Reservations Agent

Job Description

We are recruiting a Reservations Agent to join our London Business Services department.

DEPARTMENT PURPOSE

The aim of Business Services is to provide 'best in class' hospitality & document services to the legal practices, covering a wide range of Hospitality Services (Catering, Front of House, Housekeeping, AV, and the Health & Wellbeing Centre) and Document Services (the Bridge, Reprographics, Records, Central Scanning, E-Bibles, Mailroom & Office Assistants). The purpose of this role is to manage the operational client services including Front of House and Reservation functions at Bishops Square; including the Conference Suite, Training Suite, Reception desks, Reservations London, Business Support Centre and support the contracts for the Audio Visual & Multimedia services and visitor management for Sub-tenant teams.

ROLE PURPOSE

The Reservations Agent is responsible for coordinating meeting room and event booking requests. Providing expert advice and in-depth knowledge of meeting room and event space in the London office, including managing requests for Catering, Audio-Visual, IT facilities to offer the best allocation of space and layout to maximise room occupancy and meet client demand. The Reservation team form part of the Front of house function and work closely with the Audio-Visual, Catering and Housekeeping teams to ensure we maintain the very highest standards of support and assistance for meeting and event space management in London.

ROLE & RESPONSIBILITIES

• Manage all booking requests from clients, ensure calls and requests are dealt with promptly and efficiently.
• Ensure that the highest standard of customer care is always used and respond in a professional manner to any given situation.
• Support Reservations team leader by recording all comments, compliments or complaints are logged promptly.
• Ensure that all relevant day to day information and changes are shared with the team especially during handovers between various shifts.
• Develop relationships and communication channels with all the service providers to coordinate all advance booking demands for clients in a professional and timely manner.
• Support the Team Leader in improving standards of service and efficiencies.
• Be a flexible member of the team to cover various shifts when needed.
• Provide administration support training, guidance and sharing of best practice with the Reservation team members and the wider business.
• Proactively undertake any other duties or tasks as required by Team Leader and FOH Management team.
• Handling phone, and email requests for all Space Reservations promptly and inputting these accurately on room booking system.
• Handling and reviewing space requests via room booking system.
• Booking technology and AV equipment, Catering and room set ups as required and ensuring any special instructions regarding visitors, access to rooms and conflicting parties' information is communicated accordingly.
• Co-ordinate all advance booking demands for our clients, by liaising closely with other relevant departments including AV, IT Support, Catering, Front of House Team, and Housekeeping.
• Processing webinar and recording requests, liaising closely with Audio-Visual department to coordinate bookings.
• Acquire in-depth knowledge of all meeting and event spaces, AV, and IT facilities to provide the most appropriate room allocation, layout and maximise room occupancy.
• Support any training of the room booking system for clients and provide expert advice to bookers on meeting and event space in London office.
• Identifying, logging, and escalating any systems issues including telephone call handling system.
• Periodic testing of room booking system.
• Keep up to date with new information, procedures, developments, and innovation, to lead service improvements and find efficiencies in managing the meeting and event space in London Office.

All Agents are expected to be flexible in undertaking these duties and any other duties as required by FOH Management and Head of Hospitality Services.

KEY REQUIREMENTS

• Strong customer service experience.
• Experience of working in a demanding professional / reservations team environment.
• Confident communicator who can handle complaints and comments professionally, remains calm under pressure.
• A strong team player with the ability to multi-task, solve problems and prioritise work commitments.
• A positive attitude towards developing the role, accepting responsibility, and acting with initiative.
• Proactive and able to identify opportunities and develop new ideas that will lead to service improvements.
• Committed to continuous service improvement and innovation.
• Aptitude and willingness to learn new technology quickly and develop new skills.
• Experience of utilising web-based applications.
• Good understanding of global booking system in a legal or professional services environment.

Working shift pattern of 08.00am to 4.00pm, 9.00am to 5.00pm and 10.00am to 6.00pm on a weekly rotation.

Should you require additional support at any stage of the recruitment process due to a disability or a health condition, please do not hesitate to contact a member of our recruitment team who will work with you to provide any adjustments as required.

We are an equal opportunities recruiter and do not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or any other protected characteristic.

We recognise that our people are our most valuable asset, which is reflected in the wide range of benefits that are available to our employees. Some of these benefits include: our occupational pension scheme, group income protection cover, private medical insurance, mental health resources and free apps, health and wellbeing services encompassing an onsite gym, wellbeing centre and GP service, emergency back-up care support, parental and special leave, holiday entitlement increasing with length of service, holiday trading, season ticket loans and online discounts and lifestyle management services.

Our approach to hybrid working seeks to combine and maximise the benefits of effective remote working with the benefits of being in the office. Our current hybrid working arrangements require office based working for a minimum of 60% of your time (i.e. three days per week for a full time role) in accordance with our hybrid working policy.

NO AGENCIES PLEASE - A&O Shearman does not accept unsolicited CVs. For further information, please see our UK Recruitment Agency Policy and our commitment to direct sourcing here.