How to Include the Art of Concierge-Level Guest Experience to Any Business

Your brand can gain customer loyalty by offering concierge-level customer service — even if you’re not in the hotel or hospitality industry.

Most people are familiar with hotel concierges, the friendly, helpful staff members skilled at making a guest’s stay as seamless as possible. Hotel concierges fulfill many customer-centric duties such as arranging restaurant reservations, taxi or rideshare transportation, entertainment, booking pre-arrival spa appointments and more.

The hotel concierge is also dedicated to resolving guest concerns or issues and will go above and beyond to make sure hotel guests are taken care of for an exceptional stay.

Today the hotel concierge model crosses over into multiple industries, including customer call centers, health insurance providers, concierge medicine, travel and more.

“By applying the benefits of concierge customer service to your business, you distinguish yourself from your competition,” said Dr. Jeanne Hurlbert, president of customer-centric marketing firm Hurlbert Consulting Group in an article on the agency’s website:

“Concierge Customer Service enables you to work with your customers at a level your competitors cannot touch — they can’t match the value you’re bringing to those customers and won’t be able to challenge your business with those customers.”

What is concierge-level customer service?

The goal of concierge-level service is to fulfill the customer’s needs in as seamless a manner as possible so the customer feels valued by your brand — instead of just one more customer to get out of the way so an employee can move on to the next customer or call.

With call center concierge-level service, the call center representative resolves the customer’s issue in one call. For example, if an authorization, reference code, or additional information is needed, the rep doesn’t cause additional frustration by transferring the caller or giving them a new number to call so they can wait on hold even longer.

Instead, they place the caller on hold while getting the information so the customer doesn’t have to call back or they hold a three-way call with the customer and another department. In some cases, the call center rep ends the call, then obtains the information to call the customer back.

Concierge-level service goes digital

Some companies that rely heavily on digital customer service frustrate their customers by directing them away from a live agent to “confusing FAQs and dead-end knowledge bases,” according to customer service resource Customer Contact Week:

“Consequently, digital-first companies have begun to offer digital concierges designed to help customers who need help with technical troubleshooting.”

Retail stores can offer digital concierge-level customer service, too. For example, Home Depot offers an in-store product locator on its app so that customers can quickly find the aisle where the product they need is located.

This concierge-level service saves the customer time and frustration from having to hunt down an employee or browse the entire store to get what they need.

Benefits of concierge-level service

Concierge-level customer service removes the dread and frustration that typically comes with contacting a busy call center with long hold times and then finding out the agent can’t answer your question during the call.

“While concierges are best known for stepping in to fix problems or offer unexpected perks, true concierge service involves removing the pain from an otherwise painful experience,” says Customer Contact Week.