The Underrated Power of Great Receptionists

all those things combined actually make a really great receptionist so emotional intelligence really be able to read who you have in front of you does the guest need a lot of attention do they just want a quick check in are they staying here for business welcome to lead the experience a new series from the future of hospitality and in this series we talk to the people setting the tone on the floor building systems behind the scenes and leading teams to deliver memorable moments our first guest today is emma vinderink with a background in front office leadership at brands like sofitel legend grand amsterdam waldorf astoria amsterdam and she brings a sharp and honest view on why the receptionist is still one of the most underrated roles in hospitality and what it really takes to lead the guest experience from the lobby outwards so emma really nice to have you yes episode can you maybe introduce yourself a little bit and i know that we spoke of course a little bit that you are really as you call yourself a hospitality freak right you're so passionate about it can you maybe tell us a little bit more about your background of course well first of all thank you very much for inviting me on the podcast it's my first time we of course have been in contact several times but it's really nice to be here and yeah about me hospitality freak is indeed a very good way of seeing myself i think it's definitely one of my biggest passions if not my biggest passion in general i have indeed worked at the world of astoria amsterdam and sofitel legend the grand in amsterdam specifically i really do think that luxury hotels is one of my biggest passions i think for me being younger and really studying hospitality was not the craziest choice as both of my parents have been involved in hospitality it was definitely a comfortable choice for me but the uncomfortable choice for me was luxury hospitality so walking into a big hotel all these international guests all these languages that i didn't know the marble floors the luxury smells and all the well groomed receptionists definitely sparked a different interest in me so yeah that is definitely an introduction about myself living in amsterdam for i think eight or nine years now visiting hotels all the time visiting restaurants all the time also recently started my own hospitality consultancy consulting boutique hotels on operational level and apart from that yeah just being hotels in hotels all the time and seeing all the little details that i can be obsessed about so yeah that is me yeah nice nice and what makes you fall in love with hospitality is it your background from your parents side or is it something that you felt when you started good question what made me fall in love with hospitality i think it definitely started with my parents i might ask i'm sorry what did they do your parents in hospitality my father was a chef and my mother worked as a waitress so the typical relationship that always starts at that point i guess for many many people working in hospitality at some point and out of that came me and but yeah of course when your father is a chef and your mother works in hospitality you go out for dinner a lot even when you're small you're you are surrounded by people who talk about hospitality all the time you visit restaurants that maybe you wouldn't visit if you're a usual nine year old and yeah i think you really get acquainted with it in a way that maybe some other children so to say would not and i think the moment that i really fell in love with hospitality is when i studied hospitality i really wasn't the best person in school so to say i didn't really care for school that much and it was the most logical choice for me to study hospitality because that was the thing that i at least was acquainted with and then in my first year we visited actually the the sofitel college of the grand in amsterdam and i remember i think i was 17 years old and we indeed walked into the lobby and i saw these marble floors the very impressive courtyards and i thought oh my gosh is this something that i could do or is this something that i could spend eight days or eight hours a day at every day or i mean sometimes every day but five days a week and this is just happening in the netherlands what a great thing and from that moment that i stepped into a luxury property i knew that that definitely was something that i wanted to be involved with my entire life i think yeah so if you see that as 70 years old all the luxury stuff and it feels so big and yeah i can understand that you want to be part of it yeah and kind of i think that from the outside because i never worked in hospitality so i don't for example i don't what what you and other people i interviewed went through but i think that if you from the outside look at hospitality in hotels you have a specific feeling about how it is on the other side but when you really start working there i'm pretty sure that that some things the view on hospitality and some things about hospitality they changed right because if you work in the front office probably probably you've you've went and see all kinds of stuff and it changed your view also an hospitality right absolutely yes i definitely think that makes a big difference i mean if i travel with my friends abroad or even in the netherlands or even go out for dinner you notice straight away that i don't really get to enjoy it as much as they do because i notice everything right even if we stay at a nice property i right away unfortunately see sometimes what is missing instead of what is adding instead of the things that actually make a checking interesting or what the lobby looks like or all the things that are great i usually very quickly get attractive towards the things that don't necessarily add up because i've always worked in luxury hospitality which