Concierge services in India: Meet the real life genies that the rich and famous depend on

It’s 6am. And Karan Bhangay is frantically trying to source Tom Ford shoes for a client. The client has an 11am flight and has just decided that he wants these shoes before he leaves for the airport. Karan’s team manages to fill a car with a selection of footwear from the specific luxury label and despatches them to the client’s house just in time.

On other days this team is on its toes trying to fulfil a gamut of requests from their HNI (High Net-worth Individual) clients: from playing tennis with Roger Federer to getting last minute tables at Michelin star restaurants.

Karan, who started Indulge Global, a concierge service company along with Advita Bihaniin June 2022, thrives on making the almost impossible possible. “From pin to plane, we can get you anything. We even negotiate on deals, like land deals for example. In addition, we remind clients about birthdays, anniversaries and if they want us to buy gifts for their loved ones, we do that. We know their preferences: red wine or white, favourite colour, how many kids they have, who is their driver, almost all the data,” says Karan, who is based in Goa but has a 600-plus billionaire clientele across the globe from Los Angeles to Africa. Eighty per cent of them are from India. He has teams based out of London, Paris, and Riyadh.

Karan says that people often wonder how a concierge service is different from that of a travel agent or personal assistant. “A PA can book flights and make dinner reservations but can they get you a reservation at SOHO House London, or pull off a quick Rolls Royce purchase or get a Rolex or Birkin that is not even on the rack of a luxury store? We can,” he grins.

The requests range from the straightforward to the bizarre. Sometimes, they can be oddly specific. An elderly couple travelling to a few cities in Switzerland, Istanbul, and London wanted a constant temperature of 25 degree Celsius everywhere they went. “We made sure their hotels, restaurants, transport etc maintained that temperature. They were very specific about their food so we flew in a personal chef,” explains Karan who recently took his brand to Shark Tank Season 4 and then secured $1 million in funding from Gautham Pai (managing director of the Manipal Group) and Nikhil Shettar (partner and chief information officer at KGC).

The team at Indulge Global has also rescued clients and stepped in during overseas medical emergencies. “A client was stuck in the riots in Nepal last year, we airlifted him out of there. Someone had a medical issue in Bali and within 12 hours we got them on a chartered flight and brought them to their hometown, Lucknow.”

Make a wish

Concierge service providers are like genies but they grant you much more than three requests, and at a price that requires deep pockets. These services follow a membership model, with prices starting at ₹4 lakh per annum. “Some people have an identity crisis. In their home country, their identity is secure but while travelling its lost because they may not be known there. They want us to fill that gap. When we make reservations etc, we tell them this person is a billionaire so they get to feel like VIPs and have a fantastic experience,” says Karan whose clientele is mostly in the 25 to 60-year age bracket.

A trend that he notices among his clientele is that the 25-35 year olds are mostly trying to possess things, and some of them are impulsive with their purchases. They like to buy luxury cars, limited edition watches. The 45 years and above are experimental and have experience-driven demands like playing the guitar on a mountain top, trying a specific activity in Antarctica, or booking a private island.

Quintessentially, founded in 2000 in London by Aaron Simpson, Ben Elliot and Paul Drummond, forayed into India in 2010. Back then, a huge number of requests were for memberships at Annabel’s in London, says Mishti Bose, CEO, Quintessentially India. “It was about things and places you would like to be seen at, things that add to your badge value. But what you see today is people looking at their own interests, it’s a lot more experiential. It is not just about possessing something but experiencing. Its about personal taste,” she says, adding, “For example, if someone is going to Spain, it’s not about Barcelona, but about little towns with the most fabulous food and top chefs cooking at tiny six-seater restaurants. Getting a table at these places is very difficult but we get it for them. It is a lot more about personal gratification rather than social gratification,” she says.

Other requests fulfilled include getting members a private 20-seater box at a sold out Taylor Swift concert in London, and curating a food tour in Japan with Michelin star restaurant chefs cooking omakase for the select group. Lifestyle managers pay attention to every detail. Citing another example, Mishti says, “A member had gone for the ICC World Cup at London and our lifestyle manager asked him if he was happy with the set up. The member said the seat was great, the match, fantastic, but he only wished the sun wasn’t so bright. Our manager immediately organised someone to go there with an umbrella. With our network of vendors, delivering a service is not so difficult anymore. Delivering the service at a level that delights the customer is where we keep challenging and pushing ourselves.”

The core age group of members here is between 35 and 50, with younger people also taking up memberships. Earlier members were primarily from Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, then Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad came into the fold, with little spurts from Jaipur, Lucknow, Kanpur and Pune.

The membership fee is anywhere between ₹3.5 and ₹20 lakhs. The offerings vary according to different slabs. There are two kinds of memberships: Dedicated and Elite. Dedicated provides a lifestyle manager who is available from 9am to 6pm on weekdays. For the latter, there are managers available for clients in every city plus they have access to the global servicing team. There is also a membership by invite which is at ₹35 lakhs per annum. 

Home is where the concierge is

And now this trend has seeped into home needs as well. Pinch, a home concierge and lifestyle management service started in 2021 by Nitin Mohan Srivastava and Kiran Reddy, aims to do the everyday chores for their clients while their clients can utilise that time to do things that they want to. “Our zone is everyday practical problems but having said that we also got our clients tickets for a Coldplay concert,” says Nitin.

Pinch is headquartered out of Gurgaon but services the whole of India. The list of services is quite varied. “For example, if you have to be at dinner and something has to be attended to at home, our lifestyle manager can handle that. A client in Gurgaon wanted her Class X marksheet from the ‘90s. We called her school in Rajasthan, called the board, then sent someone to Rajasthan to procure it for her. One of our clients was travelling and needed 14 lamps to be switched on in her house and we got that done. Another client’s husband was in hospital and she had pets and plants at home that had to be looked after and our lifestyle managers took care of it all,” he says.

People also ask for a lot of recommendations, for the best linen for their homes, what plants to buy, the right de-tan cream etc…The dedicated lifestyle manager buy everything that needs to be bought right from pantry items to furniture and airline tickets. They even bought a wine chiller worth ₹3.5 lakhs for a client’s home. “We know the dal you get, what time you wake up on weekends, what you like on holidays… the rhythm of your life,”adds Nitin.

The team worked on understanding what lifestyle managers need to do, how many times a week they need to go to their client’s home, how much to charge etc. “We started using the services ourselves to test them out. We are tricky and picky customers ourselves. My wife has intolerances to milk, nuts etc. So, lifestyle managers have anchored her food preferences,” says Nitin.

The company now has 17 lifestyle managers and an 86-member strong team. Some of the most common requests are to find clients the right cook, nanny, train their staff… “We have created an ecosystem of sourcing help and training them — butlers, housekeepers, nannies,” he says. While the team at Pinch mostly has everything under control, sometimes they are thrown a curveball. Nitin laughs, “Someone wanted a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses that were discontinued in 2012. We called every distributor in India. We sent someone in Milan to check for these glasses! And on another occasion someone wanted ice apples, after the ice apple season was over and that too within three hours! He had the same request twice, once when he was in Kolkata, and the other time in Bengaluru,” says Nitin, adding that as a concierge service company they are always anticipating demands and keep building a network of vendor partners.

Pinch follows a subscription-based model. It starts at ₹30,000 per month. Nitin says the concierge space is heating up in India, with significant players popping up in the last two years. “It is also an indication of the prosperity and money people have and how they want to live. We are possibly building at the right time in India.”