• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Winston-Salem, N.C., Concierge Service Adjusts Services

Posted on: Sunday, 23 October 2005, 18:00 CDT

By Fran Daniel, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.

Oct. 21--When @ Your Service opened in Winston-Salem in 1999, it offered personal, or concierge, services.

Today, the company still offers those services but the bulk of its business is home-improvement service referrals, at least 75 percent.

The shift in focus didn't happen overnight.

In the beginning, company officials at @ Your Service quickly realized they weren't the only ones interested in concierge services. The real-estate industry was moving into the arena.

In 2000, the company landed a partnership with Prudential Carolinas Realty based in Winston-Salem to provide concierge services such as pet sitting, and waiting at homes for deliveries and cable installers. Through the partnership, the company began to offer more home-improvement services.

Business started coming from people moving into the area.

Susan Raymer, the president and owner of @ Your Service, said that these people often became repeat customers.

"If you own a house things are going to always come up," she said. "It might be three months later. It might be three days later. It could be next year, but things are always going on with someone's home."

Whenever customers talked about needing one place to call for all their needs and about their home-improvement nightmares, the @ Your Service staff listened and took note.

"All of these horror stories start coming at you," Raymer said. "What they need is a reputable contractor, a reputable person to paint their house, so they're not being the ones stuck with, 'I've given them this amount of money and they didn't come back' or 'They didn't do what they said.'"

The home-improvement referral side of the business took off in 2003. It now offers just about any home maintenance and improvement service, including handyman, plumbing, electrical, leaf removal, pest control, lawn care, renovations/remodeling, roofing and landscaping.

@ Your Service works closely with about 75 vendors, who pay the company a small referral fee for sending them business.

"We make sure we have people that are good, quality people, trustworthy and reliable, that you want to have come to your house, and competitively priced -- not the most expensive in town and not the cheapest because that means they probably don't have insurance and licenses and things that we keep on file," Raymer said.

Raymer, who operates @ Your Service with her business partner, Lisa Chess, is considering franchising the company.

-----

To see more of the Winston-Salem Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.journalnow.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: Winston-Salem Journal

More News in this Category