commencing at CHIK Services and Myoffice Central Coast, I was not familiar with the equipment and some of the computer programs that I needed to use (eg Microsoft Excel, MYOB or etouches event management software). I received very limited training, but needed to know how to use these programs and equipment to work efficiently, and so, I took the initiative to learn how to use them. I performed internet searches, searched through files, tried different options and features of the equipment and programs and asked questions when necessary. Consequently, I can now use these programs and equipment to carry out my role. By committing to personal development, I have also developed the people resources of my organisation.