Do you want a dinner reservation at famed Japanese restaurant Nobu when you visit London next week? Or would you like a front-row seat at the next Milan Fashion Week? Or perhaps, you’re looking for more local flavour and want some lip-smacking aloo-puri from Amritsar for Sunday brunch in Delhi?

Not a problem. Ask and you shall be served. Whether you want that private island in Thailand booked for your vacation or want to source a limited edition Mont Blanc pen or you just want someone to run chores like paying your bills, you can turn to the host of concierge firms waiting out there to take care of your every need.

Most people have probably only encountered concierge services at a hotel. Or in recent years, some companies have hired concierge firms to take care of their employees’ needs like bill payments and travel.

But now concierge firms are moving into the realm of luxury. They’re targeting high net worth individuals (HNIs) who’re hard-pressed for time and who’re willing to pay someone to take care of their every need.

Earlier this year, global concierge firm Quintessentially entered India to cater to the swish set. Banks like American Express (Amex), Deutsche Bank and ICICI Bank have been offering concierge service to their premium credit cardholders for a while now.

Homegrown concierge firms like Concierge4India Services and A La Concierge are also moving beyond corporate clients to HNIs today. Even travel agency Le Passage to India has set up a concierge service at its Luxe India inbound travel division. While new players like The Only Network are combining good-old-networking with concierge and luxury life-style consultancy services.

“The luxury concierge services market has grown in recent years. Mindsets have evolved and people are willing to pay for a service that saves their time today,” says Mishti Bose, CEO, Quintessentially India.

Adds Shailesh Baidwan, CEO, American Express Banking Corporation India: “As the Indian affluent mature and use concierge services frequently, they’re reassured of the concierge’s ability to cater to their myriad needs effectively. This has lead to our card members increasingly depending on us for an increasing range of services.”

(From top) Shailesh Baidwan, CEO, American Express Banking Corporation India; Arvind Pandey, founder, Concierge4India Services; Mishti Bose, CEO, Quintessentially India

True, the services aren’t cheap and can range from £24,000 a year to a more modest Rs 5,750 a year. Nor is everyone convinced that there’s a market for them yet since labour is cheap in India. But the players are confident that it will evolve as the globalised Indian HNI becomes busier, and more demanding too. Arvind Pandey, founder, Concierge4India Services, says: “It’s bound to grow because people are now aware of how they can get everything done at a single point of contact.”

Anil Vinayak, managing director and CEO, Europ Assistance India, which runs assistance services (like auto and travel assistance) besides managing concierge services for some banks, admits: “There’s a certain lifestyle threshold beyond which concierge services become more relevant. Currently, the segment for high-end concierge services is relatively small, though it’s growing fast.” But he believes that they’ll evolve eventually. “People have less time today and they want to do different things in this limited time. So they’re more likely to leave some tasks to those who can do them more efficiently,” he says.

Let’s take a look at what’s on offer.

By invitation only

If you want exclusivity and are willing to pay the price, you can take a look at Quintessentially India and Amex’s Platinum Concierge Service, which is available to its Platinum credit card-members. There’s serious snob value here since these services are by invitation only.

Take Quintessentially, which is essentially a private member’s club and is present in 56 cities worldwide. It was co-founded by Ben Elliot, nephew of the Duchess of Cornwall Camilla Parker Bowles, and is patronised by celebrities like Scarlett Johansson internationally.

While it has several luxury business verticals like estates and art abroad, it has entered India with its concierge service since March. It’s targeting India’s growing “money-rich, time-poor” HNI segment. After all, as the Capgemini-Merrill Lynch World Wealth Report 2010 shows, India’s HNI population (those with investible assets of $1 million or more) grew by a huge 51 per cent in 2009.

“The economy has bounced back and the assets of members have bounced back. Moreover, Indians are global citizens today who’re constantly seeking the priceless,” says Quintessentially India’s Bose.

Banks like Amex, Deutsche Bank and ICICI Bank too have been offering concierge services to their premium credit card-holders for several years now. But the pace has picked up.

How do these services work? Well, members call their concierge and log in a request. Whether it’s booking a vacation or arranging a personal shopper, no task is too small or too difficult. Amex’s Platinum Concierge Service, for instance, offers services ranging from dining reservations and golf bookings to reservations for premium events and assistance in sourcing goods.

“We’re seeing not only a significant increase in the usage of the services but also the requests are evolving and becoming more complicated,' says Amex India’s CEO Baidwan. According to him, usage has increased by 75 per cent this year over last year. And requests have moved beyond flower deliveries and ticket bookings too. For instance, it recently delivered hot-and-sour soup to a card-member’s son in Cambridge when he fell ill. It even sourced old stock of Boomer Jelly chewing gum, which is not manufactured any more, for another member.

Quintessentially India too is leveraging its global network to cater to every request from travel and access to restaurants and nightclubs to shopping. “We offer a global membership,” asserts Bose.

So when one of its Mumbai members wanted to gift his wife a Mont Blanc-John Lennon limited edition pen recently, the firm stepped in. “Only 70 such pens are available. And we managed to source one,” says Bose. In another case, it contacted an international award-winning documentary film-maker and got him to convert his film into DVD format for a member. Or more locally, it got cooks from Amritsar to serve an aloo-puri Sunday brunch to a Delhi member.

