Senior Concierge Blog

The purpose of this blog is to explain the Senior Concierge profession and to provide on-going assistance to senior concierge professionals with tips and tools for their business, and information from the field about the day and the life of a senior concierge. Enjoy! Rachel Laws Senior Concierge

Sunday, December 28, 2014

When You're On The Clock

There may be a misconception about how Senior Concierge professionals spend time with their clients. You may have an image of sitting on a couch next to your client reminiscing about their lives while sipping English Breakfast Tea.   If this is what you have been hired to do then yes, I can visualize that picture. The only experience close to this is one of my first clients family members hired me to play Scrabble with their parent two times per week. That was a lot of fun and a real pleasure.  This is absolutely not the norm.  

I believe that since we are on the clock work should be getting done. If I'm simply sitting and chatting about my life and theirs I can't justify billing my clients.  Unless of course that's what you have been hired to do. If you're in a waiting room with your client and there is nothing else to do then yes, this can be a time to chat. Allow your client to lead the conversation.  


Some of my clients completely understand my billing rate and want me to get to work immediately.  There are no "hellos" just start on the projects at hand like a plumber or electrician. I don't want to run up my clients bill with chatting.  My job is to be efficient, effective, and keep my clients costs down while finding the fastest possible way to safely get the job done.  

I have had situations where the client really didn't want to get into the task at hand and would rather chat.  This client I'm thinking of happened to be a hoarder of paper and my job was to go through it and make some organization of the important papers and to get rid of the rest. My client wanted to just chat and I gently moved the conversation to the work at hand.  

I sat on the couch and said "let's look through this box together to see what's here"  While she chatted, I listened with one ear and went through the box to see what I could recycle, keep, or shred. I interjected my questions about the papers in between her stories.  She was amazed at all I had accomplished two hour later and was pleased that she now had more space and less boxes to contend with.  

Again, be very conscious of their dollar and the time it's taking you to do the task.  It's also our job to look out for our clients with other vendors to make sure they are getting the most out of other people working in our clients homes.  



No comments:

Post a Comment