Emphasizing Service,
Malls Hire Concierges

Pamela Mehrtens, a San Diego medical technician, wandered into the Mission Valley mall this summer, looking for a job-placement agency. She still can't get over what happened next. "These people come up -- and asked if they could help me," she marvels. "I was just so taken.

Just in time for Christmas, there's help at the mall. A number of landlords are attacking the age-old customer-service issue with new verve, hoping to coax harassed and befuddled shoppers into staying longer and spending more.

Some of their efforts are aimed directly at the all-important holiday crush, when about 26% of non-department-store sales occur each year, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, a New York trade group. But in a larger sense, the steps are survival tactics in malls' struggle for market share, as owners face dwindling opportunities to grow through new development. This year, the industry plans to open only four malls in the U.S., adding only about 0.4% to its existing space, according to Green Street Advisors Inc., a Newport Beach, Calif., real-estate research firm.

Hugs and Gift Advice

The stagnant pace leaves landlords squeezing more dollars out of the malls they already have. They have to overcome some troubling shopping trends: The length of time shoppers spend at malls -- about 78 minutes a visit -- has been flat or declining for years. And a large portion of shoppers, 44%, leave without buying a thing. The shopping-center council says every extra minute a shopper lingers in the mall means about $1 in extra sales.

That would explain the army of smiling people in uniforms offering to carry bags, push strollers and make restaurant reservations that many holiday shoppers will encounter this year. Ms. Mehrtens's brush was with two "shopping concierges" employed by Westfield America Inc., a unit of Australia's Westfield Holdings Ltd. The concierges got on the phone, found an address for the jobs agency (it had moved) and printed out directions on stationery bearing the "Westfield Shoppingtown" logo, with a big red "W."

Concierges have come to the recently redeveloped Fashion Show Mall in Las Vegas. There, Rouse Co., of Columbia, Md., has deployed an army of 17 full-time employees to sell postage stamps, send faxes, buy show tickets, make spa reservations and book rental cars -- or helicopter tours of the Hoover Dam. There are concierges who speak French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German and Cantonese.

Macerich Co., a Santa Monica, Calif., mall owner, is hiring roving "guest-services specialists." One of its stars is Peter Harden, a 61-year-old former music promoter, a man known around the Scottsdale Fashion Square, in Arizona, for hugging customers, kissing babies, offering gift advice, escorting shoppers to stores and breaking up fights among teens. His job, he says, is to "spread love." "There are a lot of people who come in that are overwhelmed," Mr. Harden says. "I look for that look in their eyes -- that 'Oh my God' look."

Westfield's concierges are part of a branding initiative meant to link the Westfield name with customer service. The program calls for spending $20 million this year on capital improvements, including new family bathrooms and lounges for teens, plus $15 million more a year on salary increases for customer-service representatives, hiring, training, advertising and marketing. Having launched the pilot program at eight San Diego-area malls, Westfield plans to bring concierges to other major properties through next spring, including the Garden State Plaza in Paramus, N.J. Among the holiday services they'll offer: a coat and package check.

Not to be outdone, Chicago-based General Growth Properties Inc., the nation's second-largest mall owner with 127 malls, is beefing up its service, adding restroom attendants to monitor cleanliness, and posting off-duty police officers in parking lots to direct traffic. For the holidays it plans to offer "Santa pagers," to beep shoppers when Santa's lap is free.

Making Contact

Westfield's customer-service push began last year when it hired Todd Putman, a former executive at Procter & Gamble Co., Coca-Cola Co. and Walt Disney Co., as executive vice president for marketing and customer service. Mr. Putman says service in the mall business traditionally has been an afterthought, with the old customer-service booth impeding genuine interaction between shoppers and mall employees.

Westfield studied JetBlue Airways Corp., Marriott International Inc.'s Ritz-Carlton hotels and other well-regarded service providers. It hired a customer-service training firm, Master Connection Associates, of Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., to train executives and concierges, as well as employees of its housekeeping and security vendors.

Outfitted in tailored red suit coats and black slacks and skirts, the concierges will carry tote bags filled with balloons, bottles of chilled water, key chains, Advil, diapers and baby wipes, gummy bears, lip gloss and M&Ms. Their mission: Make contact with 100 to 150 shoppers, plus five retailers, on every eight-hour shift. Westfield intends to boost their numbers at each mall to between eight and 10, from two to four, doubling their pay to between $12 and $15 an hour and adding health-care and other retirement benefits.

The question is whether good feelings will create more sales. The company has hired a research firm to measure how long customers shop, both before and after the concierge initiative. It isn't expecting results overnight. "It takes a long time for brands to work," says Peter Lowy, Westfield's chief executive.

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