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Serving the customer (“customer service”) is not becoming a personal concierge and catering to their every whim and want. Customer service is providing an excellent product at an acceptable price and solving legitimate problems (lost packages, replacements, refunds, etc.) in the fastest manner possible. That’s it.
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Timothy Ferriss (The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich)
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Truth loves nothing better than simplicity of truth: that is the lesson Columbe Josse ought to have learned from her medieval readings. But all she seems to have gleaned from her studies is how to make a conceptual fuss in the service of nothing. It is a sort of endless loop, and also a shameless waste of resources, including the courier and my own self.
. . . Granted, the young woman has a fairly efficient way with words, despite her youth. But the fact that the middle classes are working themselves to the bone, using their sweat and taxes to finance such pointless and pretentious research leaves me speechless. Every gray morning, day after gloomy day, secretaries, craftsmen, employees, petty civil servants, taxi drivers and concierges shoulder their burdens so that the flower of French youth, duly housed and subsidized, can squander the fruit of all that dreariness upon the altar of ridiculous endeavors . . .
Should you devote your time to teaching, to producing a body of work, to research, to culture? It makes no difference. The only thing that matters is your intention: are you elevating thought and contributing to the common good, or rather joining the ranks in the field of study whose only purpose is its own perpetuation, and only function the self-reproduction of the elite - for this turns the University into a sect.
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Muriel Barbery (The Elegance of the Hedgehog)
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Truth loves nothing better than simplicity of truth: that is the lesson Columbe Josse ought to have learned from her medieval readings. But all she seems to have gleaned from her studies is how to make a conceptual fuss in the service of nothing. It is a sort of endless loop, and also a shameless waste of resources, including the courier and my own self.
. . . Granted, the young woman has a fairly efficient way with words, despite her youth. But the fact that the middle classes are working themselves to the bone, using their sweat and taxes to finance such pointless and pretentious research leaves me speechless. Every gray morning, day after gloomy day, secretaries, craftsmen, employees, petty civil servants, taxi drivers and concierges shoulder their burdens so that the flower of French youth, duly housed and subsidized, can squander the fruit of all that dreariness upon the altar of ridiculous endeavors . . .
Should you devote your time to teaching, to producing a body of work, to research, to culture? It makes no difference. The only thing that matters is your intention: are you elevating thought and contributing to the common good, or rather joining the ranks in the field of study whose only purpose is its own perpetuation, and only function the self-reproduction of the elite - for this turns the University into a sect.
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Muriel Barbery (The Elegance of the Hedgehog)
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La Societe D'elite
408 S. Front St. Suite 408. Memphis TN, 38103
888-335-4831
info@lasocietedelite.com
CONCIERGE SERVICE, LUXURY CONCIERGE, CHARTER JET SERVICES, LUXURY CRUISE LINES, LUXURY AUTOS, FASHION SHOWS, DIAMONDS & JEWELRY, COMPLIMENTARY IN-FLIGHT WI-FI, COMPLIMENTARY LIFETIME FITNESS
THE WORLD AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
WE PROVIDE 24 HOUR 365 DAYS A YEAR
CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SUPPORT
TO EACH OF OUR MEMBERS AND PARTNERS IN THE U.S. AND ABROAD
WE, ARE YOUR CONNECTION TO IT ALL.
For your convenience, La Societe D'elite is a part of an operating network in more than 140 countries and territories. La Societe D'elite is an invite-only private and elite (Padalelux) offering our members the world’s most luxurious lifestyle experiences. From red carpet events to island getaways and every luxury in between, we aim to supply. Our corporate partnerships make available the ability to fly private, travel black car, retreat to paradise, or dine at some of the most upscale fine-dining experiences in the world, all with preferred treatment.
La Societe D'elite is proud to introduce you to our Industry-Leading Global Padalelux. With our service each member is afforded a 24 hour, 7 days a week, 365 days per year global concierge service. The reason we are the industry-leader is simple. Each member receives global coverage, protections, and insurances that are unrivaled in the luxury concierge industry. Couple this with our worldwide access, global benefits, and our loyalty program then you will begin to see why many are calling us the AMEX Centurion Black Card of Concierges.
