The Perfect Partnership Between PA & Concierge

Your PA will become integral to your business needs, ensuring your day runs like clockwork and you are where you need to be at the right time. As the relationship develops, your PA will get to know exactly what you do and don’t like; how much time you like to leave between each meeting, who your key clients are, how you like to format your emails etc, but there are only so many working hours in the day and sometimes even the most experienced of PAs needs a helping hand! In this article we explore the benefits of having a concierge service on speed dial, and why be partnering with a concierge service, will only enhance your PA’s capabilities and skills.

What Does A Concierge Service Do?
A concierge service will tend to deal with lifestyle matters rather than providing business support.  Similar to a membership body, once you are signed up you will have access to all the services they provide, often with different tiers of membership or on a pay as you go basis. The concierge service will have expertly trained teams which will specialise in different areas and locations.  For example, they could have their own travel, private events, weddings, and personal shopping divisions to name a few.
 
Why You Should Have A Concierge Service On Dial? 
There are many benefits to having a concierge service available to you which will ultimately allow your PA to provide a more seamless service. By allowing the concierge company to focus on what they specialise in utilising their knowledge and contacts, will enable your PA to also focus on the more skilled parts of their role.

Cost-saving  
A concierge will often have much better travel benefits and rates at a wide range of locations and hotels than is otherwise available, meaning your PA can gain access to these, saving you time and money. Often a concierge company will be a pay as you go service, meaning you only pay for the time you require.

Better use of time
Having a concierge company available to you will allow your PA to use their time more effectively to focus on business-related support. Often the more unusual requests would require hours of research for a PA, whereas a concierge company will have the skills and experience to action these requests quickly.

International knowledge
Concierge companies may have teams who specialise in specific geographical locations, or even international offices, meaning that no matter where you need to travel, they will have expert local knowledge to ensure a perfect trip. Your PA may be expert in the City you are based in, but with an increasingly globalized business world, this international knowledge can be key to assist your PA in arranging seamless trips across multiple time zones.

Little black book
A good concierge will have a large 'little black book' of contacts, so if you have a more unusual request which your PA cannot assist with, they should be the best place to start. For a PA to have extensive knowledge across all sectors of lifestyle management would be unusual and a concierge service will be able to provide advice and introductions into the Arts, Wine, Education, and Real Estate worlds.

Access to the best places
A PA cannot be an expert in every hot new restaurant, must have members club or know every destination all around the globe. Instead, you can lean on expert advice and help or simply delegate the work in that area to a reliable concierge.

About the author
Auria Heanley is a Co-founder of Oriel Partners, is a boutique PA and administrative recruitment consultancy based in Central London.  She is extremely passionate about providing the highest quality of service to both their clients and candidates. Their clients range from global multinationals to small boutique firms, all require the same personal service and high calibre support.