Reception Team
The reception team is a volunteer team who help manage the front desk and assist with administrative tasks during office hours.
Responsibilities
- Answering the phone and taking messages
- Responding to voicemails
- Updating check-ins
- Creating name tags
- Assisting with Admin Support
Answering the Phone
- Make sure you have a pen and the voicemail message book.
- Ensure the card stock insert is behind the most current page so that the pressure paper doesn't bleed through
- Answer the call: “This is _____ at Foothills Unitarian. How can I help you?”
- If they say their name, write it down immediately. If you don’t fully hear or understand it, you can write down what you hear and clarify later.
- (If you have PCO access only) Searching the first 2 letters of their first & last name into PCO will generally bring up their profile if they are in our system. Sometimes this takes a little guessing and it’s okay if you can’t find it, it may just help you understand who you’re talking with
- Determine who they want to talk to/what their question or concern is. Some questions you will be able to answer & help with, some you will not.
- People will ask “is ________ around, I would like to speak with them” but unless someone is immediately accessible/nearby, we generally don’t forward calls because we only have the one phone. You can say “It looks like ________ is in a meeting right now, can I take a message or answer any questions for you?”. Callers are generally agreeable to this. People in the office appreciate this as well as most of them are not prepared to answer the phone at any given time.
- Make sure to take notes while listening to their call
- If someone is asking to speak to someone with no context, you can ask “What does this pertain to?” This will help you discern prospecting calls
- Generally, folks are asking for:
- Pastoral
CareThis includes speaking with our caring team but can also include assistance finding social services (ie food banks, housing assistance, etc.)If all the person wants is help getting connected with organizations, provide those for themCare: Housing:Housing- Family Housing Network
https://www.familyhousingnetwork.org/ - Habitat for Humanity
https://fortcollinshabitat.org/ - Rainbow Villages (LGBTQ+ only)
This one is a Foothills affiliated group but a little harder to provide direct resources for as they are small. We do not immediately give people who we do not know access to this group as this is a very sensitive group dedicated to helping queer families move to safer states. Take down the callers information and give it to Lauren F or Caitlin.
- Family Housing Network
- Mobile Food Market
We host these guys every other week at 1pm, on 1st & 3rd Sundays - Larimer County Food Bank
https://foodbanklarimer.org/ - Vindiket Foods
This is Not an official Foothills community partner but I like this one personally.
They are a food rescue that works on voluntary donations only and is run mostly by volunteers
https://www.vindeketfoods.org/
- Invite them to engage in our church.
- Lauren F is our newcomer and engagement coordinator and will be able to help them. Tell her we got a call and give her their information. Give the caller her email: lauren@foothillsuu.org
- If the person needs more than access to our resources, direct them to our caring team and inform Elaine of the situation. Do you best to be patient and kind with these folks, they are generally having a bad day
- caring@foothillsuu.org
- 970-493-5906 ext. 126#
- Anyone on the admin team (Caitlin, Jenn, or
KatieKatie) can help with this - Take down their information changes, full name, and phone number. Double check that you have the correct details by repeating them back
- Tell them you will communicate the changes to our financial team and that they will be receiving an email shortly
- Anyone on the admin team (Caitlin, Jenn, or
website: https://foothillsuu.org/reserve/
This was really cool and I liked it
Podcast
Music
Staff changes
Keep it vague.
“Unfortunately we just weren’t a good fit”
“We are in the process of interviewing and hiring new candidates. We hope to have the position filled soon”
Prospecting Calls
Be nice but tell them no
It doesn’t matter how much they push the answer is no