Concierge service is normally associated with million dollar listings and luxury NYC apartments, but one Columbus business is making the convenience accessible at an affordable price point. With clients in Upper Arlington to Worthington, from Short North to Grandview and Downtown, Dina Giddens is making life a little easier for residents across the city as DMG Concierge.
“People have personal assistants for the personal things but a home concierge is like what you have at a hotel,” Giddens says. “Whatever they need at the spur of the moment, you go do it for them.”
DMG Concierge’s list of services include:
- – Shopping for groceries, gifts, etc.
- – Preparing and mailing greeting cards
- – Miscellaneous errands
- – Holiday shopping and gift wrapping
- – Picking up/dropping off dry cleaning and ironing
- – Coordinating car maintenance, home repair and other appointments
- – Party planning, set-up and clean-up
- – House sitting
Her work is driven out of her love of taking care of people. Giddens tries to not only accommodate clients with whatever they need – just ask, she says – but often goes above and beyond trying to anticipate their needs. And, her intuitive nature is a big draw for clients.
“I’m taking care of things that I know [clients] are too busy to even worry about or care about, but that I think is reasonable when it comes to your house,” Giddens says. “You know you work hard, you deserve your home to be beautiful.”
Giddens is prime to the growth potential her business holds. “Nobody in Columbus does this yet,” she says.
The market is ripe for DMG Concierge’s services as well with an increasing number of high-end apartments and condos popping up across the city. Giddens also found research that shows Columbus has a booming population of millennials interested in urban-style living.
“Every development I’ve gone to says, ‘Oh my god what a great idea!’,” Giddens says. A win-win for everybody, developers can market her services as a value-add, but don’t have to pay her and interest tenants can choose to utilize DMG’s services as needed.
“I’m offering New York style concierge service at a really affordable price for millennials,” Giddens says.
Typically seen as a luxury service, DMG Concierge is focused on being efficient and effective, but not expensive. Educating people on her services, “The more people find out about it, the more people want to know what it is, what it means,” Giddens says. Many realize that it’s not the service they thought it was – it’s more something that anyone can use and afford.
While word-of-mouth has been her best friends in adding clients, Giddens biggest challenge is actually coordinating last-minute requests with already scheduled requests. “I’ve never not gotten it done though,” she says.
Giddens developed DMG Concierge from the ground up. She started cleaning houses in 2003 to have a flexible schedule to be able to take care of her two sons. As she started getting more professional clients, they wanted to hire her as a home assistant. She took on the tasks and as her sons aged, the business started progressing. Now Giddens is ready to take DMG Concierge to the next level.
“I wanted to expand because first of all, I love it, second of all, I have the opportunity now,” she says. Her nurturing love of taking care of others is a huge driving force in her success, as is her hard work. “Regardless of where you start out, it’s how much effort you put into it,” she says.
Giddens is excited to be one of a growing number successful women in Columbus. “Columbus is changing with this beautiful landscape of women who are not hard and aggressive, but really feminine and strong, and that is being accepted,” she says.
For more information, visit DMG Concierge on Facebook and Twitter.
