Mala McAlpin It’s a topic of contention for practitioners and business owners alike – should your receptionist be left in charge of retailing product? Or only your therapists? Is it more beneficial for your practitioners to complete their treatment and hand the rest over to check-out? Like many things in life, turns out there may not be a right or wrong answer, and all depend on the intricacies of your team and your operations. But just to give you some food for thought, we thought we’d run through some pros and cons for both scenarios – and leave the rest up to you!
Cons
- Handing over to reception immediately after treatment may in some cases break the trust the therapist has built with their client during treatment. For those that require some coaxing when it comes to homecare or upselling, it might mean a loss of sale.
- If your therapists hand over to reception immediately after treatment, this means (in most cases) the only opportunity to engage in the initial sales chat before ‘handing over’ to the receptionist to finish the job is during the treatment itself. Depending on the treatment, this may interfere with those that might want to simply relax in silence, such as during a massage, facial or LED.
- If your reception staff aren’t qualified therapists or practitioners, they may not have all the answers to any tricky questions during the checkout process – which could make your clients second-guess their choices.
- If you have only one receptionist, you won’t be able to engage them in any ‘healthy competition’ sales targets with their colleagues, driving each other to improve. Your team of therapists will also miss out on this.
Pros
- Handing over to reception immediately after treatment saves your therapist time, and allows them to quickly turn over their room and proceed to the next treatment. This means you don’t have a large dedicated sales and turnover time slot between clients, meaning more revenue generated on treatments!
- Your reception staff are no doubt social butterflies and so used to chatting with countless people every day – in most cases, they will have the ideal personality and social skills for successful sales.
- Having your receptionists well-versed in your product ranges means they are on-hand if clients have any burning questions in the waiting area before their treatment commences.
- Having your reception staff so involved in this process will make them feel much more involved as part of the team and within your business itself, having slightly less of a disconnect with practitioners. Your clients will also see them in much the same way, as opposed to simply the face of your reception space.
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