inevitably always makes you a perfectionist so if the pillows are not fluffed up correctly if the receptionist comes across like they don't really get don't really know all the information about all the facilities in the hotel yet the type of language that they use the luxury language or not unfortunately i notice right so they don't really have anything to hide behind with me which is also not so great for me because i also would like to experience it the same way as maybe some of my friends who have never worked in hospitality before so i definitely think in yeah it definitely creates a different experience or different insight so to say yeah kind of curious to understand that what kind of mistakes do you see like what are the most common mistakes that you see for example when you go to such a place i think knowledge i think i think the lack of knowledge definitely the thing yeah people or staff that had just recently joined that has not been trained well enough or at least not the time has not been taken to train them well enough which results in a lack of confidence which results in lack of information which basically goes through the entire experience yeah yeah yeah i get that and is that also important at the front office the knowledge gap is that yeah extremely i think it is it is extremely important to have a certain level of knowledge all across the hotel in f and b and housekeeping and you name it even sales or marketing but front office really is the rolodex of the hotel the most and most knowledgeable employees should be working at the front office because if you're staying at a hotel and you have a question who do you go to right exactly yeah so where you need anything arranged or you need something to be taken care of the front desk is definitely the the part of the hotel that should know everything yeah i always kind of ask myself this question that if i for example go to a hotel and a lot of people from abroad for example in amsterdam a lot of people working at the front office they're not like you from the netherlands they're from outside of the netherlands so it's important for them to know a little bit about the area because i gu that most of them they come to work work in the front office but they don't even know maybe they know the you know the simple stuff about amsterdam but they don't know the real insights and they cannot really tell with passion because they haven't been there themselves so is it important to know the area as a front desk worker yeah that's a good question as well i think you can answer that both ways it also really depends on what type of property you stay at because for example usually five star luxury hotels in amsterdam who or let's say more than 100 rooms usually have a concierge so of course you can do a really good job as a receptionist but if you are not comfortable advising a guest you should definitely send them over to the concierge of course the simple questions you can answer like oh where are the canals located not very difficult but i mean people who stay in amsterdam usually have more specific questions about restaurants about areas about i mean you name it even transport so yeah not all hotels it is necessary to be as knowledgeable about the area but i do think this is also another example of training staff well and really taking the time to train people well enough i mean invest time in them and have them borrow a bike from the hotel and let them cycle around an area for 20 minutes and the 20 30 minutes that you invest in them having a look around in the area also makes them enthusiastic about it themselves which results in being able to give the best advice right if you're if you're enthusiastic about something it shines through so that really creates a good experience for a guest as well yeah 100% that sometimes i feel it sometimes when i go for example to a restaurant and i ask them what is your favorite because when i look at the restaurant meal i want to eat everything so i ask sometimes waiter what do you think is best and they just say something but i feel on the way they tell it that they didn't even taste it themselves so the same i think for the front desk if you you cannot tell somebody go to this and this if you haven't you of course you can tell but it doesn't come from the heart you don't feel it as a guest so that right yeah definitely makes a difference so nice one and before we started the podcast we've talked about it that you said the receptionist is kind of dying a very crucial role like why do you think that that's the point like why why is that role so important and why is it dying why why is it so difficult to get them yeah absolutely i think first of all why is it a dying role what i have personally really experienced and i think everyone across the globe in hospitality three four or five star properties have noticed is that covid as we everyone in hospitality also at some point starts talking about COVID right but i really think that it is the case that a lot of people who have a hospitality degree a bachelor or any other type of degree in hospitality who worked in hospitality and had to leave hospitality either temporarily or for a longer time because of COVID started working in a different industry went back to school perhaps to obtain a different degree so they could do a different job during COVID or after covid these people never returned i think most of these people never returned unfortunately and i myself have noticed this as well the quality of the people that we were able to hire before COVID and after covid is night and day so in that regards it is a dying role because they are still available but perhaps not at the not always at the quality or the passion which is also very important hospitality the passion that one might expect from someone who wants to work in a hotel because it is hard work it's difficult it's long