By Marjorie Silverman, Honorary President, UICH, Les Clefs d'Or
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort and the Death Eaters are bearing down on Harry, Hermione and Ron. They precipitously had to leave a wedding and found themselves without their tools of survival, including the mundane, a change of clothes, as well as the magical, the famous Invisibility Cloak. Hermione, ever the practical one and clearly the concierge of the group came to the rescue. Her clothing for the wedding included a small beaded handbag, a typical evening bag, in which she now rummaged. Out of it she pulled jeans, sweatshirts, socks and the silvery Invisibility Cloak. "She gave the fragile-looking bag a little shake and it echoed like a cargo hold as a number of heavy objects rolled around in it." As we subsequently discover there were books, rucksacks, a tent, mugs and plates, in short everything they needed to continue their quest. In their epic battle against the Dark Arts, Hermione, Ron and Harry did more than survive, they prevailed.
Let's analyze the Hermione character who throughout the Potter books is the one who is always prepared. She is analytical, she studies hard, she anticipates. She is open to new ideas and is instructed by her whole life experience. She has been given opportunities and she capitalizes on them. She organizes a "Bag of Tricks" that amazes and dazzles. She is effective because she is organized. Harry and Ron are able to slay the dragons because she has the tools ready for them.
Let 's analyze the Hermione character who throughout the Potter books is the one who is always prepared. She is analytical, she studies hard, she anticipates. She is open to new ideas and is instructed by her whole life experience. She has been given opportunities and she capitalizes on them. She organizes a "Bag of Tricks" that amazes and dazzles. She is effective because she is organized. Harry and Ron are able to slay the dragons because she has the tools ready for them.
Exceptional hotel concierges are like Hermione: they anticipate guest needs so that they will be ready to handle them. It takes practice, hard work and training. The magic is in the planning.
They form networks in their hotels and communities to make things happen. They stay in their jobs for a number of years so that they put in the time necessary to master their jobs as in Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Outliers (see the 10,000 hour rule-the time he believes necessary for true mastery of a task). They organize dinners, sightseeing, transportation, yoga classes, passports, tickets, babysitters and romantic evenings. They will guide you to the best hairdressers, jazz clubs or simply help you find that elusive safety pin. They can have your wedding dress steamed for you and send a basket to your changing room with needle and thread, hair spray, static guard, hair pins, and breath mints. They have all of this ready for you because they have most likely had your question before or they know someone else who has. Let's look at a few examples of this preparedness and creativity.
Many concierges organize "The Incredible Concierge Emporium" or the "Oh, dear Cabinet". This is a place to keep all those irksome small things that every traveler forgets to pack. The guest calls the operator or housekeeping and they say, "oh dear, I forgot an emery board or oh dear, I don't have a band aid and I need one. I am a meeting planner and I have no stapler, scissors or white out". Typically, in hotels, no one takes ownership of these items and the guest is apt to be referred all over the hotel to track down what he needs.
Engineering might have the electrical adaptors, security the first aid kits, housekeeping the kleenex, mouthwash and toothbrushes and the business center office supplies. In the hotel where I worked, we were constantly chasing down these things and then we finally said "Enough! This is not good service-the guest is waiting and frustrated and we are running or calling all over the place". We talked it over as a team and decided that we would take ownership of all the loan and give away items. We would inventory them and reorder them as necessary.
