Three Key Questions To Ask When Selecting a Concierge, Lifestyle And CX Provider

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re looking to grow the acquisition, retention and value of your customers by offering the valuable services of a concierge, lifestyle, or customer experience (CX) provider as part of your brand relationship. 

To facilitate this often-overwhelming process, we’ve identified three critical considerations to add to your checklist that will help you save time, manage risk and build a robust business case. 

1. Will the supplier’s technology future-proof customer experience and allow for an efficient, evolving technology platform? 

Almost every CX provider needs a digital platform to enable operational efficiency and, consequently, to allow customers to enjoy a better experience.  

Check that the supplier can evidence a fully functional platform and that it has the financial commitment to invest in ongoing technology improvements. Then road test it yourself – never rely on a slide presentation about a platform you can’t engage with personally. If the supplier doesn’t have a functioning platform, you risk a costly technical build (in time and money), or under-delivery. 

At Ten, we have working platforms in all global regions with highly developed feature sets. Ten is, as a listed company, also committed to high levels of annual technology investment in our platform and operations. 

2. Does the supplier have strong relationships with the ‘trades’ to meet customers’ expectations for a great CX experience? 

A successful concierge service provider will leverage events, benefits, access and services across travel, dining, live entertainment and retail. You’ll want a supplier who has well established relationships and buying power with these ’trades’, so that they can achieve results effectively and efficiently.  

You can check this yourself by browsing which offers or propositions the supplier is currently communicating on existing platforms. In addition, consider asking for written references, or other evidence from leading names in the relevant industries. 

At Ten, we have thousands of well-established trade relationships, as evidenced on our digital platforms, and can prove strong ties with references from Michelin-starred chefs, five-star hoteliers, and world-class brand and venue owners around the globe.  
 
Check that the CX provider has a dedicated team to source and deliver these services and deals to your customers, too – LinkedIn is a good research source for this.  

Our global experts in lifestyle management, special-offer negotiation, event management and content writing, (circa 1,000 staff across 22 global offices) deliver outstanding service and propositions to members worldwide.

3. Will the CX provider pass due diligence by a procurement department?

It can be frustrating to meet, verify and invest time in a partner who then fails to pass the basic ‘hygiene’ hurdles of procurement and compliance that internal risk managers will insist on. 

Always assess the following: does the company have the financial strength to deliver without creating risk, and to avoid service interruption to your customers? If the company is part of a bigger group, is there a risk it will stop delivering services that don’t adhere to the larger group’s focus? Is the company over-dependent on one or two customers, and therefore fragile? 

Ten is listed on the London Stock Market under ticker “TENG”. It is debt-free and has a good credit rating. Concierge and lifestyle services are at the heart of Ten’s business and no one customer accounts for more than 15% of Ten’s revenues. 

It is also important to check that the supplier takes payment (needed to deliver many lifestyle CX briefs), stores credit-card information and holds customer data securely – this is crucial for a sophisticated lifestyle CX program. 

At Ten we take information security very seriously and have invested in our people, process and technology to keep all our systems and our clients’ data safe and secure.  

To summarise, when selecting a concierge, lifestyle services or CX provider, our three-point checklist will help you to test the supplier’s technological capacity, trade relationships and financial security. Always do your research, ask questions and personally engage with the supplier’s platform and services before taking the next steps, too.   

Contact Ten for further information or for an informal chat – we’re here for you 24/7 and would love to help.  

Appendix

Ten’s approach to data security

A detailed summary of our information and data protection policies.

Certifications and Regulations: 

• SOC2 Compliant – demonstrated controls over security, availability and confidentiality 
• PCI-DSS Level 1 Certified – to protect our customers credit card information at the highest level 
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – Ten is complaint with GDPR data protections laws 

System and Data Protection: 

• Sensitive data at rest is encrypted with AES-256 encryption 
• Data in transit is encrypted with Transport Layer Security (TLS) 
• Ten operates data centres in five key global regions: USA, LATAM (Brazil), EU, Hong Kong, Russia 
• Industry best practices for technical controls, process and governance have been implemented 
• Ten’s infrastructure and systems are regularly audited and penetration–tested 
• Ten continuously scans and remediates against baseline security standards and compliance requirements  
• Ten employs a fully managed security operations centre to continuously monitor for security events and alerts 24/7 

  Application Security: 

• Our developers are regularly trained on the top security vulnerabilities (OWASP) 
• Code is developed and tested in line with our secure software development lifecycle, which includes continuous testing and code scanning 
• Our applications and APIs are regularly penetration–tested  

Availability: 

• Ten operates out of 22 global offices with five regional data centres 
• Ten offers world-class services, available globally and underpinned by Service Level Agreements (SLAs) 
• All our key services are resilient, tested, with disaster–recovery plans in place 

Risk Management: 

• Ten has a holistic risk management process in place, where risks are addressed according to impact and likelihood 
• All our staff undergo regular information security awareness training 
• Ten has a vendor risk management process in place to manage supply chain risk