days maybe not always the best pay so there needs to be a reason for you that's different than those things wanting to work in hospitality or as a receptionist and yeah i think why is it a crucial role as we just previously spoke about the fact that the knowledge that a good receptionist carries really really really makes a difference difference during the stay and next to that they are really the driving force in a hotel they are the first impression that a guest gets whenever they come in they are the first person to get to know everything about a guest i mean what other person in a hotel has as long of a conversation with the guest as a receptionist has so true receptionist really should a good receptionist really understands that they are the ones to get all the information out of a guest which leads to a good stay being able to identify upsells which is also good for the revenue of a hotel and as well of the guests i mean if you can stay in a nice room for a good price who doesn't like that right and yeah if you get to know the preferences of a guest during the stay i mean what type of flowers do they like in the room something that housekeeping needs to know what type of food do they like for breakfast something that f and b would like to know and all these details can be collected during check in and the receptionist i think has the responsibility of yeah really creating that magic for a guest to experience that nice and to be creating a loyal guest in that regard so a very crucial role i think yeah yeah but you said it nice that that creating that magic because that's basically what it is because i think that if you are working at the front office you have to be kind of obsessive about creating trading that magic because otherwise it' becoming such a long checklist that you have to think about every time like i have to say this do this ask this revenue this flowers that then it's and then it's not fun anymore so you have to be really like has to be something in yourself that you want to create that kind of magic so yeah yeah one example for for example is that in regards to upsells i i what have i what i've heard from other people is front desk workers they they aren't compensated on on upsells i don't know maybe something changed but but that's also kind of a problem that i know a lot of general managers want their front office to talk with guests about can you leave a review do you want to go to the spa to the restaurant blah blah but if you're not compensated you don't get any anything from it then you think like i don't want to sell because they want they don't like to feel salesy a lot of front office people so how what's the best practice there how would you do that i mean i definitely think you're right i personally my personal opinion on that is that i definitely think that receptionists should be compensated for doing upsells true i think a good receptionist in any job i think you should really challenge yourself wanting to grow wanting to evolve and i think receptionist being a good receptionist is not just easy work it is hard but why would you not take the opportunity to indeed develop yourself commercially in that regards as well do your research before a guest arrives and sit down in the morning for 15 minutes and look up the guest are they a ceo of a company and they book the standard room there's your opportunity for an upsell there are different reasons for that why you could challenge yourself as a receptionist more and on the other side of that the original question indeed should they be compensated for that yes i definitely think so why not right in any sales job you get usually you get compensated for the work you do the bonus bonuses or commission you make on the amount of sales that you do so i if that is not the case i do understand why people are not as motivated to do that because why wouldn't you speak why wouldn't you speak with them for an extra 20 minutes during a check in so you get the tip instead of a commission right because at the end of the day that is how people think and i think that's fair enough you should be compensated for the effort you put in and otherwise it should be compensated in a tip maybe or people get creative at the end of the day and that is what happens yeah yeah you must give something at least exactly money at least recognition that they did a great job and sometimes it's not all about yeah yeah yeah nice and and what makes a great receptionist for example what what are the skills needed to to be great at at that yeah good question i mean of course everyone has their strengths and differences some receptionists are indeed very commercial they do the research and think ahead of how they can make the most upsells in a day some receptionists are very emotional intelligent for example they really are able to read someone well and someone steps in with five suitcases and six children and they're like oh goodness okay maybe they need a cup of coffee and for the children to be able to sit down and for me to really just take care of the process and not talk too much i think all those things combined actually make a really great receptionist so emotional intelligence really be able to read who you have in front of you does the guest need a lot of attention do they just want a quick check in are they staying here for business it's important to recognize and to read who you have in front of you and next to that i think just really simply also really have the motivation to create the best experience for the person that you have in front of you in whatever way is possible for you so i think creativity emotional intelligence and a commercial aspect those three things are the holy grail in my opinion of what makes a good receptionist yeah it makes sense makes sense but how do you do it for example let's say you are a manager of a few receptionists and i think