Although more and more people are becoming familiar with the term “concierge,” very few know where this customer service-based profession originated. The word “concierge” comes from the French Comte Descierges, the “keeper of the candle,” a term that referred to the servant who catered to the whims of visiting noblemen in medieval castles. Eventually, the name “concierge” came to mean the keeper of the keys in public buildings, especially hotels. There’s even a famous prison in Paris called La Conciergerie, after the warden who kept the keys and assigned cells to inmates.”
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary offers this definition… French, from Old French, probably from (assumed) Vulgar Latin conservius, alteration of Latin conservus fellow slave, from com- + servus slave. 1: A resident of an apartment building, especially in France, who works as a doorman, owner’s representative, and concierge. 2: A generally multilingual hotel staff member who handles luggage and mail, makes reservations, and arranges tours
Lastly, a client of mine from Mexico tells me that in his country, the word “concierge” means concierge!!!
Regardless of origin, hotels around the world were early adopters of the concierge idea and offering the service to their guests. Today, independent concierge companies have brought this ancient service into the modern world so that everyone now has access to them.
So what exactly is a concierge? I think the short version here is that it’s just another word for personal assistant.
The concierge industry itself is only about 20 years old and started with a few brave pioneers who took the idea of hotel concierge and decided to offer it to the corporate world. I have been in the field since 1998 and when I started there were maybe 50 or more janitors in the US Today it is a multi-billion dollar industry with thousands of companies all over the world!
Now you can find concierge services everywhere…in hospitals, shopping malls, corporations, apartment buildings, office buildings, airports, universities, associations, churches, etc. I could sum up the state of the industry in two words… extraordinary growth.
We all do a balancing act every day, and since most of us don’t have a personal assistant to make the phone calls and run the errands for us, we try to cram them in over the weekend and into our lunch break during the week. week. In fact, many people feel that there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. Right?
Well, help has arrived!
The number of businesses catering to time-hungry people is skyrocketing, as is customer demand for such businesses. Why? Easy. People are trying to squeeze 36 hours into a 24-hour day.
These are some of the services currently offered by the concierge throughout the country:
Search for tickets for concerts and special events
Transport services
business reference service
Restaurant Recommendations and Reservations
Dry cleaning pickup/delivery
grocery shopping
pet services
elderly care
Modified home session
Travel and vacation planning
Meeting and event planning
These are just a few of the many services a concierge can offer. The sky is the limit here! There are dozens and dozens of things you can do here.
Concierge services are also a great new benefit for work and life as corporations begin to offer these services to their employees and customers. Real estate management companies are installing concierges in lobbies and offering them to their apartment and office buildings and neighborhoods. Concierges are being added to hospitals, universities, shopping malls, airports, and more. Travel agencies, meeting planners, and real estate agents are adding them to their list of services. It is certainly the wave of the future.
The really wonderful thing about this business is that there are so many sources of income that you can associate with it!
Good luck!