Receptionists need to be professional. According to Le Thanh Tu, that is a firm foundation to build a valuable receptionist industry.

When traveling abroad you will see receptionist at the airport, hotel, and restaurant ... are very professional. They work fast and do well for our customers very satisfied. However, if observing carefully, you will find them quite hard close.
In nation, receptionist has strength to smile, friendly hospitality, gentle ... However they lacked the opportunity to be trained. It is a review of Le Thanh Tu, 26, director of the company Jolie Siam.

The story of the chef’s daughter

When constructing company, Tu is only over 23 years old but was regarded as the pioneer of receptionist industry. The former student of Le Hong Phong was born in the family which in no one was doing business. Tu’s father is professional chef and her mother is administrative personnel staff.

When asked: "There is no one does business, so when you were young, a dream becoming a restaurant owner or an entrepreneur? Is your desire of doing business not from your parents’ impacts?”

“When she was young, she dreamed to become a lawyer or an architect ... Approximately 16 years old, Tu has announced an opportunity to meet dad’s closed friend. He is the construction business. Each time he visited, Tu really liked to listen to his story and so admired his business."

In addition, a person who affects a lot to Tu is her mother. Tu shares:  "When going to school, Tu sometimes went home late. She saw her mom was lying on hammock and waiting. Tu prepared to be blamed but her mom just asked: "The ride was fun?" or "Is there some fun, come and tell me".
After so many times, she asked: "Why don’t you blame me after going home late?" and her mother replied:" If I blamed you, I will teach you the love that is synonymous with worry and that keen, I want to teach two other  things that love means sharing and giving the private space.”

The teachings of mother gave Tu a lesson about self learning and working. Later, Tu also learn from mother how to manage employees. That is giving them freedom to develop their best. Leaders must work smart to apply the methods of management for the objectives of work (MBO-Management by object) or the work process (MBP-Management by process).

After graduating from upper secondary, she was awarded a scholarship to study in French. During study period, she worked as receptionist for some companies. She also had an opportunity to train like a professional receptionist. She compared with receptionist in her country and discovered many defects. This is the reason encouraged Tu to form an idea of the company which will provide and train professional receptionists. Establishing company is part of her master’s graduation thesis at University of Lyon, France.

From idea to development

During constructing projects, Tu applied to work in a multinational company with the aim of seeking opportunities to Vietnam. In that time, she went to many companies in France and made an appointment to chat with director, founder who experience in establishing companies. People refuse to meet is more than agree.

Through the meeting, she learned lessons for researching and developing thesis. When exposed to the teacher, he asked: "Why do you decide to do your thesis by establishing a company?"  "I want to do my plan and learn how to do it”, Tu answered. When reading the thesis, master has inspired Tu: "I will very proud if you do this plan successfully."  From these comments, a plan of establishing the company is completed on paper.  Making this project become reality is very difficult because Tu did not have enough money, she was so young and few people believed that she will succeed.

There was no fund for project. Tu brought her plan to many companies and explain it to found an investment. At that time, Blandine, a director of Receptionist Service Company in Lyon agreed to sponsor Tu’s project.

With a certain fund, Tu came back to Vietnam and founded Jolie Siam in 10/2006. Tu and her co-operators make receptionists become a professional career. After running for 2 years, Jolie Siam has hundreds of customers in Ho Chi Minh City and strongly impresses them by a principle “The first impression, the golden impression.”

People can easily recognize Jolie Siam’s styles in events such as Thu Thiem Project Opening event, events of companies like Acer, Sony Ericsson, and the French embassy, Delta Petroleum, Unilever Food Solutions, Nokia and Toyota.

Marketing the smiles

The weakness of domestic receptionists is lack of profession. Knowing that defect, Tu trained her employees by training standards such as standing position, inviting visitors and advising products.

Company gives out a principle about welcoming for receptionist to impress visitor in 40 seconds by smiles, gestures, handling situation quickly. All of them build a Vietnamese reception style which can compare with Japanese, Thai, Chinese and French style.

In the process of training employees, Tu always emphasizes that employees have to perform their strength likes friendly, satisfy customer’s needs, deeply understand features of products.

Currently, recruiting candidates are young mother and oversea student. The reason is young mother can handle and control problem effectively and can work day shifts. Oversea students who want to take part in the community events can go to Jolie Siam to do it.

The potential is very large. Therefore, 80% plan of company is training professional receptionists. Tu shared: “My desire is receptionists can bring their smiles to customers, friendly and professional services.”

Anh Quốc

Source: Thành Đạt magazine, February 2009.