Concierge Confidential (18 page)

In situations like this, I find that the passive-aggressive approach works best. Asking them something like, “Do you really hate it?” gives them a cue to either snap to it—or dig themselves deeper in the hole. You can follow that question up with, “Because here's how
I
feel.” In service, you don't have to act contemptuous of the person's suggestion. You can see what they're going for, and try to steer them in the right direction without being a snot about it.

It certainly works both ways. Some customers know
everything
and don't let you do your job. If they wanted to sing the praises of T.G.I. Friday's, I'd tell them it was a
great
choice and make reservations. It was pointless to try to educate them, and they robbed themselves of learning about Five Napkin Burger. They weren't seeking advice; they were seeking validation.

If you want to be vindictive and punish the service person you're dealing with, it's very difficult. The appearance of service is that you're the boss. But you're really not. The only time people get fired on the spot is in movies where the character needs a change in occupation. For a business to fire someone on the spot in front of a customer is to admit that they're staffed with incompetents—not a very healthy image.

If you want to just be a jerk, the best thing to do is to write a letter. But here's the thing: Unless the bad service is grossly repetitive—and sometimes it is, and those people are clearly not in the right field—those letters do nothing except make you feel good. Letters do get to somebody's eyes, and then there's a whole chain of people that need to explain the issue. But there's no way you know an employee better than their managers do, unless their manager is completely out of it—in which case they're too stupid to take effective action anyway. Further, if someone has been consistently giving bad service for a long time, they're probably entrenched in that position. You're not going to be the tipping point to get them fired.

Another alternative approach is the classic “Let me talk to your manager!” You will get your instant and ephemeral gratification, because human nature means that the manager will try to come in and save the day. You'll get some modicum of submission, but the idea that you've somehow “fixed” this person is absurd. You and your power play will be quickly forgotten by all parties involved. The only way you will be remembered is in a
bad
way, if your attitude gets you a scarlet letter. Restaurants and hotels do it all the time, marking rude customers' profiles with comments. Our special code for this was abbreviated to “PITA”—as in, Pain In The Ass—in case they saw the computer screen's reflection in our glasses or something. Positive comments also got registered. A “BFT” was a Ben Franklin Tipper who dropped hundred-dollar bills.

My personal approach is to try to educate the person. At first glance, it seems like a waste of time. But educating someone is actually a very good investment, because you instantly become memorable. Instead of being angry, act surprised. “All I did was come up here and ask you for a restaurant. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's kind of what you're here to do.” It's kind of like the Dog Whisperer. You snap them out of their bad-service mode and bring them back to earth. You're no longer some amorphous guest, but a real person with real needs.

Now that they're listening, it's important to frame the issue correctly. Service professionals are prepared to defend their company, but they're not prepared to defend injustice. “This is unacceptable! This is not what your website looks like!” cries out for an explanation, not a remedy. You'll get the excuses as to why it has to be acceptable. “I'm sorry we're oversold this weekend,” they'll tell you. “There's nothing we can do.” But what
does
work is, “I booked this reservation two months ago. I know that the hotel is oversold but my room is horrible.
This isn't really fair
. I was looking forward to a great weekend and I'm not going to be happy in there.”
That
cries out for a remedy. No one wants to be unfair.

People who are very confrontational expect that they're paving the way for their future. The idea is that if you try to assert your importance every time you walk in the door, then everyone will salute you. Machiavelli's “it's better to be feared than to be loved” is an adage that might work when you have real power—not the illusion of power that the service relationship actually is. With service, it's just the opposite. It turns everyone off and creates stress. You're not going to get good service from somebody who's afraid of you. It's the same reason people don't keep porcupines as pets: Yes, there might be some upside. But the big downside is glaringly obvious, so it's safest to simply minimize any interaction.

10.

On the Case

There is absolutely nothing wrong with coming to a big city and not being that good at finding your way around. That's one of the main functions of a concierge: to help guests navigate the area. There
is
something wrong, however, with being a know-it-all when you're actually a know-it-not.

Many people that repeatedly visit New York feel like they've earned some imaginary, invisible badge. It's usually awarded around the sixth visit, but I've encountered it with people who had been to the city only once before—or even on their first visit, but they'd “read a book.” They'd ask me a question, but they'd never
ever
let me finish a sentence. “We want to go downtown to Harlem,” was one that I heard.

Harlem
is
downtown—if you're on 175th Street. But since the hotel was on 48th Street, that would make it uptown. I never really knew how to respond. It was more them showing off than actually asking for information. But knowing the simple fact that Harlem exists is not exactly an impressive bit of trivia.

Tourists loved to say that something was by “the river.” “Well, there's the East River and the Hudson River,” I explained. “Which river are you talking about?”

“You know. The
river
.”

Thanks to
Sleepless in Seattle,
every concierge in New York has had to argue until he's blue in the face that, no, there
isn't
a restaurant at the top of the Empire State Building. It
hasn't
closed recently and you
didn't
eat there last time you were visiting New York. It doesn't matter how certain you are and how much you swear up and down.
It did not happen
. That was a
movie,
not real life.

The Muppets never really “took” Manhattan, either.

It's not a question of “asking the right way.” I'm a concierge, not some freemason who could only grant access if presented with a certain keyword and a rare feather. To be sure, there
are
hidden gems in major cities of the world. At the D'Orsay in Paris, there's a wonderful little restaurant up on the top that many people would overlook. But I guarantee the French concierges
do
know about it, and they
will
tell you about it without any secret handshakes.

