If a wealthy client was throwing a black-and-white themed birthday party for his son and wanted 40 penguins delivered for the occasion, would you know whom to contact to make this dream come true—and strengthen your relationship with the client in the process?
Subscribing to a luxury corporate concierge service lets private wealth advisors fulfill clients’ most extravagant requests, 24-7 and globally. Better still, these services can be white labeled with an advisor’s brand, so the client thinks the advisor is the superstar who actually procured the penguins.
“Financial advisors who really want to differentiate themselves from their competitors can use these services to provide extraordinary experiences that clients might not be able to find for themselves,” says Amber Treshnell, CEO of the Americas at John Paul, a provider of luxury concierge services and customer loyalty programs.
In addition to coordinating the transport of the penguins, their handlers and an air-conditioned enclosure to the above-mentioned party, other unusual requests John Paul has helped to fulfill include:
• Organizing a private concert by legendary musician Prince for a group of friends.
• Turning a private island in the Caribbean into a “Robinson Crusoe” adventure for a group of affluent millennials.
• Recreating a painting by famous artist Marc Chagall on a client’s apartment ceiling.
• Flying 40 servings of a woman’s favorite lasagna (on dry ice) from a restaurant in Venice, Italy, to her home in California for a Christmas Eve celebration.
• Finding a “fainting goat" for a wealthy man who wanted an exotic gift for his mother.
Premium corporate concierges use their industry contacts to locate hard-to-find goods and create unique experiences. John Paul, which was acquired by AccorHotels Group in 2016, has 14 offices on five continents with access to more than 50,000 partners, 20,000 concierges, 6,000 hotels and 5,000 restaurants worldwide, according to Treshnell.
Other global providers of high-end corporate concierge services include New York City-based Quintessentially Lifestyle, Boca Raton, Fla.-based One Concierge and London-based firms White Label Concierge and Ten Concierge.
Besides fulfilling over-the-top requests, these companies provide more mundane services that enrich the lives of busy clients, such as dog walking, grocery shopping and errand running. They also secure restaurant reservations, book spa services, find tickets to events and arrange private jet travel.
Corporate concierges have multiple ways for clients to submit requests, including telephone, email, text message and mobile chatbot applications. Several say they use artificial intelligence, coupled with input from human concierges, to learn clients’ preferences, then provide personalized recommendations for products, services and experiences.
John Paul also uses predictive analytics to help its concierges anticipate what clients may want in the future and to track clients’ business and personal milestones, says Treshnell. “As a financial advisor/relationship manager, you always want to have a reason to contact your clients. Our service can stay abreast of things like making restaurant reservations to celebrate a business deal the client just closed or planning a wedding because their daughter is getting married. Key life events usually translate into reasons why a financial advisor would want to speak to a client, because there’s some kind of change in the client’s monetary situation. We can pass that information back to the advisor.”
The company doesn’t charge a mark-up to clients for purchases made through its concierges. Instead, John Paul uses a “B2B2C” subscription-based model. Advisors who sign up pay an annual fee to provide concierge services for free to their own clients. The company also complies with the rules of the global PCI Security Standards Council to protect clients’ credit card and personal information and screens out requests deemed immoral or illegal under local law, according to Treshnell.
Offering access to people, places and things that the ultra-wealthy really want can help advisors attract and retain clients, as well as deepen existing relationships, especially with well-heeled Millennials. For this group, exotic adventures are often more important than accumulating material goods, says Treshnell.
“They like parties. They’re looking for experiences that are really, really unique—that you can’t replicate and that money can’t buy. What’s the most Instagram-able location? What’s the craziest thing they can do to one-up their friends?”
