Your Reception AREA is the first thing your clients or visitors see in your office; it stands to reason that your reception area, and its reception office furniture too, may make or break your standing with these VIPs.

As it’s part of the first impression you make on your clients and visitors, your reception office furniture – if selected properly – can create a lasting positive impact of your enterprise, and can improve your business prospects too.

Flaunt Your Attitude. Choosing your reception office furniture – and the other elements that go with it – require that you make a decision about the character and attitude of your enterprise. Do you want to be seen as creative? Conservative? Energetic? Such attitudes spell the difference between Twitter’s reception office (think: birds in flight) and the Dental INN’s therapeutic reception lounge. Read more…

Choosing a Reception Desk. What items, at minimum, would your new reception area need? The reception desk is item number one, the most important bit of office reception furniture you’ll need to get. You’ll need to choose a reception desk to match your company’s personality and image. For instance, tech start-ups may want to have this reception desk, constructed from the wing of a Douglas DC-8 plane – but law firms may give that desk a pass.

Don’t forget that the reception desk you choose should be as functional as it is attractive – reception office furniture that looks good but is barely usable in reality defeats the purpose of having a reception area in the first place!

Choosing Reception Seating. Every reception office furniture setup should aim for a comfortable seating experience. Having your guests wait in discomfort is only marginally better than having them stand around a seat-less reception office.

Install enough seating that offers multiple seating choices; you can decide the minimum number of seats you need by counting the number of visitors you receive on a daily basis.

Be sure that all seats can be seen and reached by the receptionist on duty. (“Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones will see you now… Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith?”) If money or space is a bit short, you might settle for one of these bench seating units – they also offer the added advantage of being quite modern in appearance.

Choosing Everything Else. The reception desk and seats cover the basics – everything else is there to add dimension and warmth to the reception area. Reception office furniture like a coffee table and a magazine stand add to the comfort level of the reception area, lessening the ordeal of waiting for business to commence.

• Magazine Stand: Do think about the selection of newspapers and magazines that your guests can read in the reception area. If you can stock the magazine stand with magazines full of articles that cover your business in a positive light, that will increase the high regard that your visitors have for your business.
• Refreshments: A coffee machine, water dispenser, or bowl of sweets adds a touch of convenience for waiting guests, and makes the wait less of an ordeal.
• Access to communications: more visitors have their own WiFi-capable devices on hand, so it might be a good thing to provide WiFi access to visitors. In the same vein, you might want to have a phone in the reception area handy.