The one request that happened constantly—
daily
—was to have breakfast at Tiffany's. Even the people that know it's a very upscale jewelry store believe that there must be some VIP café where they serve tea and croissants. There isn't. Technically speaking, there must be some room in the back where you can bring in some food and eat in a windowless office. But that's as close as you're going to get.

Late one evening a man came to the desk with his coat on, ready to go out on the town. “How far is Atlantic City?” he asked me, with a thick Eastern European accent.

“It's about a hundred and twenty miles,” I told him.

“So how long will it take me to get there?”

“Three hours, roughly.”

He was
distraught
. In his mind, Atlantic City was another borough of New York. “That's impossible,” he said, kindly but firmly.

Now I knew I was in for an argument. “It's not impossible,” I said.

“Isn't there a subway I can take? Maybe something at Grand Central?”

Oh, of
course
! The Grand Central Atlantic City Express!
“No,” I insisted. “There really isn't.”

“Isn't there
some
way to go faster?”

“You'd have to charter a helicopter!” I said, trying to show him how impossible it was.

“Okay,” he said.

He was one of those. After you got past the arguing, they'd pretend to be interested in some extravagant adventure. Then, after I did all the research to find out what it entailed, they'd change their mind (but never admit how ridiculous they were being in the first place). Just from the way he was postured I could see that he thought he was a big shot. “I mean, it's probably going to be about three or four thousand dollars,” I said, trying to nip this in the bud as fast as possible.

“Each way or round trip?”

“Probably round trip.”

“How fast can you arrange it?”

Crap
. It wasn't like I could call my friendly neighborhood helicopter pilot. The only helicopter companies I was aware of were the tourist ones, and I knew that they were closed. I wasn't sure what to do. I had to start brainstorming about aviation. Teterboro was a private airport; maybe there were helicopters there. Now that I had a minute to think, I realized that the price I quoted him was quite high. I was looking to pocket a clean $1,000, easy—
if
I could pull this off.

I called Teterboro but got a recording. “… If this is an emergency,” it concluded, “press zero.”

Oh yeah,
I decided,
it's an emergency
. I got connected directly to somebody who was in the air traffic control tower. “Look, I'm sorry,” I said, embarrassed. “I know I did this wrong. It's not like life or death, but I have a dilemma and I'm just desperate.”

“Did you call Liberty Helicopter?” he said, after I explained the situation.

“They're closed.”

“Hold on a second.” I heard him rifling through some papers. “Call this number. It's the cell phone of the guy who owns Liberty.”

“Thanks!” I called the guy—and got his voicemail. I told him what I needed as succinctly as I could. “If you get this within the next ten minutes,
please
call me back.” I hung up the phone and started to think of where else to call. I got the idea to contact charter companies in Los Angeles, where it was three hours earlier.

It was a bit of a challenge and kind of fun, but what made it even more of a challenge is that other guests started to come up to the desk. Nine o'clock was always a very busy hour for us, and now I had the annoying people coming up and asking for a table for six, at Babbo, in fifteen minutes. I was juggling the phones and the wheels were clicking, but nobody else mattered except for the Russian helicopter man.

The guy from Liberty soon called me back. “What's the matter?” he said. “What do you need?”

I had a good relationship with his company, because helicopter tours were a very premium attraction. “I need someone to fly a guest to Atlantic City. Like, now.”

“Let me see if I can get one of my pilots. They might still be around.” He called me back in seconds. “All right. I have someone. Is this guy for real?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it would be his own helicopter. Your guy has got to pay for the whole thing himself. It'll be twenty-seven hundred.”

My rule of thumb for pricing things was to take the expectation, then take the reality, and meet in the middle. “All right,” I told the guest. “I've gotten a private helicopter ride to Atlantic City, round-trip for $3,500 if you're still interested.” It was less than he had been expecting to pay, so I'd procured him an apparent bargain.

“Fine,” he told me. “No problem. Do it.”

Now I had to process the paid-out. Thirty-five hundred dollars was exorbitant, even by our usual high-ticket standard. I'd require manager approval, and there would be some questions. “How do you want to pay?” I asked the guest. “Do you want to put this to your room? Do you want to put just part of it now, and then part of it tomorrow?”

“Can I pay cash?” he asked.

“Sure.” I knew that the pilot would have no issue with that, but I called anyway to make sure they knew what was coming. The owner was also more than fine with that.

“How do I get to the heliport?” the guest asked me.

“I'll get you a car,” I said. I was terrified he was going to change his mind, and I'd be out a huge commission. It would be worth palming twenty dollars to one of the drivers out front to do me a little favor.

While I got on the phone with the car company, the guest took his valise and put it on my desk. It was like I was watching a James Bond movie through the corner of my eye. He popped open the valise—
click, click
—and I saw that the entire briefcase was
full
of stacks of bills. The stacks even had the little bank wrappers around them.

He started counting it out while I grew instantly aware of the cameras that hung over my desk.
Oh my God,
I thought,
don't let anybody see this
.
This is so great
 …
but I'm so scared!
He handed me the cash for the full amount, and then he handed me a couple of hundred dollars extra. “Thank you so much for your time,” he said.

A few minutes later, the driver came in from outside. “Is this the gentleman going to the heliport?”

“Yes!” I told him, sending them off on their way.

Now Murphy's Law kicked in, and I got extremely busy. It was even harder to focus on minutiae than usual, because my brain was still processing everything that just happened. In a few minutes, he'd be in Atlantic City after all.