Bose, who has been in concierge services since 2007, believes the Indian customer is maturing. “People are asking for more exotic things. They have become more lifestyle-conscious,” she says.

Not everyone’s convinced though. Arvind Singhal, chairman of consultancy firm Technopak Advisors, has never felt the need to use his Amex Platinum card’s concierge service, relying on his secretary instead. “People who’re affluent enough in India have a global network to get things done on their own,” he feels.

But for others, these services may be a statement of having arrived in life. After all, they don’t come cheap. Amex’s Platinum credit card has an annual fee of Rs 50,000. Quintessentially India has three membership tiers and its fee is uniform internationally. The General membership costs £1,000 a year (about Rs 72,500). The Dedicated membership costs £2,500 a year and comes with a dedicated lifestyle manager. And the Elite membership ranges from £10,000 a year to £24,000 a year. For instance, the Bespoke Elite membership at £10,000 gives you dedicated lifestyle managers in five cities worldwide while the £24,000-Global Elite membership means dedicated managers in all 56 cities.

On home turf

If you’re looking for a more reasonably priced service — and more local flavour too — take a look at firms like Concierge4India Services and A La Concierge. Both have been providing concierge services at corporate firms for years.

Take Concierge4India, which was founded by Arvind Pandey in 2005. Pandey used his hospitality sector experience to start servicing multinational firms initially. But today, he has his eyes set on the “elite” Indian too.

“Corporate executives know what concierge services are. The challenge is to provide it to the elite. Because in India, if you tell someone you’ll charge Rs 200, they’ll say ‘I’ll do it myself’,” he says.

He’s confident of meeting the challenge. After all, he’s already providing concierge services to around 120 HNIs, most of whom are businessmen in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. They mainly have travel and business-related requirements from booking hotels to chartering airplanes.

So Pandey chartered a plane from Delhi to Shimla for an HNI client recently. Or when a customer wanted to go golfing while cruising around Singapore, he organised a chopper to take him from the ship to a golf course and back.

Most of the requests are work-related, he says, like arranging a corporate meeting at a five-star hotel, organising an apartment for a business visitor or even receiving visitors at the aircraft landing bay itself.

Meanwhile, A La Concierge’s managing director Chaitanya Sinh (left) is sticking to the basics rather than looking at ultra-luxe requests. After all, having seen the corporate segment evolve — A La Concierge’s first client in 2004 was Spectramind (now Wipro BPO) and it has since grown to service 85 companies across sectors — Sinh is no stranger to the value-for-money Indian mindset.

So while he’s eager to capture the affluent Indian segment, he knows that they too will demand value before they start using his service in a big way. “We want to build the pyramid,” he says.

For now, his Home Seva concierge service for individuals is available in South Mumbai alone. Three months after launch, he’s test-marketing it still. The idea is to run a range of errands like travel, relocation, bill payments, documentation (driving licences, passports, PAN cards, affidavits), and even movie tickets for single and working people and even the elderly.

“People need to understand the concept and the price has to be right. Labour is still cheap here and people think they can get their boy to run errands. But the efficiency we can provide is the value addition,” he says. So he’s hoping to get in early. “We’re in the proof of concept stage but the signs are encouraging,” says Sinh.

Meanwhile, Pandey’s already planning to expand to other metros by 2011. “Our customers should get to the point where if they want anything, they should think of us,” he says.

A La Concierge’s Home Seva’s charges range from Rs 599 a month to Rs 5,750 a year. Concierge4India has a transaction fee model. For instance, charges could range from Rs 300 for booking an air ticket to 10 per cent brokerage for renting an apartment.

Network and more

When Vaibhav Sethi, managing director, Autodoor System India, wanted to hire a posh car to drive from London to Scotland recently, he turned to Delhi-based Annika Talwar (right), a friend-of-a-friend. Immediately, Talwar drummed up her contacts in London — she’d lived there for 10 years, working as a financial analyst and even running her own luxury car hire business — to get him a Mercedes SLK. “She got me the best deal in town,” says Sethi, who travels frequently between Delhi, London and Milan.

Now Sethi’s thinking of joining Talwar’s three-month-old The Only Network. This is not a pure concierge service but Talwar is combining plain business and social networking with concierge services and lifestyle consultancy. “Each one of us has a huge network since we’re constantly meeting people. And we’re also looking for opportunities,” says Talwar. The idea is to rope in like-minded people as members or “friends” of Only Network and leverage each member’s expertise and network to provide “concierge services and consultancy in the luxury and lifestyle segment”.

How does it work? Whenever a request comes in, a member can either fulfil it herself or use her network to get it fulfilled. The member who does so shares a commission with The Only Network. The transaction fee can range from 2 per cent for jewellery to 12 per cent for car hires. “It’s completely transparent,” says Talwar.

The services range from travel to car hires to shopping. For instance, Talwar helped procure a limited edition handbag from Milan and booked a holiday in Maldives.

The Only Network has some 35 ‘Friends’ today. Talwar’s banking on the “premium-ness” cache to grow her service. As she says: “It’s all about making yourself feel good and show that you have arrived.”

Pix courtesy: Paul Winch Furness (for Nobu), Quintessentially India and Gajanan Dudhalkar