When we meet someone or see something for the first time we all get a very few seconds to make an impression. And once it has been formed that impression will be very hard to change.

Good hotel managers always enter their buildings through the front door, never the staff entrance round the back. Only that way can they get to see exactly what the guest sees. Autumn leaves blowing around in the porch? Grubby-looking carpet? Finger-marked brass or glass? They know that these things are unacceptable and look out for them constantly.

Your reception area is very much the same. When a client walks in do they feel immediately as though they are entering a busy, efficient office? Is everything smart and polished, or does it look drab and dingy? Are the furniture and perhaps the paintwork old and chipped or smart?

And how does it smell? Smell is one of our strongest triggers and we respond immediately to it, good or bad. Every building has a smell - is yours attractive and fresh or fusty and stale?

Your reception and meeting room areas are bit like your shop window. You need clients to gain a highly positive impression as they enter and a little money spent here will be well invested. You should decide very deliberately on the image you want to project. If yours is a highly traditional high street firm with many elderly clients you may want highly traditional decor and furnishings - wood paneling and leather sofas. If, on the other hand, you have many business clients you want to come across as fast moving and modern you would go for an entirely different look. Whatever you select, it is essential that everything is undamaged and clean. You only have to ask yourself how you would feel entering a professional office that had clearly seen better days.

So, delegate this to your receptionist and allocate a modest budget. Ask yourselves these simple questions:From the moment they approach your office, what do they see?
  A tidy path, or litter?
  Polished brass?
  Good, clean paintwork and decorations, or scruffy, shabby doors and walls? Is your reception area warm, inviting and well-lit? Are the chairs clean and comfortable or old, rejected office chairs that have clearly seen better days? Do the magazines consist of copies of Sunday colour supplements dated April 2005, an annual report from a Plc and a dog-eared, six month old copy of Shooting Times (Bad policy! Don't have anything controversial - shooting is a sport that some disapprove of) or current issues of popular magazines that your typical clients might enjoy? A selection of today's 'papers is always sound.

You want them to feel immediately welcomed and as though someone has thought about them.

The other thing to watch is your reception staff. This can sometimes be a bit of a job that people settle into and "retire". I know that there are many professional receptionists out there but there are also too many who have got into bad habits. Watch out particularly for:The receptionist who makes endless private calls, keeping visitors and callers waiting while some vital piece of gossip is discussed at length. The bored and/or sing-song answering of the phone. It gives such a bad impression.The frequent gathering of other staff in reception - receptionists are always the best source for juicy gossip!Receptionists who are not well presented - well groomed and dressed.

In no particular order, some ideas that you might like to think about:Your entire reception operation is like your shop window. Treat it as though it is always on show, because it is.Your receptionists must understand that they are not merely telephone answerers. They are almost like sales staff and need to really really look after visitors and callers. You need energetic people who are naturally helpful. Draw up a written policy covering all the things you decide on, in consultation with your senior receptionist and then delegate the responsibility to him or her. Have fresh coffee available in reception - it makes it smell so good and visitors appreciate it.Put an online computer in the corner - clients will appreciate being able to check their email while they are waiting. Similarly, make WiFi available and make sure people are told both are there for them. It will cost you only a few pounds per month. (safer to keep it independent of your network: simply make it a standalone connection that goes directly to it's own ISP account. You should still secure it though, giving the key to visitors. If you don't there is always a risk that someone nearby could use it for something nasty)Watch out for the printed matter around, as mentioned above. Make sure your firm brochure and any other legal material is available, current and relevant.Get your receptionists to sign visitors in with their appointment time and arrival time and then to note against each the time they were actually seen, preparing a weekly or monthly summary report on the findings. Talk in very firm terms to any FE that ever keeps clients waiting more than 5 minutes beyond their appointment.Sign up for BT call monitoring. For a modest fee you can get a regular comprehensive report on such things as how long you are taking to answer incoming calls, how many times callers get an engaged tone (indicating whether you have enough outside lines - most firms actually have too many), your incoming call flows (there will be peaks and troughs during the day which may indicate the need to add an extra receptionist for certain hours, for example) and so on. Involve your reception staff in the results, stressing that this is all about supporting them in giving the best service to clients, not checking up on them, and get them to agree on targets for improvement.Similarly, use your hardware. Some modern systems will produce good reports on efficiency of use, such as how long callers are being kept on hold.Train. Far too few reception staff have had any proper training but there is much that can be taught. For example, when they are trying to find someone in the building for a caller, how do they handle further incoming calls? I have seen people kept waiting ages for an answer because a receptionist could not handle more than one call at a time, and yet she had done the work for years.Make your staff keep reception informed of their availability and when they go out. Apply sanctions if they fail. A neat solution is to set up an Outlook diary, accessible by all, that reception can have open in front of them all the time.Agree on and apply a sound policy for how calls are handled. For example, if a fee earner is not at their desk, what happens? Does their secretary take the call (some don't like doing so but it must be a routine part of their job, in their job spec.), does it got to answer phone, or what? Document the policy and make people stick to it.Make staff treat receptionists with respect. Too often I have found firms where there is running resentment between reception and the rest and yet we should all be on the same side. Deal with this firmly. Staff must take calls in a really helpful manner, even if they are not for them. Everyone must adopt the attitude "what can I do to help this client of the firm, even though it is not my client".Put in a system to monitor call-backs. Too many FEs fail to make these promptly and if there is one thing that really winds clients up, and all of us, it is this. All call backs should, without fail, be made before the end of the same morning or afternoon. In one firm I came across, reception emailed all requests for call backs to staff who had to reply "Done" when they had been. Reception carefully filed all their original emails on their computers and only deleted them when the "Done" message came back. At about 4.00 pm they would chase any not yet completed. This worked excellently and they had turned a poor performance in this area into a superb one. A simple solution that kept a timed record for all to see - no one could argue that they never got the message.

Finally, a thought about secretaries. In many smaller firms, reception staffing has to be supported by secretaries, and in every firm they hate this. In my experience there are very few secretaries that are happy to do this work. But if it is necessary, it is necessary. You can only make it an un-negotiable part of their job spec. And make sure that there are no exceptions allowed (because that is often the real underlying issue - individual partners that excuse their own secretaries leading to seething resentment among the others). Set up a rota, make it public and work hard to ensure fairness. And don't let prejudices get in the way. I have heard comments such as "We can't use her - she's got such an awful accent!" Well, firstly that accent may not matter half as much as you (or the senior partner!) thinks it will, secondly you can get your trainer to address the issue, and thirdly you need to make sure that when recruiting you remember this requirement.