you you want some kind of consistency and some kind of let's call it a playbook or this is how we do it but on the other hand you talk about emotional intelligence and it's about reading the room reading the people and that's really hard to to you know put it in a because it's it's something that you have to feel you have to you cannot say if the guy is 2 meters you have to say this and if he's a 1.6 meter and a gray beard you have to say it's not like that so you have to so how do you build that consistency and you know that the team has the same like the same qualities that you that you build like your perfect receptionist based on what you want and a specific kind of let's call it a playbook for example right i think in a managerial position and if you have the authority to hire people at the end of the day you work with people nobody is going to be the same nobody's going to have the same emotional intelligence nobody's going to have the same drive and nobody thinks the same way so i think as a good manager or as a good leader of a team you should be able to identify all these different qualities that someone has and also maybe also not so much qualities of someone else it should be like a symphony some people really are able to bring out the best in one another and apart from the fact that you work with people and everyone is different there should indeed be a playbook some sops operating procedures that everyone abides by apart from the fact that everyone is their own person and has their own strengths there should indeed be procedures for everyone to follow because there should be consistency right everyone should be especially in luxury hotels people have to expect from whoever is in front of them if they're either very yeah funny person or for example very serious person they both should be named by their surname 3 times during check in they all should be asked what is the reason of staying in amsterdam or in any other city or they all should be asked yeah basically all questions that are needed to ask for to make them their stay the best yeah so it's basically that the the points in this like it's not really that you get a script but the points that you have to say you have to say you can blend it in as you want but the script is like yours you can you can do basically whatever you want if it's in the guidelines so you can showcase your own personality but you have to you have to do a specific kind of stuff and that's like the the playbook right so if i get you right you say you can be yourself be your own personality because that's also what makes it fun i guess as a front office you know if you have to be like a robot then you become like a gpt with all kinds of knowledge so that's not what you want so you have to blend the personality with the sop stuff exactly yeah that's definitely yeah how the way that you form it is definitely at least the mentality or the way that i look at the way that a front office should be led yeah nice and i guess that a lot of young people of course are working in front office is that is that kind of do you see like a change in like is it difficult is it other is it like difficult to work with those younger people or do they have different kind of needs like do they i don't know want to be be valued more i want to be heard more i want to be more freedom want to have more freedom i don't know what what what is the the younger people because that's that's what's needed to understand them in order to to get there right now right i definitely think that a lot of younger people work at the reception desk also because usually it's been being seen as a starting position within a hotel right i think the changes that i've seen recently in that regards is that a lot of people of younger age who start working in hospitality really want to make a lot of steps very quickly so if they understand one part of the job 50% they already want to make a promotion they're like i want to have more responsibility i want to have more responsibility and some things you can't learn that quickly right i mean of course if you have a checklist of 10 points to do in a day and you've started in a position six to eight months ago and you finally achieved the fact that you can do all the 10 things on a checklist but you still don't have the let's say emotional intelligence to indeed do these incredible check ins that a luxury property or maybe even also four star boutique hotels want to see you're not ready yet and i get that it's frustrating for people because you really cannot pinpoint what change you want to see in someone sometimes it's difficult to explain to someone especially if you're younger because maybe it's your first job or your second job maybe you simply haven't met that many people yet if you just look at it literally you haven't met this many people on higher level yet ceos or directors or you name it and you just simply don't know what they want right but that's something you need to learn and that takes time so i think that is definitely something that younger people in hospitality in general not just the front desk struggle with and that is also a theme that i have seen so it's important for you as a manager or as a leader to be able to explain that to them in a way that makes sense and to also of course have them stay working for you which is also high i think this is also a reason of yeah why hospitality can have a high turnover because it's not always feasible the things that you need to do to promote yeah but it's funny that it goes kind of two ways because on the one side the younger generation needs to understand the older generation like the the guests and how to but on the other hand also the opposite the old generation and the managers and that kind of stuff need to understand those younger people because otherwise you're not listening to your own guests and your your the people