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La Societe D'elite
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Aristotle very famously said in his Politics I.V.8 that some people are born to be slaves. He meant that some people are not as capable of higher rational thought and therefore should do the work that frees the more talented and brilliant to pursue a life of honor and culture. Modern people bristle with outrage at such a statement, but while we do not today hold with the idea of literal slavery, the attitudes behind Aristotle’s statement are alive and well. Christian philosopher Lee Hardy and many others have argued that this “Greek attitude toward work and its place in human life was largely preserved in both the thought and practice of the Christian church” through the centuries, and still holds a great deal of influence today in our culture.43 What has come down to us is a set of pervasive ideas. One is that work is a necessary evil. The only good work, in this view, is work that helps make us money so that we can support our families and pay others to do menial work. Second, we believe that lower-status or lower-paying work is an assault on our dignity. One result of this belief is that many people take jobs that they are not suited for at all, choosing to aim for careers that do not fit their gifts but promise higher wages and prestige. Western societies are increasingly divided between the highly remunerated “knowledge classes” and the more poorly remunerated “service sector,” and most of us accept and perpetuate the value judgments that attach to these categories. Another result is that many people will choose to be unemployed rather than do work that they feel is beneath them, and most service and manual labor falls into this category. Often people who have made it into the knowledge classes show great disdain for the concierges, handymen, dry cleaners, cooks, gardeners, and others who hold service jobs.
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Timothy J. Keller (Every Good Endeavour: Connecting Your Work to God's Plan for the World)
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Your breakthrough agency should have six specialized customer-facing departments: personal lines, commercial lines, life and health, front office and claims concierge, financial services, and marketing.
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Bart Baker (The Breakthrough Insurance Agency: How to Multiply Your Income, Time and Fun)
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And so, in 1991, he created an experiment. He arranged for large numbers of college students who wanted to become doctors to be given hospital greens and a place to sleep near the emergency room. Their job was to serve as concierges to the homeless. When a homeless person entered the emergency room, they were to tend to his every need. Fetch him juice and a sandwich, sit down and talk to him, help arrange for his medical care. The college students worked for free. They loved it: They got to pretend to be doctors. But they serviced only half of the homeless people who entered the hospital. The other half received the usual curt and dismissive service from the nursing staff. Redelmeier then tracked the subsequent use of the Toronto health care system by all the homeless people who had visited his hospital. Unsurprisingly, the group that received the gold-plated concierge service tended to return slightly more often to the hospital where they had received it than the unlucky group. The surprise was that their use of the greater Toronto health care system declined. When homeless people felt taken care of by a hospital, they didn’t look for other hospitals that might take care of them. The homeless said, “That was the best that can be done for me.” The entire Toronto health care system had been paying a price for its attitude to the homeless.
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Michael Lewis (The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds)
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To acquire customers, Baroo did not invest in traditional paid marketing, such as Facebook ads. Instead, the startup relied on the marketing efforts of apartment building partners and on word-of-mouth referrals from existing customers. Buildings would distribute a welcome gift from Baroo—a chew toy or leash—to new residents who owned pets. The team also hosted quarterly events for residents, such as “yappy hours” and pet Halloween. Finally, building concierge staff would recommend Baroo to residents. In exchange, the startup paid buildings a share of the revenue that it earned from their residents, averaging about 6 percent. Such revenue sharing is standard practice for service providers, like cable TV companies, that want access to residents.
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Tom Eisenmann (Why Startups Fail: A New Roadmap for Entrepreneurial Success)
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the Saint Jacques Hotel. Revolving doors led into a stark white lobby with an artificial fireplace that took up almost the entire length of one wall; on the other wall a concierge desk stretched forever. Janice asked the doorman where the business service center was and disappeared, heels clattering, down
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Brendan Slocumb (The Violin Conspiracy)
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The concierge was about 5’7” tall, blond hair, slightly balding, steely blue eyes, steel rimmed glasses, mid-forties and totally devoid of any apparent sense of humor. If this guy wasn’t a former SS officer I’d never see one. I greeted him and told him what I wanted to do. He looked at me very sternly and said, “Zo you vish to go to Zermatt, eh?” It was as if he was saying, “Are you papers in order?” It almost gave me a chill. As an American you’re born into freedom. You can’t imagine some government jerk or army officer questioning your right to go anywhere. It was just a brief flash for what it must have been like during the war and I didn’t like it one damn bit. It was a realization and I let it go.
