The Luxury Consumer Values This Over Everything Else
This conversation was spurred from a larger sit-down interview with Perry Lane Hotel General Manager, Pritpal Singh. That interview can be found in full here, or you can listen to this interview on Soundcloud here.
When it comes to providing value to a luxury consumer, whether that be a tangible product or an intangible service or experience, there is one thing the luxury consumer values over everything else: time.
“The most important thing to a luxury customer is time.”
It’s not so much that luxury consumers wish to save time as it is that they don’t want their time wasted. At least, that’s what we took away from our sit-down interview with Pritpal. After sitting with what we discussed, there are key takeaways a business can put into practice that would save and optimize the luxury consumer’s time. Feel free to jump to the section that most applies to your business, and leave us a comment with your thoughts!
Catering to Their Most Prized Possession: Time
1. Anticipate their needs.
”In luxury you have to focus on hospitality, and we have a deep focus and attention to detail. Service is something which is adequate; you pay for something and you expect it. Hospitality is proactive and personalized.
”So in our hotel you ask for a wake-up call, yes we do confirm the time that you want it, because we don’t want you to miss the wake-up call, but the next question is, “Would you like a cup of tea or a cup of coffee delivered up to your room?” Now, that’s something which you don’t expect, and then when you do get that wake-up call in the morning and you are welcomed at the door with a cup of coffee, we ask you in the morning when we wake you up, “What kind of newspaper would you like? Would you like Wall Street Journal or would you like something else?” and so on and so forth.
”I think that’s what brings that sense of personalized stay into the picture and that’s something which my connoisseurs, the house team, are well trained on and what they are excited about and that’s what differentiates us from the other segments.” —Pritpal Singh, General Manager of Perry Lane Hotel
2. Package your offerings.
If you’re a service-based business or in the hospitality industry, it’s crucial to have a “big picture” understanding of how your particular offering plays into your customer’s larger experience.
”So, for example, if the guest wants to go play golf we don’t get them just to any other golf resort, or golf course, we send them to the Ford Plantation. It’s got the stamp of history on it. They get picked up from the hotel, they get dropped off, lunch is served, the chef comes out and they talk to him and then once they get to the golf course it’s a picturesque setting which is historical.” —Pritpal Singh, General Manager of Perry Lane Hotel
3. Position yourself effectively.
”Make sure that you understand your target market. What is your target market reading? When it comes to a luxury customer, in our case, as far as the hotel is concerned, we go after Conde Nast, we go after Travel and Leisure, Departures Magazine, The Goop Magazine, along with a few within the region: Coastal Living, Garden & Gun, and so on and so forth. So once you get to that forum, the assets that you are going to put, the messaging that you are going to put in front of the luxury customer, that’s really important. And if it is not a hotel and if it’s some other industry, let’s say you greet them and you are talking to a customer, the customer wants to know, ‘What is your story?’
”So, focus more on your story versus the price point or the value or the deal. Luxury consumers do not focus on any of these three; they focus on, ‘What’s your story? What’s unique and different about you?’ and then, ‘Let’s talk.’” —Pritpal Singh, General Manager of Perry Lane Hotel
4. Full-service is the only service.
”Our philosophy is: we offer the same service to our team members that we expect them to offer to the guests and that’s what keeps us in business because it creates loyalty. We have had instances where our team members have actually gone to their home and delivered something the next day. We have had front desk agents take a picture of the entire team and send it to a guest who celebrated their birthday with us. The stories are endless, we had a guest who celebrated a family reunion, and it happened to be the 90th birthday of their grandfather and we went ahead and we handed out the card, delivered it with the pictures of the hotel, and that was so meaningful to them. And we have had guests who have taken team members to the super bowl with them. So that’s the bond that we create.” —Pritpal Singh, General Manager of Perry Lane Hotel
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