‘The CSq Mindset’ is more than just a set of processes and procedures, it’s about how our clients feel when they’ve interacted with us. The mindset is underpinned by 5 beliefs that are fundamental to the way we engage at Charles Square and, without which, we wouldn’t be able to continue delivering 5-star value to our clients.
We believe that:
- Collaboration multiplies success – combining our expertise with that of our clients will always result in a superior solution.
- Sensing comes before responding – understanding context by asking the right questions enables us to respond appropriately and effectively to client needs.
- All flames are caused by a spark – instead of getting distracted by the symptoms of issues faced by clients, we are invested in finding out what sparked them.
- Empowerment creates space for growth – our role is to provide solutions to clients that empower them to spend time on becoming better at what they do.
- Our promise is our bond – accountability to delivering on what we say we will, is fundamental to maintaining our clients’ trust.
Botho Stein
GENERAL MANAGER – MAY FAIR HOTEL
Ricardo Araujo
FOUNDER – ARIODANTE TRAVEL
Andrew Bernardi
FOUNDER
THE BERNARDI MUSIC GROUP
Olivia Rigg
FOUNDER & CEO HAMILTON RIGG
Marcus Allen
DIRECTOR OF EMEA – CULT WINES
Jordan Rouse & Jason Bevan
FOUNDER & CEO CO-FOUNDERS – DUCKERS STYLE
Botho Stein
GENERAL MANAGER – MAY FAIR HOTEL
Botho Stein
GENERAL MANAGER – MAY FAIR HOTEL
In this video, the first in our series introducing ‘The 5 Star Mindset’, we welcome Botho Stein, the General Manager of the May Fair Hotel, as he shares his thoughts and insights on what the ‘The 5 Star Mindset’ means to him personally and to his staff.
Since 1927, The May Fair has welcomed guests to stay in one of London’s most iconic neighbourhoods and experience the delightful tradition of Mayfair hospitality. A 5-star deluxe hotel, it boasts over 400-bedrooms, multiple bars and restaurants as well as a gym and spa. It’s secret to success lies in its consistent delivery of a hyper-personalised customer experience made possible by its staffs’ dedication to attention to detail.
What is The 5 Star Mindset?
- It’s a way of thinking, not about awards or accolades.
- Never settling for good but always striving for excellence.
- Understanding how interactions make people feel.
Identifying The 5 Star Mindset in potential employees.
- Hire for attitude and not skill.
- Genuine passion for people trumps pre-existing skills.
- 5 star mindsets often exist in non-5 star environments.
- Affinity for KYC visible and used in customer interactions.
How to implement The 5 Star Mindset.
- Approach customers with genuine empathy.
- Recognise repeat custom and the power of personalisation.
- Take feedback seriously and translate into practical action.
- Own responses to queries or complaints. Don’t ‘pass the buck’.
In this video, the second in our series on ‘The 5 Star Mindset’, we chat to Andreas Christodoulou, founder of Kensington Parker. With offices in the heart of Mayfair, London, his private jewellery company specialises in the design and manufacture of bespoke jewellery with a focus on providing clients with unparalleled service and customer experience.
Founded in 2013, Kensington Parker is a referral-based business, attributing its growth to the brand’s positive reputation in the market. Andreas offers practical insights into tailored individual customer experiences that have proven invaluable to attracting clients who resonate with the Kensington Parker brand ethos.
Andreas Christodoulou
FOUNDER – KENSINGTON PARKER
Andreas Christodoulou
FOUNDER – KENSINGTON PARKER
What are the hallmarks of a bespoke client experience?
- Customer journey based on creating something for a client vs selling something to a client.
- A focus on personalisation and individual client needs vs applying a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
- Listening to understand who the client is and what they’re trying to achieve.
- Empowering clients to make educated purchasing decisions vs decisions driven solely by price.
- Never settling for good but always striving for excellence.
How is The 5 Star Mindset implemented at Kensington Parker?
- Being willing to assist clients with their jewellery needs, no matter how big, small, or different they may be.
- Engaging clients’ multiple times to ensure that they are totally happy with their decision before making a sale.
- Implementing strict product quality control and selection criteria based on client needs before presenting options.
- Educating clients about the value of the expertise that the team at Kensington Parker brings to the purchasing process.
- Targeting specific client personas to ensure brand fit and that their expectations are aligned, to ensure an excellent client experience.
- Building long-term relationships with clients by understanding their individual needs and helping them understand the choices available to them.
