There are three levels of customer service: first, there’s customer support; then, customer success; and finally, concierge services. For Film and TV productions, ProductionPro includes a concierge service that was modeled after that of a luxury hotel, with a dedicated Concierge assigned to each show. Now, concierges have long been a mainstay of the hotel experience. Their typical duties include helping guests with restaurant reservations, recommending activities or arranging transportation. Concierges at 5-star hotels will go above and beyond to make almost anything happen. So how exactly has ProductionPro translated this experience for film productions? Read on to learn why studios like Netflix, Apple+, Disney and Amazon are taking advantage of this unique service.
What true luxury concierges give their guests is time, so guests are freed up to do something more productive with that saved time. At its core, that is also what ProductionPro concierges do. During prep and production, the pace is usually frantic and the atmosphere one of controlled chaos - any time and brainspace the Concierge saves the crew is pure gold. Crew members can use the time saved to work more efficiently and roll out solutions to their creative challenges.
The main duties of a ProductionPro Concierge can be summed up as follows:
- Onboard crew members individually to bring them up to speed in a matter of minutes;
- Tailor the product to the production’s specificities;
- Ensure the accuracy of the character-scene breakdown in ProductionPro with each script revision;
- Send out daily emails with direct links to references and sides for each shoot day;
- Gather user feedback to help prioritize feature development.
One-to-one on-boarding
When crew members start working on a production, the clock’s already ticking and they usually don’t have the bandwidth to learn a new system on their own, no matter how it might help them down the line. The Concierge on-boards each crew member (or a small group of them from the same department) on a one-to-one video call: they walk the user through the interface and main functionality, highlight use cases tailored to the user’s role and department, and answer all questions. Moments later, the user is up and running, armed with a simple but powerful tool. “The training process was great. It took 30 minutes at most.” observed Kyle Lafleur, Executive Producer’s Assistant, adding: “The first time you see the scroll, your eyes get bigger, there's so much to look at and then you realize how user friendly it is.” And for the busy bees that prefer to learn on their own, there are also custom on-boarding videos available for them. Throughout the life of the production, the Concierge stays in direct contact with crew members, obsessing over how best to help them - Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!
A service tailored to the production
Hotel guests are unique, with unique needs and each requires a custom experience - productions are just the same! A direct result of the user onboarding process is that the Concierge gets to learn how the product could be most helpful to them. In return, they can customize the product for the production and even suggest ways to optimize inter-department collaboration. For example, the Concierge can set up a set list for use by the Art Department, and create custom tags for sequences or approval status. They can even help customize the way scripts are displayed so users can do a quick search through multiple episodes at once. In general, the ProductionPro concierge service is the reason for the wide and sustained adoption of ProductionPro across departments.
An accurate breakdown for all
ProductionPro’s character-scene breakdown is essential to users and crucial to the organization of production information on the platform. Even though the process of generating the breakdown is partly automated, there are often small details that need to be changed, and there’s nothing like a human eye to catch them. The ProductionPro Concierge, who is NDA-ed on the production, makes sure that the breakdown is perfect at each script revision. As a result, users don’t have to break down the basic elements of the script on their own anymore since they can trust that the information in ProductionPro is accurate and ready for use.
Schedule sync and daily prep notifications
The best hotel concierges are able to prepare their guests a custom itinerary for the day, and ProductionPro replicated that as well. In ProductionPro, users can view information in the way that’s most useful to them: they can look up media by scene, character or department, but most users’ favorite is by shoot day. The ProductionPro Concierge performs what’s called a Schedule Sync: shoot days are matched to their respective scenes so that users can use those shoot days to filter and group media. The sync is updated with every one-liner or call sheet. This also allows the Concierge to send daily notifications with direct links to the references and script pages needed in advance of each shoot day. For Ralph Winter, Executive Producer, those notifications helped with getting things done: “The emails are a constant check. It’s a good reminder of ‘Oh yeah I got to do this. Oh yeah let’s take a look at that.’” For crew members in general, this also means less wasted time sifting through emails and links to piece together what they need for their day.
Feedback loop for feature development
5-star hotels’ concierges are listeners and seers, anticipating the needs of their guests and seeking to improve and deliver the best experience possible. Every interaction is itself a piece of feedback. At ProductionPro, the mantra is to only build features that crew members want and ask for. The ProductionPro Concierge is deep in the trenches with users and has a front row seat to the problems they are experiencing. The candid conversations the Concierge has and the feedback they gather is mined by ProductionPro’s product team to find the next gold nugget of a feature. On their next production, users are sure to find a product that has evolved and improved thanks to their feedback.
The ProductionPro concierge service is the first of its kind in the industry, and has become a beloved part of the ProductionPro experience - providing a human touch that’s often missing with other production software. However, if productions want the full ProductionPro concierge experience, they’ll need to sign up early: the offering is reserved to a select number of productions at a time to ensure the highest level of service.
While a ProductionPro Concierge can’t get a last-minute reservation at some fancy-shmancy restaurant like a 5-star hotel concierge probably could, they can absolutely help smooth out some of the creative collaboration challenges often encountered on a production. After all, that’s what ProductionPro is all about: boosting collaboration along with freeing time and brainspace to empower crew members to produce their best work.
Request a ProductionPro Concierge for your upcoming production!