Are you contemplating offering concierge services at your property? Or perhaps, are you questioning the quality of your current front desk personnel? Your concierge is almost always the first staff member that residents and guests in your building will encounter, so making sure you have a customer service-focused, friendly, skilled professional will be key to making a fantastic first impression. Read below for six characteristics of a top-notch concierge:
Local Expert
Knowing the neighborhood inside and out will allow your concierge to be a trusted resource for your residents. Encourage your concierge to explore your property’s surroundings to become familiar with streets, shortcuts, local businesses and landmarks. Your tenants will love having someone on staff who can always provide them with dependable directions, restaurant suggestions, and general neighborhood tips.
Dedicated to Detail
Your lobby’s atmosphere should compare to Cheers for your residents, where everybody (or at least your front desk staff) knows their name. A customer service-oriented concierge will always go above and beyond to remember details dear to the tenants as well, such as their pets’ names, kids’ sports teams or hobbies, or anything previously discussed or mentioned, such as a major life event. Mentioning or inquiring about these individual-specific topics will show that your staff is invested in your residents and care about their lives.
Effortlessly Efficient
Efficiency is the complex combination of being competent, quick, and correct. The lobby will always be either one of your tenants’ first stops out or last stops in, so often times an urgency to get to another destination is involved. If your concierge is able to master their tasks and duties, they should be also able to appease impatient residents and provide the information or materials requested quickly and efficiently to best cater to their needs and schedules.
Organized & Orderly
With all of the materials, documents, forms, and packages located behind the front desk, it could easily become a cluttered and chaotic mess. The right concierge will be sure to live by having “a place for everything, and everything in its place” to ensure their (and their tenants’) day-to-day runs smoothly. Help them stay organized by providing folders, binder clips, filing cabinets, and bins to keep their desk orderly and easily manageable.
Ms. or Mr. Manners
Courtesy is key when it comes to an exceptional concierge. Addressing every single visitor with a greeting and a smile is crucial to making your lobby feel warm and welcoming. The words “please” and “thank you” should be sentence staples, and patience as well as a gentle tone at all times will make your residents and guests feel respected and welcomed.
Multi-Tasking Master
Between greeting and assisting residents and guests, a stream of incoming phone calls, tracking packages, a consistent cycle of deliveries, and the many additional duties of your concierge, knowing how to juggle all of these tasks at once is an art that needs to be mastered to maintain a manageable front desk. Perhaps most importantly, your concierge will simultaneously need to maintain a patient and calm demeanor when the lobby begins to bustle, as to not exude any sign of stress that may transfer to your residents.
Consider these traits on your quest for a quality concierge, and you’ll likely end up with an all-star who will transform your lobby into a hospitality hub for your tenants, residents and guests.