working at your hotel because they're also kind of some kind of guest right but what also kind of it's kind of a football joke not really a joke but something what i talk about with my older brother and we always say like the the best trainers should you put them on the on the 18 year olds when you for example eat the ajax amsterdam or on the younger ones at the you know 6 7 8 so the most most of the times you think like i have to put them on the young on the air on the older ones right because they have more skills that kind of stuff but my brother always said to me you have them on the young on the younger ones because they still have the you know they need the best coaches because they still need to develop and that kind of stuff so basically why i'm saying this is that it's funny that you at the front desk people hotels they put their their young people they put their people without a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience like it's kind of a junior role but on the other end it's one of the most important roles because you expect the first impression you expect them to get the reviews you expect them to do the upsel they can make a lot of mistakes and it says in a lot of a big impact on the guests and like you said they have the most time talking with guests so it's kind of not imbalanced because it's the most one of the most important roles and on the other hand it's one of the most linear rules so that's yeah yeah yeah i think you definitely hit the hammer on the nail right there absolutely i think yeah just to add to that i definitely think that the best teams you hear these jokes sometimes right that you have a work best friend of 60 years old for example when you're 20 yourself i think that is incredibly funny but it's true i mean you can learn so much from people from different ages the other way around as well if you have been working in hospitality for 30 years and you work together with someone who just joined from hospitality school or from a bachelor that they just obtained for example in hospitality management you get all these new ideas from each other you get the knowledge and the self awareness maybe from someone who's been there for a longer time and you also learn from someone who's younger who's just for example works with ai or teaches you how to maybe instead of you spending 20 minutes writing an email to a guest who complains about something quite complex you just go to chatgpt and they help you right away so it's a two way street and i think the balance of age in a team can sometimes be extremely important to take into consideration yeah nice and i'm kind of curious now what is one thing that you've learned that you think other hotels can really learn from this at for example the sofitel or waldorf astoria amsterdam what is one of the things you say like ah this one really stuck to me stuck with me and i really think that other hotels can if it's a luxury or whatever can learn from this mindset or best practice or whatever i think you have something at the world of astoria for example they work with something they call tws true waldorf service and that is something that every everyone in the hotel is trained on not just reception but really everyone is and what you basically learn is to take ownership of the information that you are able to obtain of a guest so housekeeping walks into a room and they see a little tiny pink suitcase of a little girl that is probably staying in the hotel with their parents so what do they do with that information you can ignore it but you can also as even as housekeeping right someone that the people that are work probably hardest in hotels and don't get enough recognition through that tws true water service they are being given ownership and the freedom to act on little points of information that you see so what they do they place a little little teddy bear with a wall of themed teddy bear in the room and a little note of oh he wants to stay with you and you can take me home as well warm regards housekeeping name whatever so i think the thing that i learned through tws true world of service is that everyone in the hotel should be given freedom and ownership to act on information that they see because of that i also think in general you have greater retention of staff because people really enjoy their job if you just clean a room let's be fair it's hard work you don't really get recognition no one it's nobody's maybe it is but for most people it's not necessarily their dream job but if you're able to get recognition from the guests from the hotel itself and actually you really do something nice for someone who doesn't love that right so true i really think that's something that i learned that it is important for a hotel to understand that everyone has a crucial role in guest experience from maintenance to housekeeping from marketing to front desk everyone has to take ownership and responsibility and yeah i think it's sometimes missing yeah yeah so let them have let them have an opportunity to make an impact on that guest right so it's not like day in day out the same day and they cannot do anything about it but how like in a practical way because i understand in the waldorf example it's of course a very luxury hotel and the margin on each guest is is very high so you know if something from maintenance brings in a teddy bear and it cost a few dollars nothing happened because there's still a lot of margin in that you know in that in that place but if for example a smaller hotel boutique hotel you cannot of course tell each and every person working the hotel you can give give away teddy bears if you want or that kind of how would you do that for example and if you talk about the receptionist for example how would you give them that space to make more impact on the guests i mean you can also do it with time generally i mean for example if