Groom’s go-to wedding planner? Nissan Concierge
Soon after Bobby Mathius popped the question to his now-wife, Hanah, the Tennessee-based couple started planning a 150-person wedding in Hanah's rural Illinois hometown, three states away.
They quickly became overwhelmed by the many wedding to-do's while working full time and planning from afar. That's when something clicked for Mathius, a Nissan North America marketing planner.
"It dawned on me that I could use Nissan Concierge, one of our built-in vehicle technology features, to offload many of our wedding planning tasks," he recalls.
Nissan Concierge is a personal concierge service available on the 2021 Rogue, 2021 TITAN and 11 total Nissan vehicles by 2022. Nissan Concierge is part of NissanConnect Services, Nissan's connected car subscription program. A limited-time trial of NissanConnect Services Premium is included in the purchase of every new, eligible Nissan.
Over the course of the next nine months, Mathius sent hundreds of requests to Nissan Concierge's professionally trained agents who are available 24 hours a day to provide assistance. Mathius tasked the Nissan Concierge team for help identifying vendors that rent professional-grade tents, tables, chairs, linens and tableware among other items for the big day.
"The wedding venue itself was a piece of farmland that my wife's family owned in a small town in Northwestern Illinois," Mathius says. "Many of the vendors in the area didn't have websites to see products, availability, or pricing and it was a challenge to track down someone to talk to by phone."
That's where the Nissan Concierge team stepped in – identifying vendors, contacting them, requesting bids and compiling the information in one tidy package.
"In the end, Nissan Concierge got about 10 bids together for us," Mathius notes. "If I had gone with the first vendor that I called on my own, I ultimately would have paid an additional $6,000 out of pocket."
Later, Mathius asked Nissan Concierge to compile three potential bachelor party itineraries for him and his groomsmen. Self-proclaimed "outdoorsy" types, Mathius and his pals were keen to go river rafting.
"Nissan Concierge came back with itineraries for Miami, Charleston, S.C., and Austin, Texas," Mathius says. "Each had recommendations for lodging, activities matched to our ages and interests, and places to eat with a range of options for me as a vegetarian."
The group ultimately chose Austin and enjoyed many of the recommended activities from their Nissan Concierge-assembled itinerary.
While Mathius sometimes reaches out to Nissan Concierge by email or phone, he commonly pressed the headset icon button on his in-vehicle infotainment system to connect with an agent for hands-free conversations during his commute home from work. Subscribers can also connect to the service with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.
"It was really nice to use the service while sitting in traffic," he says.
Mathius would also text Nissan Concierge with smaller requests such as checking in for their flight and scheduling a wedding day wake-up call.
"The night before the wedding, I was really nervous," Mathius recalls. "I was scared my phone was going to die in the middle of the night and my alarm wasn't going to go off. I texted Nissan Concierge asking the team to schedule a wake-up call for me through the hotel."
His wake-up call was delivered on time. And when he answered the hotel phone at 8 a.m. the next morning, he was greeted with a message of congratulations from Rob, one of the Nissan Concierge agents who had been helping plan his wedding for months.
"That personal touch is typical," he says. "They always go a step above and beyond."
After having such a great experience planning his wedding, Mathius tapped Nissan Concierge to help plan his honeymoon too.
"I definitely fall into the stereotypical millennial category in that I don't like to use the phone a lot," Mathius said. "What's nice with Nissan Concierge is you can talk to someone or send them a text message, so it's as involved as you want it to be."
Mathius and his bride planned to visit New Orleans, Louisiana for their honeymoon. Agents took Mathius' criteria for lodging and compiled vacation rentals that fit their needs.
"Nissan Concierge compiled all the options, whittled the list down to eight and sent it to me," Mathius recalls. "Darned if No.1 on the list didn't have a rooftop pool and was priced substantially lower than my budget because they had more time than I did to find the perfect place."
"The whole process saved me time, money and made the experience that much better. Honestly, you can do almost anything through Nissan Concierge."