NEW YORK CITY, NY (SATIRE) – In a bid to stay ahead of stiff competition from other banks, American Express Centurion Lounges is making working from lounges more like working from home.
In a bid to stay ahead of Capital One, Chase, and other banks who have each added premium airport lounges to their portfolio of benefits, American Express is making working for a lounge more like working from home.
“We’ve offered conference rooms in the past that go un-utilized, and phone rooms are insufficient. We wanted to create a place where customers feel comfortable, where they can work like they are in their own home.” Vice President of Lounge Development, Jack Koerner said on Thursday. “When our customers feel at home, they relax, and what’s better than creating an environment where people can be themselves?”
“We’ve offered conference rooms in the past that go un-utilized, and phone rooms are insufficient. We wanted to create a place where customers feel comfortable, where they can work like they are in their own home.”
VP of Lounge Development Jack Koerner
Many Centurion Lounges, like the Houston Intercontinental location, adapted space they already have. A disused conference room at the back of the lounge was converted into glass-separated cubicles with the wall to the kitchen torn down.
“Our survey found that a lot of our customers work from the kitchen table when remote working so we wanted to match that experience,” Koerner added. “Our customers thrive in distracting places so we have matched that.”
Features like doors opening and closing, fluctuations in light, and kitchen noises add to the experience. American Express even partnered with Amazon to make deliveries to the “WFH” rooms possible but only while clients are occupying the space.
The lounge is also partnering with a local preschool to make sure that screaming children are a regular part of any conference calls that business travelers may be on in the lounge.
When one recent participant was asked how closely the experience matched, Ramón Martinez stated, “It’s exactly like working from home, they nailed the experience even down to the ringing doorbell. At one point a staff member needlessly bounced a basketball behind me on a video conference.”
Koerner said that getting every detail down was important. “We can’t replace the entire experience but have considered adding other features like a barking dog or lower bandwidth speed to recreate the glitching video.”
The lounge is also partnering with a local preschool to make sure that screaming children are a regular part of any conference calls that business travelers may be on in the lounge.
With overcrowding already a problem, why did American Express feel it needed to add a feature and reduce usable floor space? “American Express has been on the cutting edge of products for our customers. We were there first with Centurion Lounges and want to be first to offer a true ‘WFH’ experience on the road.”
While American Express acknowledges that this will further reduce already limited lounge space, they believe their efforts to reduce lounge eligible customers by limiting guests starting next year will help them overcome crowding concerns.
