Do You Have A Director of First Impressions?
Name plate seen on accounting firm reception desk: Director of First Impressions.
(Do a Google search and you find quite a few of these, complete with smiling faces of real people.)
That’s the way all offices should really think of the receptionist or “the girl who answers the phone” - and hire and pay accordingly. Unfortunately, these critical “first impression jobs” are typically the lowest paid, least respected jobs in the company, with either very limited or dead-end career paths.
So, what if all offices did think this way? Every sales and marketing person would start at the front desk and answering the phone - talking to customers, learning to handle issues, when to escalate, how to think on their feet. Then, they could move in any number of different paths - from field sales to product development to market research.
Nahhh….that makes too much sense. 
( In my extreme youth, paying for college, I worked at a couple of big law firms as a temp receptionist, with those big phone consoles. Let me tell ya - it’s an educational experience! You know how hard it is to sound happy by about the 8,000th time you say, “Good morning! Belt, Felt, Cooning, Crane, Schmott, and Goldblatt. This is Mary, how can I help you?” ah-yahhhh….)
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