|
A virtual personal
assistant
By Susan Mandel
for Virginia Business
May 2003
All it took was about 10
seconds for a business trip mishap to turn into a true
calamity for Cathryn Black, corporate communications
manager for BearingPoint Inc. While visiting her employer’s
McLean headquarters for an important meeting, Black
succumbed to a bit of clumsiness in an unfamiliar hotel
room. “I got out of bed and my glasses were on
the bedside table. I misjudged the distance and knocked
my glasses on the floor. In trying to find the light,
I stepped on them,” she says. It was 7:15 on a
Sunday morning and the nearsighted Black needed a new
pair of glasses fast. “I literally blanked,”
she says. “I didn’t know what I was going
to do.”
Luckily for Black, BearingPoint
is a client of VIPdesk Inc., an Alexandria-based corporate
concierge service. Founded six years ago by Mary Naylor,
VIPdesk aims to help busy professionals take care of
tasks from the uncommon to the mundane — such as
getting an eyeglass prescription filled in a strange
town. But since its inception, VIPdesk has striven to
set itself apart from other concierge services: In 1997,
it was the first fully Internet-based concierge service
in the market.
Today, the company is one
of the three largest corporate concierge firms in the
U.S. with more than 50 corporate clients, including
big names such as MasterCard International, Citibank,
Diners Club and Nextel Communications. VIPdesk also
boasts the largest user population in the industry —
some 10 million people. Its 100 employees throughout
the U.S. and Canada do everything from finding and scheduling
appointments with repairmen to planning children’s
birthday parties and giving advice on how to write a
wedding toast.
By February 2001, VIPdesk’s
revenues had grown since it started by a whopping 1,200
percent. And in May 2002, BusinessWeek online reported
that the company’s revenues had nearly tripled
in two years to more than $11 million. Part of the company’s
success could be due to the fact that clients’
requests are typically filled within six hours —
among the fastest turnaround time in the industry, says
Kelly Christiano, VIPdesk’s president.
Black can certainly attest
to that. Within an hour of calling the service, she
received the names of three reputable optical stores,
one of them close to her hotel. Black got her new glasses
with little fuss and was back at work that afternoon.
Return
to Virginia Business - May 2003
|
