Once perks at luxury hotels and resorts, concierges are now part of a growing number of households.

Time-strapped families are relying on a proliferation of businesses offering "personal concierge services" to perform everyday tasks, including grocery shopping, pet sitting, and runs to the dry cleaners. Some are turning to concierges to manage home-improvement projects; others to seek access to the hottest restaurants and events.

"People have limited time, so if they can find a one-stop shop service, then they are glad to have the resource," says Dru Jensen-Jones, president of the International Concierge & Errand Association, a professional association for the industry that was started in 2001.

The ICEA currently has 467 members world-wide, 369 of which are in the U.S. In May alone, the ICEA welcomed 31 new members. While most concierge services are local, they can provide some services outside their home cities, such as helping plan a trip.

To see if they're worth the price, we tested five personal concierge services in five cities. Though we had never engaged a concierge service before, we ultimately discovered that we would willingly be repeat customers -- if only we could afford the rates of $25 to $50 an hour. We also realized there were some errands a concierge can't do -- like helping us renew our license tags.

Andrea Herbert Lifestyle in New York proved persistent and resourceful in finding us someone to clean our home. When one cleaning person proved unsatisfactory, Ms. Herbert located another -- even offering, unprompted, to pay for that person's first visit. When we asked her to locate a kosher caterer, she called our temple for recommendations. She was equally helpful in locating hotel rooms for incoming guests -- even getting our parents a senior discount. She struck out only when asked to recommend inexpensive thank-you notes for baby gifts.

Our contact at Prominent Concierge in Atlanta was also friendly, but we initially had trouble connecting with him. It required two voicemail exchanges, for example, before we were able to give him details on a trip to Charleston, S.C., that needed planning. With time running out, we eventually went online ourselves and, within 10 minutes, booked a last-minute deal. But when it came to buying gifts for people we would see on vacation, the concierge delivered within four hours the requested picture frames, a Mr. Potato Head, a gift card, and other small presents. He even brought a selection of frames and diapers, returning the ones we didn't want.

After a long day at work in Los Angeles, we were delighted to see the groceries we had requested from Gofer Girls concierge service placed neatly in our refrigerator and cupboards. When we sent Gofer Girls owner Lisa Ristorucci to Home Depot for new front-door locks, she read our minds and had an extra set of keys made. And when we asked Gofer Girls to get our shoes fixed, they introduced us to a new cobbler, who did a better job than our usual guy. We were also relieved to know that the service was on hand to feed and play with our cat while we were in Boston one weekend.

Julia Rivard of Dallas's Upon Your Request did in just five hours what would have taken us a few days. On the first day, less than two hours after she took our to-do list, she called to say she had dropped off a shirt at the dry cleaners, mailed out two packages, had a watch band replaced and bought two children's gifts and a hostess gift. The next day, in less than three hours, she picked up a book at the bookstore, bought two cards and four bottles of wine, returned a pair of pants to Gap Kids, picked up four bags of compost, retrieved the shirt from the dry cleaners, and got a bag of ice and some ice cream for a school pizza party. When asked to buy a baby gift, she took the trouble to find out if the store had a New York location to ensure that the gift we were sending there would be unique. One bonus: She gift-wrapped.

With a wedding, a condo sale, a move, and a business trip all to do in one month, we were eager to turn over small errands to Lauren Levine of Envy Concierge in San Francisco. She was the only one of the three San Francisco concierges we emailed to call us back, and we were pleased by her professionalism. After handling such tasks as picking up stationery at a favorite store, shopping at Costco, and dropping off things to Goodwill, she presented us with a file listing all our receipts and the amount of time it took to do everything. When given the challenge of finding us a good dry cleaner and cobbler in our new neighborhood, she even approached people coming out of local cleaners and shoe-repair places to quiz them on their experience.