Concierge Services, Corporate and Personal

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INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

In the busy world of the middle years of the twenty-first century's first decade, who has time for such headaches as picking up the laundry from the dry cleaners or returning that overdue library book? If corporate and personal concierge service firms had their way, the answer would be no one. While most people had not yet forsaken routine personal chores and opted to hire professionals, the concierge industry, known as lifestyle management in the United Kingdom, had become an increasingly popular option. By 2003, concierge services had gained credibility as bona fide business ventures and not just a passing fad for the super rich.

The concierge industry serves several different markets: hotels, individuals or families in need of an extra set of hands, corporations offering the service as an employee benefit, and residential or commercial buildings hoping to attract tenants. Initially, the realm of the concierge was limited to luxury hotels and the homes of the power elite. As of 2006, this was no longer the case. The corporate world had embraced the industry, and it was no longer unusual to see this type of service listed as a company-sponsored employee benefit along with health insurance and pension plans.

In the mid and late 1990s, when the unemployment rate was at an all-time low, corporations turned to concierge services to assist overworked employees who had no time to care for personal matters. Employees spent an increasing number of hours in the workplace as the typical workday and workweek lengthened. In order to alleviate stress and prevent employee burnout, many companies began to offer concierge services as part of their benefits packages. Concierges were hired to perform an almost limitless array of tasks tailored to individuals' particular needs. Usually, assignments consisted of basic chores, such as grocery shopping, feeding pets, and running routine errands. However, the tasks could include more personalized requests, such as researching golf course locations, locating good insurance deals, and sending flowers to spouses. The division of labor, so the theory went, generated increased workplace productivity and boosted employee satisfaction.

In the middle years of the first decade of the 2000s, even if concierge services were not an employment perk, they were available to regular working people. A number of companies marketed their products directly to active professionals. These companies, with names like 2 Places at 1 Time, offered to do anything that was "legal, moral, and feasible." These parameters could entail handling the details of a move to a new home, arranging vacations, shopping for gifts, or even organizing photo albums. Billing themselves as "lifestyle managers," no task was too big or too small.

The "building" concierge had also become more common in real estate circles. Once thought of as an amenity found at five star hotels, the concierge found a new home in office and apartment buildings. The duties of a building concierge might be different from one hired to serve individual families or employees, but the bottom line remained the same. Building concierges were retained because they added value to a property and often resulted in cost savings for the building owners. Like their corporate counterparts, professional building concierges were credited with cost cutting and lowering the turnover rate of tenants. With the industry expanding into this new field, it appeared that concierge services would continue to prosper.

ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE

In the middle years of the twenty-first century's first decade, concierge services were still a fledgling industry and quite varied in their organization. Some corporations hired their own staff to function as part of their payroll, while others contracted with local concierge firms to provide services on call. Concierge companies sometimes employed as many as 200 professional concierges, while others were staffed by retirees and students trying to earn extra cash by offering to run errands part-time.

For ongoing concierge services, a corporation would typically pay a retainer fee ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 a month depending on the size of the corporation and number of employees covered. Multinational corporations might pay much more for services that are more extensive. Companies negotiated a variety of deals with concierge firms, tailoring the range of services and payments to suit their needs. Companies would decide which services they wanted to make available and which employee requests they would subsidize. Some companies simply set up an account with a concierge firm and allowed employees to use the personal services at their own expense, but paid a discounted rate brokered by the employer. Other firms might pay all or part of an employee's expense, in which case the company would typically put a limit on the type and extent of services an employee might request. Though concierge services were most heavily used by larger corporations, they were quite popular among smaller businesses in several major cities, such as New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

A combination of the hotel and corporate concierge position, the building concierge launched a new division of concierge services. The building concierge could be found in both commercial office complexes and residential apartment buildings. Sometimes the concierge...