Ariodante was created in 2014 to challenge the travel industry and raise the bar when it comes to luxury, exclusivity and creativity.
In this next instalment of our #CSq mindset adventure, Ariodante founder and travel alchemist, Ricardo Araujo, lifts the curtain on the world of bespoke travel and how he and his team dream and create unique, one-off experiences and adventures for the most discerning clients.
With a passion for the arts, he began helping clients access the world’s cultural jewels and from there Ariodante has become the go-to provider of individually and carefully crafted travel experiences.
In his own words, “we believe in creation, not curation, which means that every Ariodante adventure is completely unique, we leave packages and itineraries to travel agents.”
Ricardo Araujo
FOUNDER – ARIODANTE TRAVEL
Ricardo Araujo
FOUNDER – ARIODANTE TRAVEL
The alchemy of the perfect client experience.
- Ensure that you understand a client’s passions, interests and lifestyle to spark a ‘great idea’ together.
- Develop a bespoke plan and timeline, tailored to fulfilling each client’s individual ‘great idea’.
- Don’t replicate, create. The fulfillment of an individual client’s ‘great idea’ requires innovative thinking and a wild imagination.
- ‘The devil is in the detail’.
How can you ensure enjoyable client experiences?
- Never be satisfied with just meeting a client’s expectations, always strive to exceed them.
- Plan to the minutest of details but remain flexible to pivot in response to your client’s needs and desires.
- Remember the small, client-specific things that delight them.
Recruit for shared ethos and values to ensure exceptional customer experience.
- Team members must leverage their intimate customer knowledge to enable them to think like a client.
- Maintain a trusted network of specialists who can be called on to deliver expertise relevant to each individual client and enrich the unique offering your team provides.
- Ensure that your team is scalable and agile to ensure responsiveness to your client’s needs.
- Team members should resonate with your brand’s personality and authentically reflect it in their daily client interactions.
- Team members’ creativity trumps doing things the way they’ve always been done, but the goal is to always do everything ‘right the first time’.
Product vs Service
- Magical, world-class customer experience can only be realised through the perfect combination of superior products and impeccable service.
“At Charles Square, we know that our clients’ trust is paramount. They need a partner that is not there to just spend their money, but rather one who treats their resources and vision as their own.”
– Charles Square Co-founder –
Defuse® works with prominent, powerful and wealthy clients who seek to feel safe in their public lives. This includes dealing with threatening and worrying communication and behaviour directed at their clients. Its globally recognised, expert team, with experience in threat management and psychological profiling amongst others, delivers bespoke solutions to Private Family Offices, UHNW and high-profile individuals globally.
In this, the 5th installment of our exciting #CSq mindset video series, the CEO and founder of Defuse®, Philip Grindell, explains how he and his team combine each individual’s key skills to effectively mitigate the risks of threat, abuse and intimidation towards their clients.
Philip, a thought leader in the personal protection and threat mitigation field, also hosts a popular podcast, The Online Bodyguard on which he profiles industry specialists who bring together their expertise in the combination of intelligence and psychology to mitigate threats and risks to prominent people and brands.
Blend psychology with client intelligence.
- Client intelligence is, effectively, data. Psychology helps us to make sense of data. Data that is filtered through human experience becomes intelligence and can be used to guide client-related solution decisions.
- Remember that clients are not all the same. Data, although similar for some individuals, should be filtered through each client’s personal experience to create personal context and nurture tailored solutions.
- Interrogate the impact that external forces may have on your client. Each client is affected by and reacts differently to a combination of external forces. You need to understand what these forces are and how your solution will reduce the negative impact of these on your client while amplifying the positive impact.
Keys to managing complexity.
- Understand what the outcome is and clearly articulate the strategy you will implement to achieve it.
- Determine the tactics that you will implement to achieve the strategic outcome. The tactics you use will be guided by your level of risk appetite.
- Be flexible. As more information becomes available you may need to modify or change some decisions to ensure that you stay on track and achieve the desired outcome.
- Reputational impact should be considered when making decisions. The impact of what you do will positively or negatively impact the reputations of all stakeholders.
- Be patient. In most cases, outcomes aren’t achieved overnight. Understanding the ‘bigger picture’ will help you to manage expectations.
- Trust is non-negotiable.
Integrity, the most important value.
- It is about doing the right thing at the right time.
- It is about putting your client’s needs above profit. Offering customers only what they need and not recommending things they don’t need.
- It is about actively building trust and offering confidentiality.
- It is about maintaining a trusted network of specialists who can be called on to deliver expertise relevant to each individual client and enrich the unique offering your team provides.
