Here’s the routine for confident reception desk interactions

Lucy Kellaway as always makes some telling and humorous points about reception area etiquette (“Your rudeness in reception may be used against you“, FT 29/3/15). http://on.ft.com/1H2R6I2

I visit numerous waiting rooms every week. One area where people often miscue at the reception desk is in saying their name first and then the name of the person they’re meeting with. This will often cause the receptionist to ask for their name again.

For a seamless, time-saving, reception-desk interaction:

1. Say the name of the person you’re meeting with (ie. start with known information).

2. Then say your name.

3. Then take a name badge/register.

If you subscribe to the view that ‘Whatever can be seen or heard, will be seen or heard, and will form an impression’, and that you should maximise the number of positive impressions you leave – your reception desk etiquette does matter, and will contribute to other people’s perceptions of you.