7 Things the Luxury Lifestyle Management Industry Needs (#3 Will Surprise You!)
- Hratch Mikaelian
- Jul 17, 2018
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 24, 2018
Being in the lifestyle management industry myself for 6+ years, I always get asked "What are Lifestyle Managers and what do they do?"
It’s not a job title your average everyday professional knows of or understands.
Before the early 2000s, no one was familiar with this Job title. Not only that but probably personal concierge or even Lifestyle Management companies were unheard of.
A Lifestyle Manager is ultimately the fusion of a Personal Assistant and a Hotel Concierge.
But it goes much beyond that...
Fast forward to 2018, luxury brands and services are now growing in major capitals around the world.
With the growing number of millionaires, Lifestyle Managers are rapidly becoming in demand, with more and more luxury concierge services branching out.
Lifestyle Management is not only offering a Personal Assistant or Executive Assistant to clients, but it provides them access to someone who can assist them with liaisons, travel and event planing, corporate or personal gift assistance, offloading of daily time consuming tasks and so much more. Frankly goes to extremes to make the impossible happen
For this industry to flourish and provide a time-effective personalized service, here are 7 tools to gear this job on the rise...
1) PERSONAL SHOPPER PHONE APP
I can confidently say that one of the most demanded requests theme around personal shopping.
About a third (give or take) of Lifestyle Manager's tasks are usually last minute requests for item deliveries and/or purchases like: flower delivery, gifts, concert tickets, etc... and sometimes these request are in different countries.
By having a mobile app (accessible to both iOS and Androids), the streaming of requests and connecting them to errand runners will lead to a much more organized and time efficient process to aid in having a faster response to clients.
Given that a big selling point of concierge services is that they provide you the time you do not have, making these requests instantly solvable is key.
The app should be structured similarly to on-demand transportation companies like Uber or Lyft.
The lifestyle manager should be able to place a demand for a delivery or an item purchase+delivery and receive an instant response by one of the personal shoppers with a carefully calculated quote.
This allows regular people to be employed at their own schedule and become personal shoppers to take care of the stream of requests that come in, pushed out by lifestyle managers.
This is widely beneficial to all parties:
The Concierge Service Company: since it's collecting monthly payments OR advertisements to be placed within the app.
Lifestyle Managers: it makes their working flow smoother and much more efficient.
The Client: to get their requests handled at hand.
The Errand Runner/Personal Shopper: who collects a commission from each task or request performed.
2) A BETTER NETWORK OF INTERNSHIPS
Today Lifestyle Management positions are becoming more in demand, however, it is not widely known what Lifestyle Managers actually do in the mainstream job market.
This lack of of understanding has lead to a low interest in these positions by applicants, which results in lower wages and less caliber individuals looking for temporary employment.
By increasing the number of internships and creating more rewarding ones, the quality of Lifestyle Managers will definitely enhance, which in turn, will elevate the entire hospitality industry.
This can be achieved by: creating more awareness of what Lifestyle Managers do and directly recruiting from highly ranked universities.
3) A UNION OF LIFESTYLE MANAGERS
As anyone who's involved in the concierge or lifestyle management industry knows, having a Les Clefs d’Or is widely recognized as an international honour.
Creating a similar union specifically to Lifestyle Managers and the Concierge Service Company, will instantly reposition the job to a much higher ranking.
This will create a strong network on an international level which will provide a better opportunity for companies to scale at a much larger and more influential capacity.
It will also facilitate free flow of information amongst Lifestyle Managers worldwide, resulting the ability to handle any request at large.
4) A PRESENCE IN CORPORATE OFFICES
Having a Lifestyle Management Team in house at Corporate Offices will enhance morale at the work space and tap a new and untouched market.
In fact, disengaged employees cost organizations between $450 and $550 billion annually! By offering a Lifestyle Management team around the clock to Corporate Offices, we're entering a valuable market and promising to cut their losses drastically.
Providing a company's employees the freedom and convenience of a Lifestyle Manager to handle their daily personal requests as a benefit package, it is almost a guaranteed way of boosting work morale.
Some of these examples include:
Constant traffic updates to employees who are always on the go.
Daily entertainment news updates in the work place, based on employees' interests.
Organizing corporate lunches and dinners.
Help different departments with travel bookings and itineraries.
Direct concierge to company's VIP clientele, CEOs and Board Managers.
5) A HOLOGRAM (to increase the personalized touch)
In a fast paced and digital world, online bookings and reservations is already available at the click of a button. So then, what would be the need for Lifestyle Managers? It's the need of human interaction.
It's been reported that the probability of selling to an existing happy customer is 14x higher than the probability of selling to a new customer and that angry customers are more likely to gossip than happy ones.
Why and how is this important or relevant?
Well, by offering a super unique customer service through an actual hologram, the retention of customers could significantly increase. This enables warmth through body language - which is a pivotal form of communication.
This also builds a human relationship with clients, creates a much more memorable positive experience and offers a more personalized or custom service, rather than just a voice behind the phone or words behind a forwarded email.
6) PRESENCE IN THE SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY
The sports and entertainment industry is a serious goldmine to Concierge and Lifestyle Management Companies. With high profile individuals who are constantly on tour, there is a guaranteed demand for the type of service that Lifestyle Managers already offer.
With the growth of the NBA and NFL games outside North American borders, the outrageous spending of millions by football clubs to attract more fans, the rise of E-Sports, you can bank on the fact that this union of both industries will be a highly profitable one.
This is a business that needs to be penetrated by Concierge based services to grab a small part of that expanding market.
Both the sports and entertainment industry already have a flood of:
Unusual requests.
Elite people with packed schedules.
Gifting amongst colleagues for luxury items.
High demand travel.
High number of culinary requests.
Much of these tasks already fall under the scope of a Lifestyle Manager's job description.
7) BEING ACTIVE IN THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY
Imagine a future where luxury real estate is branded by Luxury Lifestyle Management/Concierge companies.
Marrying real estate with concierge will not only highly benefit condo owners and home renters, but will create a steady stream of revenue to Concierge based service companies.
Lifestyle Management Companies should associate their brands with real estate condo buildings or gated communities by offering general membership services to unit owners.
This will instantly increase the value of the property and produce a flood of requests to the concierge company ensuring a steady flow of income month to month.
IN CONCLUSION
Lifestyle Management is continuously evolving to meet and address the needs of the market. By addressing any of the 7 points, the Concierge industry will makeshift and will continue to tackle the everyday requests at a much more scalable reach.
This will make a huge impact to the industry at its full and change the way that this much-needed job is perceived.
ABOUT THE WRITER
My name is Hratch Mikaelian, a Lifestyle Manager with 6+ years in the industry.
With a strong fluency in 4 languages (English, French, Arabic and Armenian), I have a passion for attending to people's on hand requests and liaison between high end hotels, luxury brands, restaurants and celebrities to clients.
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