- It is about providing an excellent level of service always. The level of expertise and service provided should be unparalleled.
Andrew Bernardi
FOUNDER
THE BERNARDI MUSIC GROUP
Andrew Bernardi
FOUNDER – THE BERNARDI MUSIC GROUP
As we continue our video series we welcome Andrew Bernardi, founder of Bernardi Music Group based in London, UK.
Central to his message is the group’s focus on performing music to the highest possible standards and, specifically, the group’s world-renowned Stradivarius violin that he identifies as one key to unlocking performance excellence.
The Bernardi Music Group, created in 1989, focuses on inspiring young and old alike to share and benefit from the joy that music and musical performance brings. The group also comprises a committed set of professional musicians from several of the UK’s leading ensembles and orchestras who perform together at a variety of educational and corporate settings and festivals across the UK and internationally.
Values that drive the performance excellence.
- Strive to deliver at the highest level always.
- Inspire creativity through stakeholder wellbeing.
- Embrace diversity by being inclusive and welcoming ideas from people of all backgrounds.
4 Steps to achieving performance excellence.
- Collaborate with partners that inspire and empower you to consistently outperform yourself.
- Ensure that your team shares your team, or company, values and can engage openly and honestly.
- Understand that ‘the devil is in the detail’. Achieving performance excellence requires attention to detail.
- Don’t underestimate the power of your ‘instrument’. The quality of your tools has a direct impact on your performance.
The Stradivarius, unparalleled in performance excellence.
- Extremely responsive to the lightest touch, it delivers consistent and precise sound every time.
- With longer ‘f’ holes on its front, it can amplify the quality sound it produces.
- From the choice of wood to the varnish used to create the beautiful finish, the materials and recipes used to achieve quality sound can’t be comprised.
- A product of countless experiments with many shapes, materials and processes which resulted in a refined building technique over time.
- Played by only the very best musicians in the world.
The #CSqMindset video series has been insightful so far. We continue to be fascinated by the extraordinary yet practical customer-focused insights shared. As we continue our journey, we chat with Olivia Rigg, founder and CEO of Hamilton Rigg, as she shares her views on how mutual respect forms the basis of perfect client relationships, service and experience.
Hamilton Rigg is a London-based, luxury, matchmaking boutique providing bespoke searches for clients seeking to find their match. Combining many years of unique, world-leading experience and with access to an unparalleled global community, they manage introductions and relationship development of some of the UK’s most prominent individuals. Something that Olivia is quick to point out is the importance of discretion and honesty in her approach to helping distinguished, dynamic, international clients enrich their personal lives by creating opportunities for people doing great things to find their great love.
Olivia Rigg
FOUNDER & CEO HAMILTON RIGG
Olivia Rigg
FOUNDER & CEO – HAMILTON RIGG
How did you get into this line of business?
- Starting in fashion, styling and owning a high-end fancy dress shop, Olivia’s career path has been varied but always people centered.
- A decade ago, she was approached by ‘the mother ship’ of luxury matchmaking and asked to support efforts to grow their client base internationally.
- Traveling internationally for several years she met extraordinary people and gained an understanding of the nuances of different cultures.
- Subsequently she ran a horticulture focused social enterprise that supported disadvantaged young people and underrepresented communities in London.
- Exposed to a variety of different people, her work was all about people and ‘matchmaking’ differently, matching needs to solutions.
- While at the charity, she was asked by a friend to help him find a partner and, after a successful match, word spread and more people started seeking out her services.
- She then decided to set up Hamilton Rigg at the end of 2019.
Delivering the perfect client experience.
- It is a process, not instant. It’s about ensuring that a client understands the process and how their objectives will be met at the end of it.
- Compatibility and a trust relationship are key. Perfect client experience is a process that requires honest communication so that expectations can be understood and met.
- Once trust has been developed it is important to spend time getting to know your client and what they believe and value.
Values that ensure perfect client experience.
- Discretion creates the environment for honest communication and trust.
- Quality and quantity approach.
- Respect goes both ways. A client needs to respect your offering and ability to provide a perfect experience and you need to tailor your offering to match your client’s needs.
Jordan Rouse & Jason Bevan
FOUNDER & CEO CO-FOUNDERS – DUCKERS STYLE
Jordan Rouse & Jason Bevan
CO-FOUNDERS – DUCKERS STYLE
Business partners, Jordan Rouse and Jason Bevan, cofounded luxury wardrobe solution startup, Duckers Style, just over 12 months ago. Their combined years of industry experience and personal relationships with English and Italian mills, including Loro Piana, Drago and Delfino, position them to create the best collections for customers.
