Carrier has revealed the hardest concierge service to confirm – and the secrets behind how the operator secures it.
The luxury travel company has invested heavily in its concierge over the past year, appointing three full-time employees to the VIP service and rolling out an internal ‘concierge fam trip’ programme for its team.
Along with traditional add-ons like reserving tables at exclusive restaurants, it also covers more complex and bespoke requests. Advisors can technically ask for anything, and if it’s possible, Carrier will go out of its way to make it happen.
Now 14 months old, the operator’s concierge service is quickly becoming one of its most popular offerings. It saw its highest demand in January when enquiries from agents were up 54%, closely followed by 46% year-on-year in February.
Slope secrets
“Last-minute ski guides are always the trickiest to get,” Lorraine Norcross, concierge manager at Carrier, revealed to TTG Luxury. “This is especially the case during peak seasons like Christmas and half-term, when the best ski instructors and the best time slots get booked up fast.”
To ensure clients don’t miss out, Carrier always aims to educate advisors on the importance of booking as early as possible.
Once its ski partner, New Generation, releases its annual calendar in May, the concierge team immediately contacts advisors to share availability and recommendations. They even use data-driven reports and heat maps to notify agents of times when competition for certain products and services is highest, ensuring they have priority booking on their client’s preferences.
Carrier’s concierge service is also on hand, however, to support advisors with more spontaneous clients.
It has pulled off a number of impressive feats since its launch, including organising a last-minute helicopter transfer to prevent a client from getting stuck in a roadblock. The detour shaved three hours off the journey overall, and was arranged discreetly to ensure a seamless transition.
Sounds and scents
Norcross also recalled how the concierge team organised for a child to perform a piano recital from their Cyprus hotel via Zoom – again, at the last-minute. Other thoughtful gestures include delivering a perfume to a client after they’d mentioned liking the scent, and arranging surprise in-room movie nights for kids.
They’re also persistent when a sudden request seems like a tall order; Narcross recalls the struggle of reserving a table at The Blue Box Cafe at Tiffany’s, one of the most popular culinary attractions in New York City. “They were really hard to get hold of,” she admitted. “We were on the phone, re-requesting and re-requesting, but we got there in the end.”
Working with its expert partners, Norcross said Carrier aims to do a lot of the “legwork” for agents and ultimately, make them look as good as possible to their clients. It also wants advisors to financially benefit from these concierge add-ons, which it says is one of the “easiest ways to increase the value of a booking”.
“If any of the experiences are commissionable, we try to get that commission for the agent too,” Norcross said.
With such a positive response from advisors in just the past year, the future of the concierge service at Carrier looks strong.
“I absolutely foresee us growing,” added Norcross. “It started off just being more proactive, and now the foundations are set in. We really want to take service to the next level and understand what our agents want from the Carrier concierge service.”
