Buying Time

The clock ticks loudly for the busy professional. As life narrows into a maze of deadlines, quotas and competing family and personal issues, many become desperate for a few more hours in each day.
Over the years, some of these harassed executives have found they are not as helpless as they feel. They have discovered the perfect antidote: an office address in an elegant executive suite.

Located on the sixth floor of the Republic Centre in downtown Chattanooga, The Concierge Level pampers its tenants with an interlocking system of office, business and personal services designed to make their lives easier and their businesses flourish. They find themselves partnered with a staff of experienced business professionals who lend experience in everything from top-notch telephone service to computer training to event and party planning.

"I haven't discovered any other company that does what we do," says Linda Chaff, founder and president of The Concierge Level. "Most executive suites are four walls and a phone, with perhaps some level of telephone messaging service. We are quite unique," she says. Chaff ads that The Concierge Level has begun to market consultation services to other executive suite firms across the country who wish to raise the bar in client satisfaction.

"We have the infrastructure in place to successfully offer an array of relevant services, which is what distinguishes us most," Chaff says. Many of the tenants in The Concierge Level executive suites are satellite offices of large companies who need a presence in Chattanooga. "These corporations based in other states understand the importance of this kind of infrastructure," she says. Business services range from technical and creative writing, graphic design and publishing to image consulting and administrative support. Training programs and regulatory compliance procedures are also among the many offerings in the full-spectrum business support approach. The personal services or "concierge" wing of the company provides the booking of dinner reservations, gift selection and delivery, even the conjuring and catering of "any theme party imaginable". Event planning and seminar organization and management services allow tenants to focus on the nuts and bolts of presentations and projects, leaving all other details to The Concierge Level. All of the services offered by the Concierge Level are available to and frequently enjoyed by businesses and individuals throughout the area, but they are most convenient to those who lease space in the company's suites.

"What our tenants here need most is someone they can count on to handle a request from beginning to end. They do not want to have to think twice about the end result," says Dee McCamish, who coordinates telephone service, accounting and other administrative functions for The Concierge Level. In addition to being "the voice with a smile" for the tenants, answering their telephone lines as if she is the personal secretary of each, McCamish fields requests for personal and business services, delegating them to the appropriate Concierge Level staff member. She purchases supplies for tenants upon request, making it her aim to save them both money and time. McCamish draws on many years of experience in credit, finance and cost with a major corporation.

"I have had many customers tell me they wish they had someone on staff as professional and pleasant as Dee is," says The Concierge Level tenant Tom O'Keefe of Intervect USA, Inc., a company offering assemblage and service for above-ground construction hoists and commercial passenger and material lifts.
"When my company was anticipating going the route of an executive suite, I was very apprehensive. I had always been in an office where we employed the secretaries and office staff and did all of the support work in-house. The Concierge Level has exceeded all of my expectations.

Pat Brock, a busy executive who travels the world, says renting space in The Concierge Level executive suites over the last six years has added up to less worry and more time for accomplishing business and personal objectives. "The Concierge Level takes very good care of its tenants, whether they need help with the computer, or any other secretarial service you can imagine. When I'm not here they handle messages, the mail and any other requests I have in a manner, that is very friendly, very personal and very professional," Brock says.

"They have a great a-la-carte menu of services that I can make use of as I choose," says tenant Jim Crumley of C. Melchers America, a company that imports various products from around the world. "I had to develop a program essentially overnight and was able to pull from the wealth of resources The Concierge Level offers. I can now form ballpark quotes in forty-eight to seventy-two hours, which previously had taken up to ten days to put together. That is invaluable to my business," he says.

Bank of America, which has offices in Republic Centre, has enjoyed its proximity to The Concierge Level, employing the company to set up for meetings, provide refreshments or meals and set everything in order again. "It frees me from having to take time out of my work day to deal with those things," says Tammy Sawyer of Bank of America's Banking Services. "The Concierge Level finds a way to do pretty much anything you ask them to do," she says.

Denise Reed, Project Coordinator for The Concierge Level, agrees that it is her job to pull together "anything the client can dream up." When planning meetings, Reed says she works closely with the client to determine the objectives of the gathering, so that décor and other details will help facilitate them. A real estate client asked her to put together something along the lines of a wine and cheese mixer to acquaint realtors with a piece of property they wished to market. "We said 'We can do better than that,'" Reed recalls. The Concierge Level organized a scavenger hunt that forced the realtors gathered to explore the property, picking up mock dollars with the company owner's face on them along the way to redeem for prizes. The theme was carried off with pirate-style décor to add to the fun and make the occasion memorable. "We try to think outside the box, and ask that the entourage of caterers we work with do the same in order to provide our clients with fresh, exciting ideas that bring results," Reed says. In planning large meetings or training sessions, Reed offers complete logistics planning and attends the opening of the event. "If a detail goes awry, I'm there to hold things together or proceed to 'Plan B,' " she says.

Going the extra mile to help clients achieve specific objectives has become the trademark for The Concierge Level. Several years ago the Tennessee Valley Authority employed them to help with a safety campaign. "We designed the logo for the campaign and planned the roll-out program. I had a theme song written and brought in a Whitney Houston-style professional singer from Nashville to perform it to employees," Chaff recalls. "They loved it."

Businesswoman and writer Chaff, also founded Chaff & Company, a corporate communications company that provides services to The Concierge Level. She says the national network of talented communications and business experts she draws from gives The Concierge Level tenants access to many very specific professional services, including video and print material for internal communications, as well as training and marketing. Chaff, author of a book on health and safety management publishing last year by the American Medical, brings a wealth of safety, communications and business experience into play for the company's clients. This fact, coupled with her own experience as a tenant of executive suites around the country, led her to believe she could offer a truly extraordinary experience for tenants here in Chattanooga. "I know what services I enjoyed and which ones weren't as useful," she says. Years spent as a concierge in Europe, where the profession is elevated to an art form, gave Chaff the foundation for the concierge concept. Intensely personal service characterizes the wing of the business and makes it a natural part of The Concierge Level executive suite offerings. The perfect blend of services delivered with the "Old World" emphasis on excellence, polish and detail ensure that The Concierge Level consistently lives up to its slogan, "Making professional life a lot easier."

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