To ask people to use the doorbell?

[blankee]

I'm the admin for a small organisation and am in the office 4 days out of 5. Manager has asked me to make sure the blinds are open in the office so people know we are open and doing business - no problem, I’d rather have them open anyway! My office is right next to the main door.

We also have a lone worker policy which includes keeping the front door locked. We do have a doorbell and there’s a sign on the door saying to ring it if the door is locked.

The number of people who don’t notice this sign is impressive! Three times this week I’ve been given a real jump by people knocking on my window to be let in. It freaks me out no end, I’m not sure why, but my colleague in the next office says she feels the same when people have knocked her window in the past - which is why she now keeps her blinds closed. But I don’t have that option (see manager comment above!)

I’m about to make a big sign with really big letters pointing to the doorbell to stick on the door, but (and this is the point of my super long screed!) WIBU to have a sign on my window as well, asking people not to knock on the window but please ring the doorbell instead? I can’t explain why I hate it so much but it really freaks me out whenever it happens! But I don’t want to be inhospitable to visitors (we are in a sensitive line of work with sometimes vulnerable people etc)

YABU - stick a big sign on the front door and have done
YANBU - make it 100% clear NOT to knock on the bloody window!

I have a ring doorbell and the amount of people who ignore it and knock (which I can't hear hence the doorbell) is crazy.

I would hate people knocking on the window too.

I don’t know about the sign, though. It might seem a bit unfriendly, almost telling people off before they’ve even started IYSWIM.

How reasonable it is might depend on how often people do it after you put up the really big sign. There does seem to be a small contingent of people who seem to find doorbells too impersonal if they can knock on a window and surprise someone into look at them instantly. So if you have a lot of them in your customer base you may need it.

Can you move your desk so your back’s to the window? That might put some of them off.

I don’t know what it is about doorbells. Three houses with doorbells at the side of the door now, still people seem unable to see them, or maybe they just don’t know what a push bell looks like ( surely not). I have had notices above them, notices beside them, a little light inside to draw attention, no, still bang on the door which has no knocker.

i have educated the postman here now so he rings the bell, though he often gives the glass door a thump just to be sure.

I have no idea why this is in bold and I can’t be bothered to type it out again.

Can’t move the desk, sadly, but I’m contemplating putting up some paper to block the view into the office from outside as an alternative while I wait to see if the massive bright yellow RING THE DOORBELL sign works 😂

I actually have three doorbells. Original loud buzz, not audible in my bedroom or the garden. Wireless one with mobile receiver for use in garden. Another wireless one because I lost the first receiver - got it back now. I have a large notice over the letter box. Please ring all bells. Do not use the letter box as no one can hear it. Guess what happens.
I also have two nice blue plaques (Timpsons) saying Deliveries, Please put in cupboard and lock it. Nice safe place, but not on Evri's list of nice safe places. No, it's flap the letterbox, leave the parcel on the threshold and run.
It's called functional illiteracy. (Possibly augmented by laziness or too tight a time frame for the job.)
Perhaps use a red background and white lettering like Keep Calm etc, and a broad arrow.

So how do you know they’ve knocked instead of rung , if you can’t hear the knock? @NurseInTraining

Fair, I assume so because they said they knocked and are wondering why I didn't answer.

Ah ok, but was I was wondering was, how did you eventually discover their presence?

Lots of people seem to knock on my living room window (next to the front door) as opposed to the door itself. It’s bizarre. And I absolutely hate it too!! Just seems an evasion of privacy. So I get the whole “freaks me out” thing.

Ring doorbells alert your phone too. I see that before I hear the ring quite often.

I’m so glad other people relate! I thought I was being U about finding it unsettling.

I’ve put up a big yellow sign politely asking people to ring the doorbell, and I’m going to put some nice signs in my window at eye level to discourage people from looking in and knocking.

Add a smiley face to the sign, nobody could take it as aggressive then!

My next-door neighbour's front door is right beside mine so the alert goes off on my phone every time they come home and I ignore it. How hard is it to press the button like any other doorbell lol.

Oh I know, it baffles me too! I feel like delivery people have signed some sort of contract never to use a ring doorbell despite the fact I’m sure they were the reason they were invented!

Can you not just close the blinds and put a sign saying “open” up on the front door, along with the please ring the door bell sign?

i often prefer to have my blinds down because I hate too much light coming in

Ring doorbells are quite expensive too so it feels like a massive waste of money if no one will use it.

I get this at home, the amount of delivery men that won’t press my Ring doorbell, so I don’t hear them! I turn off the motion notifications because no matter how much we fiddled it would keep going off at nothing at all.
I’m 2 floors up from the front door in my office with the door closed, so won’t usually hear the door when they knock, then get an email saying my parcel has been delivered to next door/safe space.
However they do sometimes they absolutely hammer on it so I hear, but I just don’t get the aversion to pressing the button!

I feel like delivery people have signed some sort of contract never to use a ring doorbell despite the fact I’m sure they were the reason they were invented!

I personally cannot stand Ring doorbells. The perfect invention for those people who think their tiny terrace is a “castle” yet order dozens of parcels a week and expect to be handed them by a white gloved servant

Yes put a big sign on the window.

Do check the doorbell is working…..just saying😬

What. How is me having a door bell thinking I own a castle?!

Who is the "white gloved servant"? You realise that a ring doorbell doesn't come with a servant right? That's not included in the price lol.

I think some people won't press a ring doorbell because they hate the idea of being filmed, not realising that their presence has triggered the recording anyway.

I have a note on my Amazon account giving the gate code for the side alley and asking parcels to be left there safely if no one home. Worked brilliantly up to covid then it became knock, dump on doorstep in full view and run regardless of response (and sometimes missing out the knock at all). Sometimes I've literally been on the other side of the door and opened it and the guy actually seems pissed off that he has to hand me the parcel and get me to sign his screen thing.

I've got an old-fashioned (i.e. bog standard, 1980s) doorbell right there on the frame of the front door, & even though I write in delivery instructions, 'Ring doorbell', a lot of them don't.

The exception is when I've seen them arriving & they can see me approaching the partially-glazed front door. They always seem to ring it then, when it's (a) pointless & (b) absolutely deafening as it bounces off the walls of my tiny entrance hall.

Definitely working - the regulars are very good at using it! And everyone who's knocked on my window lately has said, "Oh I didn't know you had a doorbell!" even though anyone who has booked the space is advised of it 😆

I’m putting up some posters in my window now that will discourage without being off-putting, as it were. One will include the opening times of the office and WHERE TO FIND THE DOORBELL! 😂