With specialist, technical knowledge of fabrics and product designs, they ensure that Ducker Styles’ garment ranges are stylish and luxurious, produced with minimal wastage and with a continued focus on sustainability throughout the design process.
In this #CSq Mindset series video, Jordan and Jason share their refined approach to providing customers with premium service and garments for any occasion, from show stopping suiting silhouettes to comfortable yet contemporary casual-wear.
Tailoring solutions for clients.
- Focusing on a customer’s lifestyle and solution needs enables us to tailor solutions ranging from advice on current pieces in customer wardrobes that they would like to complement to making new garments in-house.
- Knowledge of different solution options and products means that our customers are guaranteed fit-for-purpose garment solutions.
- Garments and wardrobe solutions are bespoke and designed to fit each of our customers’ individual builds and lifestyles.
- Spending time getting to know our customers, wherever is most comfortable for them, helps us to advise on the best options from fabrics to buttons and buttonholes.
Understanding that every client is different.
- Every solution designed is bespoke, reflecting a customer’s individuality. Even if it is made from a fabric previously used, by the time details including the pocket and stitch detailing and colour of the name embroidery are chosen, our customer will receive a unique garment.
- Create opportunities for customers to express their individuality. We like to invite our clients to events where they can show off the bespoke garments that we’ve designed for them.
- We try to understand what our clients are trying to achieve, from once-off garments to wardrobes for a business trip, we use our understanding of fabrics etc. to provide appropriate solutions for them.
Marcus Allen
DIRECTOR OF EMEA
CULT WINES
Marcus Allen
DIRECTOR OF EMEA – CULT WINES
In our next installment of the #CSqMindset video series, Marcus Allen, Cult Wines – Director of EMEA, ‘pulls the cork’ on how his company provides private investors, home offices and private banks a bespoke approach to investing in wine as an asset class.
Cult wines was founded in 2007 and, since then, has relentlessly focused on revolutionising the way in which investment in fine wine works. Their customer-centric approach makes the investment process simple, enjoyable and stress free. The company currently has 1.25 million bottles of wine, valued at almost £300 million, under their care and offers bespoke investment services in 80+ countries globally.
Their digital trading platform, CultX, allows individuals to buy, sell and collect investment-grade fine wine online, with over £200m of the world’s most prestigious wines available to bid on. The mobile and web-based trading app provides users with all the tools they need to build, track and manage a fine wine portfolio with real-time data and live markets at their fingertips, instantly and easily.
The ‘premium’ behind the wine.
- As a rule of thumb, when buying wine for ‘everyday’ consumption, it is worth paying a bit more per bottle. It costs, on average, £5 to produce and label one bottle of wine before it’s filled. Spending £10 – £20 on a bottle will ensure that the wine you purchase will be of immeasurably better quality.
- When paying between £1,000 – £10,000 for a bottle of wine, the rarer the wine the higher the premium. Collectors and investors are willing to pay large premiums for bottles of wine that are rare and sought after. Interestingly, just because a bottle of wine costs £10,000 it does not mean that the wine it contains is necessarily better than that contained in a £100 bottle.
Choosing the perfect pairing beyond price.
- Don’t look solely at the price. When picking wine on a night out, people will often focus on finding a wine on the menu closest to their maximum price point. Just because it’s more expensive doesn’t mean that it will pair well with what you are eating or be as enjoyable to drink as a more affordable bottle.
Compiling a portfolio for a client.
- To build a bespoke portfolio an investor’s individual risk profile, target returns, investment time scale and levels of investment must be considered.
- Each portfolio is unique to each investor. The physical wine making up each bespoke portfolio is stored in bulk on behalf of the investor.
The importance of culture, value and ethos.
- Ensure that culture statements and values are defined and clearly communicated as key to any team environment.
- Encourage team members to be ‘hungry and humble’. It’s about being aggressive in the hunt for clients while caring for and serving those that you have, at the same time.
- Teamwork is a key. It’s about each individual and team doing their part to collaboratively build a world-class, customer experience ‘machine’.
Taking time to understand the needs of your client.
- Knowing your client well, gives you the edge when providing a bespoke service. Customer tastes, passions and hobbies are key elements that will enhance your client advisory efforts.
- Give customers access to various ways of interacting with you. Some clients seek in-person advice and interaction while other prefer to communicate and transact with you online.