Cleatus George, PRO at Les Clefs d’Or UAE and the chief concierge at Renaissance Downtown Hotel, Dubai shares five tips for concierges in the hospitality industry.
Be up to date with the local happenings
To enhance the guest experience, you need to be in the know. It is not sufficient to only be aware of locations and timings, what truly makes you stand out is sharing an insight of a particular place with the guest. A good concierge can send you to a great Japanese place, but a great one will tell you the exact time when the celebrity chef will step out of the kitchen to interact with diners at the restaurant. You can achieve this by personally befriending someone at the restaurant who can share this information with you.
Be passionate about continuous learning and have a deep seated desire to be helpful
At the desk, a concierge will hear the same request up to a hundred times a day. From directions to mall timings, to different dining options and for most it can be tiring to keep up their enthusiasm when sharing such simple details. To keep your desire to be helpful, put yourself into the guest’s shoes. He or she is in your locale for the first time. You are their guiding light. Once they are back from their exploration, always ask about their experience, not only to be kind, but you never know what details they have noticed which you might have missed. As a concierge, you always learn, also through the lenses of others.
Concierge – #YourKeyToEverythingÂ
A concierge is an advisor, a councillor and a guest’s best friend in the city he or she travels. You are the one-stop person when a guest needs help and the most important thing is that this guest puts his faith in you. Even more now, when technology has made information available at one’s fingertips; the human being will seek for a personal recommendation, based on subjectivity and emotion. You are the one to provide it, so use knowledge, as well as your own experience to show your expertise to the guest while adding your personal touch to it.
Tailored recommendations
As you are the guest’s best friend, you are expected to know some of his preferences. Two people in this world are not alike and everyone has their own interests when visiting a city. A true concierge pays attention to all cues that the guest transmits in order to make the best itineraries. For example, if a guest wants to visit old town, but expresses interest in contemporary art, you should suggest that they stop at a nice gallery on the way to the old city. This small detail shows genuine interest in the personal preferences of the person in front of you.
Be a magician when it comes to hospitality
Once you are the friend of the locale, you have a desire to help and you perfectly know the preferences of your guest, you’ll make the connection between the two and voila, magic has happened. Is the guest celebrating something special and the restaurant is fully committed? Your friend at the hostess stand can do their part of magic and deliver an exceptional experience.