you don't have the budget to indeed purchase all these things like teddy bears or yeah sometimes you really buy expensive more expensive gifts for guests right so yeah what you're saying i do understand and i think maybe in different hotels that don't have the budget for that it can definitely be done differently so for example you speak to a guest at 3 o' clock in the afternoon and they ask you i really want to eat a good stroopwafel in amsterdam where do i go and you say you should definitely go to the albert kyp market they have the best and for example you have some stroopwafels laying around or usually they are being served with your coffee while you collect some and you write a little card i hope you had a good day at albert kite market i hope i see you again tomorrow i want to hear all about it something like this doesn't cost you anything but five minutes to write a card even if you don't have straw waffles to give with it i mean attention is also extremely important i think people in generally are wanted to yeah they really want to be seen true it's an important emotional factor so if you just acknowledge the fact that you think about them or that you have understood how much they have been looking forward to spending a day in the orbitcag market those those emotional touch points can be extremely beneficial to a guest experience in general yeah that's nice yeah so it's it's basically about making them feel seen and yeah that doesn't need to cost any money of course you can buy something but if you spend your time and spend your smile and you the emotion that's also kind of a gift right absolutely yeah absolutely nice nice and if we talk about because of course the podcast is called the future of hospitality so do you think that the role will kind of evolve to something else because you know a lot of more and more things are going with ai now data getting you know selfless check ins and you can get a lot of data with ai and maybe i don't know the role of receptionist is evolving into something else like how do you see that your own personal view yeah good question i think it's definitely the case that the administrative responsibility that a receptionist used to have i think 10 years ago or even five years ago still is going to be reduced because of ai or because of automation in general or at least i hope so and yeah i think the receptionist will be will have more time hopefully it will be benefited that the time will be benefited in regards to having more time to create these emotional connections with the guest to spend more time nice because how nice would it be if ai or automation could be used to actually increase the time that people can spend together right so i think that will definitely happen and i think also in that regards to the receptionist will be working more together with automation and ai so let's say pre arrival experiences that ai is able to generate that is something that you need to be aware of so how are you going to read that information that is being given to you pre arrival and how are you going to work with post stay ai that is being used so for example certain feedback that you get differently this time i think automation and ai is definitely the future of hospitality i think we are not just going to or receptionists are not just going to be administrators anymore but more exactly emotional connectors and more yeah maybe also ai geniuses who knows yeah yeah i think that's that's a nice part and i think that at a younger generation with ai and technology they of course they grow up with it like gpt for for my parents if i say gpt they still go to google instead of to gpt and type in google they type in gpt and yeah really but i hope they don't listen to this episode but anyhow but that's really is their their strongest point from the younger generation is that they really tech that's their thing you know tech they so i think that if the admin is done with ai and everything is automated they can really focus on absor probing that information and and creating that emotional connection with the guest i think that's that's a great win win for everybody for the guests for the hotel for the staff 100 agree yeah absolutely yeah nice yeah really looking forward to to that happening in hotels so emma we're almost out of time do you have something else that you want to add about about this subject something that you want to share can be anything well a good one something that i want to share i mean i think this might be a good opportunity and hopefully also maybe some people who are listening and considering a career in hospitality or maybe switching back to hospitality i hope to motivate people in general to yeah and some last message to really understand that hospitality is a real serious career not just a recept as a receptionist but also any other position within a hotel i think it's one of the most beautiful industries and i really hope that yeah with with also the fact that this podcast exists but also in general i hope people really consider how fulfilling a career in hospitality can be how even if you are not planning to stay in hospitality forever i mean you never know what life brings you but it is one of the most beautiful times of your life perhaps and i do really think that it is such a great place to be in so and maybe as a last message i would really say work in hospitality yeah amen amen amen yes yeah yeah great thank you for for sharing all these insights and your energy and i can really feel that you are passionate about hospitality that it's not just a job for you but a kind of way of looking at things and living and of course your parents they they have those fatality backgrounds so you can feel it that that is in you so thank you emma for for being a guest really loved it and that's it for today thank you very much thank you nice to nice to be here today and thanks