Wow! Moments
What is the mark of a great service? Read on to find out…
Mr. Allen is planning a business trip to Los Angeles this weekend and has a very busy schedule, packed with back-to-back meetings with multiple clients located in different parts of the city. Included in his agenda is a dinner meeting with a client who selected the venue. This client sent him an email with the name of the restaurant where they would meet for dinner.My task was to include the appointment in his calendar so that he had the name and address of the restaurant. I did not stop there, however. As Mr. Allen’s schedule was pretty hectic, and I thought that it would help if he was familiar with the restaurant’s menu - one less thing to think about. So I called the restaurant and asked them to send me a copy of their menu.
As I was updating Mr. Allen on his agenda, I mentioned to him that I am sending him a copy of the restaurant’s menu so that he could get an idea of what he wanted to order. He was very pleased about it and mentioned that those are the types of things that he expects from our service.
This was an email from Bert Landa, one of our personal assistants. Bert was given kudos by the member who felt compelled to speak with one of Prialto’s managers to let him know how impressed he was with Bert.
We can’t say it too often: People are at the core of what we do here at Prialto. They are our most important resource. And when every single employee feels empowered, and when they care about what they do and the quality of work they produce, you get service that is, well, pretty great.
When hard work and diligence pays off
From one of our members…
“As a new user of Prialto, my wife and I were eager to put the service to good use. My wife works for an international economic development agency, which promotes poverty reduction through economic growth in third world countries. Accordingly, we put forward a rather unique request for our Prialto agent, Bert: research and compile a set of websites outlining best practices for creating a voucher system for agricultural development programs in Africa. The nature of the request was time sensitive and within a day of the initial request, we received a neatly organized list of websites which succinctly and clearly addressed each of our questions, saving my wife hours of research and enabling her to leverage the results for immediate review and synthesis into a report that was distributed to her organization’s Board the next morning. Kudos to Bert and Prialto for providing such a cost-effective, and incredibly versatile, personal remote assistant solution.”
Rob, Washington D.C.
“You rock!”
Here’s just one of the ways we make life easier for our members:
After trying unsuccessfully to book three nights at the Yosemite Lodge where he is planning to take a vacation with his wife, James, one of our members, sought my help. He gave me the dates and asked me to call the Lodge every now and then to see if any rooms become available - he was aware that the dates fell in the middle of the high season.
I called the Lodge consistently for two weeks when finally, a room freed up. Although it was only for two nights, not three, I asked the Lodge to hold the room and notified James immediately. I was hoping to add an extra night later on. I suggested to James that he take the room. He said yes, and the reservation was made.
Today I called the Lodge to see if we could extend the reservation to three days. They answered in the affirmative. I booked the extra night right away.
James was thrilled to know that he can plan his vacation the way he wanted without spending a lot of his valuable time making it happen, and I was glad to do it for him.
He sent me a succinct email that said it all:
“You rock, thank you.”
James
“Let’s just say that I am impressed. Great job!”
A wine enthusiast, Steve’s father Brent is quite particular about his wines. So particular in fact that he had trouble finding two vintages that he had to have. One was a 1999 Sylvain Cathiard Vosne-Romanée, and the other was a 2006 Domaine Ramonet Bienvenue Batard Montrachet. Steve is a Prialto member and a believer in the merits of its services. When he found out about his father’s difficulty in finding the wines, he decided to ask his Prialto assistant for help. Steve’s assistant, Eddie, then went to work. Eddie contacted around 25 stores, speaking to fine wine specialists to try and locate the wines, and to also find a retailer that delivers to Pennsylvania, where his father lives.
Although a 2006 Batard Montrachet was easier to find, a 1999 Vosne-Romanée, at about $1,200 a bottle, took more time to locate. Eddie finally found one at Christie’s auction house. After locating the specific vintages, Eddie then had to figure out why there was an issue in shipping wine to Pennsylvania. It turned out that Pennsylvania maintains one of the tightest, most restrictive liquor-control systems in the U.S. and both Steve and Brent were unaware of this. So, Eddie brought this issue to their attention, and it was decided that the wines were to be shipped to Brent’s address in New York City.
What did Brent think of Prialto’s service? Here’s his email to Eddie:
Eddie,
Let’s just say that I am impressed. Great job!
Thanks,
Brent
Passport to getting things done efficiently
Veronica, a Prialto member, was at Costco recently, hoping to take advantage of their passport photo service so she can renew her passport. Unfortunately, when she saw the size of the photo, she realized that it might not have the right dimensions. You see, Veronica does not have a U.S. passport, and until this moment, she hadn’t thought about photo size. So, she called her personal assistant and sought his help. While Veronica went on with her shopping, her personal assistant did some research on the web: He looked up the guidelines for passport photos on the consulate’s website, and compared that with the U.S. passport photo guidelines. Once he determined that the requirements were different, he then proceeded to research photo studios that did passport photos for various countries. He found one at a location nearest to Costco. He then called her back and passed on the information to her.
Without any interruption to her schedule, Veronica was able to go on with her day. And for a mother of three, very active children, assistance such as this helps her manage her time efficiently.