Personality Clashes at Reception: How Can We Improve Teamwork and Customer Service?

Our office deals in customer services. To enhance customer satisfaction and deal with the increased load of customers, our office has now posted 2 Receptionists (earlier 2 months back there was 1) at Reception. Reception is the nodal point from where customers are greeted, listened to, their problems noted, and directed to respective departments for a solution. Both the old and new receptionists have a reasonable understanding of their job and responsibilities. However, we are observing that they both can't work as a team. Both keep fighting over petty matters.

The job at the reception involves multitasking when there is more than 1 customer waiting at Reception, but despite our repeated counseling, they keep fighting. Their job is easy if they divide/share their work as a team; however, they are not getting along well with each other. This is resulting in poor customer service at the reception and tarnishing the image of our company. How can we deal with this personality conflict? We cannot consider job rotation to another location as the Receptionist profile does not match other job profiles. We are holding ourselves back from terminating one of them from duties as we feel both have good job knowledge. Seniors, please advise.

Hi, it might be as simple as that. The answer might be there in the question itself as you have pointed out. Divide/Share their work. Better would be, instead of allowing them to "divide/share" their work, you can best "divide/assign" works to them. This is my suggestion. Please let me know if it works.

Thanks, Sathish.S.Nair

That's what the issue is. Reception coordination demands dividing and sharing, but they are actually assigning tasks separately instead of sharing responsibilities. The role of my receptionist requires working in close coordination, where one person seamlessly takes over from another. However, by assigning tasks individually, they end up neglecting the other person in the middle of a transaction.

The company and business image branding are of paramount importance for any business. Business image is critical for business success. Once the image is tarnished, it is incredibly hard to gain it back. Furthermore, it could take months or years to build a reputation, but it could take seconds to lose it. Image branding must be protected at all costs because it is the identity of the company.

That said, here is what I would do if I were in your shoes. Bring them both together to the back office into a conference room (if I don't have a conference room, just to my desk, or the hallway, or even the water cooler). Make sure it is just the three of us. Have a very candid conversation with both of them and put them on notice. Something along the lines of, "Listen. You two are the face and image ambassadors of this company. You play the host. But you two constantly fighting with each other, even in the presence of our customers, is damaging that very image you must be protecting. We have counseled you numerous times, but you have not changed. I value your knowledge and experience, and it will be a loss to the company to let you go. But, with your current attitude and behavior, keeping you is becoming a bigger loss to the company. Therefore, here is the last piece of advice to you two. You have two weeks to clean up your act, work on your issues, get along with each other, and start working together in a professional manner. If not, both of you will be gone by the end of two weeks."

Keep in mind, if you say this, mean it. At the end of two weeks, if they have not cleaned up their acts, they must be really out of there!

Here is my business ethic. If I am running a business servicing customers, my business and my customers are #1 - above all, I mean ALL (myself included). No single individual is above the company. Anyone who tries to bring down the business/company, no matter who that is, must go! If I am the one trying to bring down the company (unknowingly of course), the moment I come to know about it, I would not hesitate a moment before removing myself. That's just me!

Regards, --Som G

Thank you, Som, for your candid views. We want to use the marching orders route as a last resort. The attitude problem is evident in both of them. Neither of them wants to initiate a dialogue to amicably resolve the issue between themselves. One of the reasons is that both want to showcase to the management how well they can handle their tasks individually. However, as a team, they lack communication and, therefore, the required coordination. The issue lies in both of them trying to outshine each other to be rated better, resulting in complaints like, "Sir, I did my part well, but the other one did not do her part." Do the members feel that the management has faltered at any point in this process of correctly assessing and addressing the issue? Please share the members' views as we believe that if such situations are well-managed by the management, it will set the right example for all of us. There is no guarantee that hiring a new employee (by issuing marching orders to one of them) will ensure a trouble-free certification for the new employee.

MK,

It sounds to me as though the problem is not any one of them, but both of them. So, getting rid of one of them and hiring another in her place will not help you because the one you would be replacing is only half the problem. The other half (the one you retained) is still working in your office and could create the same kind of problem with the new hire as well. Either both go, or both stay and learn to work together. In my opinion, you have only two options - 1. both must go, 2. both stay and learn to work with each other.

I think I am also hearing quite an amount of hesitation in replacing them. If the hesitation is due to "I am not sure what I am going to get in the new hire. What if I get the same kind?" sort of thought, at some point you need to take that risk. The question is, do you want to take that risk today to do some damage control to your company image, or later when the company image is further damaged.

That said, if your hesitation is due to something else, and you REALLY want to keep them and see them successfully work together, you could have them do some team-building exercises (not going out and hanging out together but some office activities together). Give them some joint office assignments (where they HAVE to collaborate with each other) and let them know if one of them fails, both fail. You could also make them understand that they are not really competitors but partners. ("I did my part, but the other one didn't" is not valid. Even if you did your part and she didn't do her part, both of you failed." is the message that they need to understand completely. Tag team them (I am sure you have already done that), but this time with a little difference. Let them know that if one of them fails, both will be reprimanded. Keep giving them a few such assignments every day for a few days if required. If they still have problems working with each other after that, then at least your conscience would be clear when you let them go.

Regards,
--Som G

Thanks Som for your candid views. We want to use the marching orders route as a last resort. Attitude problem is both of them. Not one of them wants to start a dialogue to amicably sort out the issue between themselves. One of the reasons is both want to show the management how good individually they are in handling their tasks, but as a team, they lack communication and therefore required coordination. The issue is that both want to show up that I should be rated better, which results in their complaints saying, "Sir, I did my part well but the other one did not do her part." Do the members feel management has faltered anywhere in this process to correctly assess and tackle the issue? Please let us have members' views as we feel such situations, if management handles well, will set the right example for all of us. There is no guarantee if we hire a new employee (by issuing marching orders to one of them), the new employee shall be certified trouble-free.

Recent development: One of them has resigned due to some personal health problems, on the advice of a doctor, for prolonged bed rest. Now, how should we proceed from here?