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W.R. Spicer (Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 3 ON HER MAJESTY'S SERVICE)
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Our goal at Detour is to provide quality assured, professional, reliable and exciting excursions, tours and concierge services to all our guests while visiting our beautiful Island.
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Detour Roatan
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Henry Ford once said, referring to his Model-T, the bestselling car of all time,fn7 “The customer can have any color he wants, so long as it’s black.” He understood something that businesspeople seem to have forgotten: Serving the customer (“customer service”) is not becoming a personal concierge and catering to their every whim and want. Customer service is providing an excellent product at an acceptable price and solving legitimate problems (lost packages, replacements, refunds, etc.) in the fastest manner possible. That’s it.
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Timothy Ferriss (The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich)
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Among Amex’s rivals in the luxury space is Quintessentially Group, a members-only concierge network with offices in fifty countries. Quintessentially promises incredible access for its global clientele, which includes, its founders have claimed, hundreds of billionaires and thousands of hundred-millionaires. (Virgin Atlantic’s Richard Branson, rapper P. Diddy, Madonna, and author J. K. Rowling have reportedly been among its clients.) Want a last-minute table at Noma in Copenhagen on a Saturday night? No problem. A private performance by Elton John? Done that. A safe driver to pick up your kids from boarding school in a clutch and deliver them to your vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard? Say the word. Polo lessons from an actual pro? Ask Catherine Mills, head of equestrian services, whose duties have ranged from sourcing a top-notch steed for an international competition to showing up at a children’s garden party in central London with a bunch of ponies “and walking them through the front door.
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Michael Mechanic (Jackpot: How the Super-Rich Really Live—and How Their Wealth Harms Us All)
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But the luxury concierge sector, a game of global access with just a handful of key players, takes personal services to the extreme. This niche traces its origins to circa 1929, when the concierges of all the grand hotels of Paris teamed up to create Les Clefs d’Or—the Golden Keys—a network meant to help its members cater to their well-heeled guests. Clefs d’Or now functions as a global fraternity of more than four thousand hotel concierges. To join, a person must have five years of hospitality experience, pass a “comprehensive test,” and otherwise prove, “beyond doubt, their ability to deliver highest quality of service.” Of the tens of thousands of hotel concierges in the United States, only about 660 have earned the right to wear Les Clefs’ crossed-keys emblem
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Michael Mechanic (Jackpot: How the Super-Rich Really Live—and How Their Wealth Harms Us All)
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Did you know that credit cards automatically give you amazing consumer protection? Here are a few examples you might not know about: ■ Automatic warranty doubling: Most cards extend the warranty on your purchases. So if you buy an iPhone and it breaks after Apple’s warranty expires, your credit card will still cover it up to an additional year. This is true for nearly every credit card for nearly every purchase, automatically. ■ Car rental insurance: If you rent a car, don’t let them sell you on getting the extra collision insurance. It’s completely worthless! You already have coverage through your existing car insurance, plus your credit card will usually back you up to $50,000. ■ Trip-cancellation insurance: If you book tickets for a vacation and then get sick and can’t travel, your airline will charge you hefty fees to rebook your ticket. Just call your credit card and ask for the trip-cancellation insurance to kick in, and they’ll cover those change fees—usually between $3,000 to $10,000 per trip. ■ Concierge services: When I couldn’t find LA Philharmonic tickets, I called my credit card and asked the concierge to try to find some. He called me back in two days with tickets. They charged me (a lot, actually), but he was able to get them when nobody else could.
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Ramit Sethi (I Will Teach You to Be Rich: No Guilt. No Excuses. No B.S. Just a 6-Week Program That Works.)
