[1]There may be a million different answers to the question — why do you want to be rich? But they all distill down to the basic fact — it’s a whole other realm of existence. The everyday matters resolve themselves while the most unrealistic fantasies are within easy reach, because you always know ‘some guy’. Luxury concierge services, which are making inroads into the country in order to cater to its growing elite, are all your ‘guys’ rolled into one and just a phone call away.
Speaking of phones, the luxury mobile handsets by Vertu come with a one-year complimentary concierge service (post which customers have to pay `30,000 a year). When you are shelling out anywhere between `3 and `10 lakh for a phone, it had better jump through hoops for you and by golly! this one does. All requests are currently handled out of London, providing exclusive assistance via 24/7 voice, email and live chat, with a dedicated team ready to answer to your every beck and call — everything between getting your drycleaning delivered to a dinner with the Queen (true story). Bengaluru-based businessman Suchendra Hirial isn’t very impressed with their service. “It isn’t widely available in India but I have used it a couple times in Hong Kong for booking limos and dinner reservations. For me at least, it’s not as fascinating as it seems. Most of it can be done through the Internet,” he says.
But what if your needs aren’t that mundane? “To state the most challenging request, we had to deliver a customised Indian sherwani for a guest in France. Time was a factor so we had to do all the measurements and fittings online (quite a task) and then find a source who could carry the same on the following day’s flight to Paris,” says Amit Makker, director of operations at Rouge Concierge. But this is absolutely sane compared to some of the other demands these concierge services come across on a daily basis.
Les Concierge, which is operational in seven Indian cities, acquired Club Concierge in 2006 and has since been providing premium services to over 2,000 high net worth individuals globally and in India. “For a stand-alone individual, the package you can expect to pay per year is anything between `1 lakh and `2 lakh, which covers all costs except that of any products or external services,” says D.S. Srikanth, CEO and country head, “It is a ‘lifestyle defining service’, as I would like to call it. Every member gets a personal lifestyle manager who will cater to all your needs. Recently, we have been getting plenty of requests for sporting event-based tourism. So if someone wants to catch the Wimbledon, we arrange for everything from airfare and accommodation to match tickets and airport limo-pick-up and drop.”
Quintessentially, a global concierge service rumoured to have celebrity clients like Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton and J.K. Rowling, have stood by their clients when the requests aren’t a novelty but a necessity. “When disaster struck in Japan we were on the ground sourcing Geiger-counters, finding lost relatives and discovering petrol stations that were still functioning. During the ash-cloud incident, we were on hand to fly or drive members from all over the world to get back as quickly as possible,” says Sonia Deshmukh, head of marketing. So though the highest bracket of memberships here start at `8 lakh (£10,000), some services you just can’t put a price on — like saving your loved one or helping them live out their dearest fantasies.
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