When you’re trying to manage a big corporate event, catering can be just another overwhelming aspect of the process. You want to make things perfect, choose menu items that make sense for your staff, and try to find a good restaurant, all while balancing venue reservations on top of your regular workday. That’s a lot to manage, which is where implementing corporate concierge can help make the process smoother.
We’ll go over what corporate concierge is and how it takes much of the stress away from corporate catering for events.
What is a Corporate Catering Concierge?
A corporate catering concierge is a service that allows you to entrust all your catering management with a separate entity. It’s kind of like hiring a wedding planner for your event catering, they’ll work to do most of the legwork for your catering needs and all you have to do is approve it. This can save you a lot of time and stress so you don’t have to reach out to restaurants and coordinate everything on your own.
What Does a Corporate Catering Concierge Do?
In a sense, they do mostly everything. You’ll tell them the estimated amount of people, the types of foods you want, your budget, and any food restrictions they should consider. They’ll also manage any catering staff you’ll need on hand and other logistic-type tasks. Let’s look at the details of each:
- Tailored Menu Planning. A catering concierge will take down what types of food you’re thinking of for your event, your budget, and how many people you’ll be feeding. They’ll create the perfect menu personalized for you.
- Coordination of Special Dietary Needs. If you have any special religious-based food requests, food allergies, or dietary needs, it’s your concierge’s job to include that in the menu making process.
- Logistics Management. Logistics include working with the venue you’ll be at, seeing if you’ll be needing staff or not, and anything else involving getting the food where it’s supposed to go.
- Vendor Sourcing. Your concierge has to source your catering options and make sure they’re up to par.
Types of Corporate Events That Benefit from a Catering Concierge
Any corporate event that has a lot of facets to it benefits from a catering concierge. When things start feeling complicated and overwhelming, it’s worth looking into getting some help. Big events especially benefit from corporate concierge because it involves a lot more than your typical event, but that doesn’t mean smaller events can’t benefit from the assistance as well.
If you feel like managing catering for your next corporate event is cutting into your time at work, that should be an indication that it’s time to start looking at your concierge options.
Benefits of Hiring a Corporate Catering Concierge
Hiring a corporate concierge helps you get a specialized, professional experience. The entire point is to take a lot of the stress of finding catering off your plate, and their job is just that. You can trust that you’ll get a completely personalized, professional, and smooth experience because you’ve chosen experts to help you.
How a Catering Concierge Enhances the Attendee Experience
Since the experience you’re creating is specifically catered to you and your attendees, it’s much less likely things will slip through the cracks. When you’re trying to manage catering on your own on top of your regular work and the rest of the event details, you might miss a food allergy or an important detail about the food being served. Or worse, you might end up choosing food that just isn’t good.
The expertise of a catering concierge centers your attendees to give them the best experience possible.
Partnering with a Catering Concierge for Long-Term Corporate Events
If you’re planning on a series of events in the future or you’ve found a concierge you really liked, partnering with them for long-term events can be beneficial as well. They’ll start to learn about you and your regular attendees as a client, making it not only an easier process but a more refined process on top of that.
Taking regular surveys from your attendees about food they liked or didn’t like can increase the effectiveness of your catered events and enhance the experiences you’re facilitating. Your concierge will remember your preferences for the next time.
Finding the Right Corporate Catering Concierge
It’s important to find a corporate catering concierge with good ratings and reliability. Just like the catering itself, you can sometimes have bad experiences with your concierge if you don’t properly research what company you’re going with.
Your concierge should have clear pricing and no issues taking down your menu specifications. They should be able to work with a variety of budgets and do their best to make sure you feel taken care of. Remember, you’re hiring a concierge to take the stress of managing catering for your events off of you, not pile stress on.
Even if there are hiccups in the process, you should take note of how those hiccups are handled. Professionalism should be a priority for your concierge. If you follow these basic guidelines you should be able to find a concierge that works for you.
Trends in Corporate Catering Concierge Services
The newest way of hiring corporate concierge is through applications. There are dedicated apps similar to the food delivery apps most of us already use that allow you to choose from vetted restaurants near you, help you staff your catered events as needed, and guide you with the catering process.
This is a great option for all types of corporate catering settings like office lunches, event dinners, and everything in between. The reason it’s getting more popular is because of how easy it is to use for not only the person in charge of catering, but for your staff as well. Some applications allow your staff to vote or rate the meals they had, making it easier to get a more curated menu experience.
Overall, trends are pointing towards a more tech-driven approach.
Corporate Catering Concierge vs. Traditional Catering
Corporate catering concierge services blow traditional catering out of the water. You no longer have to make calls or emails to get pricing estimates, do a ton of logistics work, or balance a million different catering related tasks in the midst of your workday. The food can make or break an event, so it’s easier to just get it right the first time without having the hassle of doing traditional catering all on your own.
Zerocater’s Corporate Catering Services
Zerocater can be your personal corporate catering concierge service. Regardless of your event size or budget, we can work with you to find the perfect menu. As we mentioned before, the process of getting catering for your event can be a stressful one, so we’ve got a collection of some of the best restaurants in your area to help you make your events memorable. We even have an AI system that allows us to lean more about you and your staff’s preferences so we can give you better and better suggestions. If you’re interested in getting the concierge experience, reach out and tell us a little bit about your company, budget, events, and anything else you think we should know. We’ll give you the experience you’ve been waiting for!