We put together a plan which included a list of what we wanted to include in our little emporium and we determined that we needed a place to store our items. We did some research and came up with a metal apothecary type cabinet from a business supply house-it had 30 drawers and in each drawer we could put 3 different items. We labeled each drawer. We compiled a list from A to Z of approximately 100 items including alcohol pads, balloons, barrettes, bottle openers, bow ties, calligraphy pens, candles, collar stays, contact lens cases and lotion, eye shades, eyeglass repair kits, floss, glasses for reading, hair pins, lint remover, magnifying glass, phone cords, all kinds of cell phone chargers, razor blades, rain hats and plastic rain ponchos, tacks, tape, tool kits, wrapping paper, a selection of ties, men's socks (black and brown), cuff links, tweezers, and yarmulkas, to name a few. If someone requested something we didn't have, we made sure we added it. We even had a unisex winter coat which we loaned out frequently as many guests were unprepared for the brutal Chicago winters. We trained all the hotel employees on the Emporium and what was in it so that they knew they could refer guests to us. Whenever we were interviewed we mentioned the "Oh, Dear Cabinet"-reporters loved it and loved to photograph us in front of it modeling gloves, bow ties and rain hats. It became a metaphor for the magic of the concierge.
Some of the most enchanting ideas in the" bag of tricks" grow out of frustration with a frequently asked question and how to handle it to make it more interesting for the concierge staff as well as fun for the guest. Holly Stiel, retired chef concierge, Grand Hyatt on Union Square in San Francisco, had one such story.
Of course, every visitor to San Francisco wants to have at least one meal in Chinatown. In the summertime with so many tourists in town, the concierges tired of the question "where should I eat in Chinatown?" and so they had the brilliant idea of taking the 5 or 6 Chinese restaurants that they usually recommended and having fortune cookies made. Each cookie carried the name of one of their recommended restaurants. The guests were delighted and the concierges were relieved of their boredom.
Another great idea, anticipating a frequently asked question is from the Four Seasons Hotel team in Washington DC. There are many colleges and universities in the DC area and their hotel is full of students and their parents every fall. They have created a handout document called "Student Stores-Essentials for College Living". They have included Appliances and Electronics, Furniture and Miscellaneous, Hardware and Housewares, Linens and Bedding. In additon, they list all of the major malls in the DC area with directions to them. In this way when someone needs an accessory for his Apple computer or a Phillips screwdriver, they know right where to send him-it is all at their fingertips and they can email it or give it out at the desk.
The last example grows from a frequently asked question as well as that all important relationship between a concierge and the GM. It involves collaboration and using the concierge network to complete a task. Abigail Hart, retired concierge from the Four Seasons Hotel Chicago was asked by her GM to complete a special project for him.
The Four Seasons Chicago has corner suites which are their most popular rooms. The staff and GM were often asked to identify the buildings that could be seen from these windows. They commissioned photos from the windows facing East, West, North and South. They had planned to use them in the guest directory with a legend identifying the buildings that could be seen in each view.
However, being a more traditional hotel, they thought that if they could find an artist to create sketches from the photos, it would be more charming to have drawings in the directory. They consulted several local artists and found the price prohibitive. That is when Abby remembered that she had a concierge colleague who had a college age son who was an accomplished artist. She talked it over with the GM and they offered the young man a weekend and dinner in the hotel. They got their drawings which were put in a beautiful binder in each guest room. The hotel used them for more than fifteen years (until they were outdated by new buildings) and had to keep reprinting them because most guests took them as a momento of the hotel.
The art of being a true concierge is possessing the ability to "think small" while performing "large tasks". The key to a concierge's success is the ability to anticipate and provide for small needs and to ensure that simple requests are handled with speed, discretion and good taste. Then arranging for a guest's "extraordinary needs" becomes easier because the way of thinking and the structure is set.
I had a General Manager once who likened the concierge to a swan who swims elegantly and gracefully across the water while paddling furiously underneath.
Marjorie Silverman was in concierge for 25 years and now is a Consultant, Meeting Planner and Lecturer. She was the Chief Concierge of Hotel InterContinental Chicago, and the first female and first American to serve as President of Union Internationale des Concierges d'Hotels, Les Clefs d'Or. Les Clefs d'Or is the international association of concierges, headquartered in Paris, which groups 40 countries under its umbrella. The 3500 members join forces to promote tourism worldwide. She was a founding member of the Chicago Hotel Concierge Association. Ms. Silverman can be contacted at 773-248-7462 or marjoriesilverman@mac.com
