FUNCTIONS OF CONCIERGE DESK

CONCIERGE DESK

Concierges have a broad range of responsibilities that may make their career role hard to define. In hospitals, hotels and other service-oriented organizations, they act as vital links between institutions and their patrons.

FUNCTIONS OF CONCIERGE DESK

1. Facilitate Travel

Some concierges double as private or for-hire chauffeurs. These individuals do more than just drive people around, however; they’re also commonly relied on to act as personal assistants. As such, they could be responsible for arranging tours and excursions or transferring passengers from airports and other transportation hubs to cities.

Concierges who also drive passengers might have to develop deeper relationships with their clients. For instance, a travel enthusiast who’s accustomed to ritzy treatment may expect their chauffeur-concierge to have their favorite newspaper or beverages on hand when they meet up. In some cases, concierges who actively perform travel services require special licensing and training.

2. Improving Hospitality

Hotel concierges perform services that define the modern hospitality experience. At a basic level, their work includes tasks like taking reservations, checking guests in and fielding requests for items and amenities. They commonly act as the first point of contact for patrons.

Behind the scenes, a hotel concierge may perform tasks like overseeing cleaning services, managing resource inventories, compiling reports on maintenance jobs and other office work. While the highest-level decision-making is often left to management staff, concierges are critical cogs in the business-process machine, and higher-ups commonly delegate vital tasks to these key players.

3. Assisting Visitors

In hospitals and other large-scale healthcare facilities, concierges routinely handle the front-end tasks associated with patient occupancy and family-member visitation. Hospital concierges may schedule overnight occupancy for a patient’s loved ones, pass on treatment requests from relatives to nurses and care teams and provision specific amenities prior to patient stays. Many also provide on-demand services, such as fulfilling special dietary requests or securing entertainment.

A healthcare concierge could even be responsible for high-level resource management and planning. Some have been known to oversee construction and administer improvement projects, like upgrading habitability features.

4. Keeping Patrons Informed

Regardless whether they work in hospitals, hotels or other institutions, one common task nearly all concierges perform is answering questions. Patrons may want to know about nearby tourism sites, regional cuisine, entertainment and a host of other issues that impact the quality of their visits.

To field these questions accurately, concierges need more than prior knowledge. Some also have to complete additional training to learn about their company’s unique offerings or branding. Those who work in special-interest facilities, such as hotels near national landmarks, may also improve their career skills by brushing up on local histories. In certain situations, it may be to their advantage to be multilingual.

5. Guest Services

Nightclubs and restaurants commonly employ concierges to control access, greet guests and oversee daily operations. These individuals have to be sufficiently capable to keep an eye on multiple affairs simultaneously without losing track of issues like crowd control, security, emergency response and patron requests.

Concierges and other front-of-house staff usually handle reservations, large parties and seating arrangements. During high-volume periods, they may move to assist with expediting kitchen or bar services.

No matter where they find employment, concierges are largely responsible for keeping things running smoothly. Although this career is most often associated with the hospitality and tourism field, concierges work hard to improve patron experiences in a range of industries.