Concierge Services – For a Managed Life

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Harassed executives all have professional Personal Assistants to organize their lives and schedule – we’ve all heard the cliche of the busy company director getting his P.A. to buy his wife’s birthday, anniversary and Christmas presents. Concierge and Lifestyle management services take the place of that competent secretary, with her little black book of contacts – for those of us that can afford it that is… But overworked P.A’s too can find these services useful. Why? It’s a simple financial equation. Hourly rate of pay multiplied by time taken to complete a task, such as picking up a prescription for the boss – compared to paying someone else to do it whose hourly fee is less. For busy professionals who value their free time these new services can be well worth it. If you only have one free day in a week do you really want to spend a major part of it grocery shopping, doing the laundry or any of the other 1001 jobs that are required to keep on top of things? It’s a fact that many domestic staff  agencies in London are branching out into Lifestyle Management and working for more than one boss. This makes sense, but tends to be area specific. The concierge departments in major hotels are regarded by most as the Mr Fixits of the hotel world. These people know everyone, have access to special deals, know the top restaurants’ Head Waiters personally ( and so can get around the ‘fully booked’ issue) and more. Concierge/Lifestyle Management services are the same but more so. Part concierge, part gal Friday and part savvy social director, these services claim to be able to juggle everything from obtaining hard-to-get dinner and theater reservations to renting a villa in St. Tropez, arranging for a personal Pilates session in your hotel suite and having your dog walked. Tales of seemingly impossible requests for guests achieved in an improbable amount of time abound and the top concierge services that are now available to both individuals and corporations have similar stories to tell – from sourcing bullet-proof cars to arranging for shops to open out of hours – money is the only issue and, lets face it, for wealthy professionals money is not necessarily an issue at all. Most of the lifestyle clubs require an annual fee combined with one-off fees depending on the various requests. There’s no doubt that the more often one uses the service the better value it becomes. Many of these concierge services are city based but some have offices nationwide. The top ones have global offices. Joining a Lifestyle management service in London can be an economical alternative to (or adjunct to) having a salaried ‘Girl Friday’. Prices/membership fees vary but would start at around £1000 a year

Please call the Butler and domestic staff agency and Butler training school (and yacht school) on 00442031670925 or email main@bespokebureau.com

www.bespokebureau.com