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Cheap Printing Doesn't Mean, Printed Cheaply, There's a Difference - Your Vision within Your Budget. Starting with your vision and work backward to optimize our expertise for your benefit. Our personalized approach to exceeding your expectations gives us the chance to identify cost-saving opportunities without ever sacrificing quality. Printoutloud printing services built the company on high quality, low prices, fast turnaround, and great local customer service with your Local Print Concierge.
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Printoutloud
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Many people have asked me, "Why title your book Creating a Concierge?" There is no correct answer. Call it creation, evolution, or chance, but ultimately it's what felt right.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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Sell your art, crafts, or any handcrafted item on etsy.com Develop a travel concierge service to help people when they miss their flights Offer online tutoring services in your field of expertise Host a networking event (charge a low ticket price and get sponsors to provide food) Create and sell a visitors’ guide to your town or city, or build a web resource for tourists, supported by advertisers Create an online (or offline) course in some quirky subject you happen to know a lot about Publish a blog with a new lesson on a specific topic every day Start a podcast and sell sponsorship Visit yard sales or thrift shops and buy items to resell Offer a simple freelance service—anything from fact-checking to tech support or something else entirely Become a home, office, or life organizer Manage P.R. or social media accounts for small businesses Buy and sell used textbooks to college students Sell your musings on business, art, or culture as a freelance writer Start a membership website, where people pay a monthly or annual fee to access useful information about a specific topic Write and publish a book (if I can do it, you can too!)
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Chris Guillebeau (Side Hustle: From Idea to Income in 27 Days)
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You can subscribe to a Volvo XC40 (their compact SUV) for $600 a month, and that includes concierge services like packages delivered straight to your vehicle. Everything is covered except the gas: insurance, maintenance, wear-and-tear replacements, 24/7 customer care. Volvo’s CEO expects that one out of every five of the company’s vehicles will be delivered via subscription by 2023, and the company is working on its own ridesharing network that will allow users to loan or rent its cars for profit. Jim Nichols, product and technology communications manager at Volvo USA, told Consumer Reports, “Our research has shown that many customers are looking for a hassle-free, fixed-rate experience that mirrors the many subscriptions they currently have, such as Netflix or Apple’s iPhone [upgrade] program.
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Tien Tzuo (Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company's Future - and What to Do About It)
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My safe word is pineapple.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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Frank: Dude. Bro. I'm not wearing underwear. Is it nippley outside?
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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Being an asshole to us just makes you look like an asshole.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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All the world is a stage, concierges are but actors in it.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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In what universe would it be okay for someone to take a redneck dip in a hotel fountain?
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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Condoms are not like a glove; one size does not fit all. Bring your own.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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By the way, it was me. I farted. You're welcome. Get used to it. I'll do it again before you check out.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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New Orleans restaurants are so good, you'll want to slap your momma, you neighbor's momma, and your neighbor's momma's momma.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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I have no clue what she asked for. It sounded like a code during wartime, where coffee was the solider and she was the five-star general.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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It's my job to help the guests, even if I think they'll turn out to be a super-snotty, dripping little twat of distaste and ill repute.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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I'm impressed. I've never seen a piece of shit read before. Would you like an award?
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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I speak New Orleans sassy black woman dialect. I love it.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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We, as a society, will never grow into a better world unless we change our outdated views of the world. We should not adopt and carry forward the way people have been mistreated in the past, but instead pave a way to love and acceptance, or the future generation will fail.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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Lady Beverly: What kind of bullshit answer is that, kiddo? I was born and raised here. I may be older that dirt now, but I was a street rat back in my day.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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Everyone knows you drink white wine with ass. I'm joking; don't drink any wine with ass. It doesn't pair well.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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I don't want your hanging meat parasailing toward me. Please, double bubble-wrap it, and put it in storage already.
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Ren French (Creating a Concierge)
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There are only two requirements for an on-demand service economy to work, and neither is an iPhone. First, the market being addressed needs to be big enough to scale—food, laundry, taxi rides. Without that, it’s just a concierge service for the rich rather than a disruptive paradigm shift, as a venture capitalist might say. Second, and perhaps more importantly, there needs to be a large enough labor class willing to work at wages that customers consider affordable and that the middlemen consider worthwhile for their profit margins.
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Anonymous