A few years back several friends, all employed by Qualcomm, were discussing how the last thing they wanted to do after a long work week was to tackle the to-do list of odd jobs despised by many a homeowner.
They began spitballing and within a short time the framework for what would become HouseCall was formed.
HouseCall is an app enabling business owners to run their scheduling, invoicing, payment processing and even dispatching through their phones. By simplifying many of the activities keeping service professionals and small business owners off the road, HouseCall aims to help their clients increase billable hours and decrease downtime, says HouseCall’s Director of Marketing Ruben Mier.
“We minimize downtime and increase efficiency five-fold because we eliminate paperwork clutter.”
HouseCall’s initial target market was real estate professionals looking to offer a value added service to clients moving into a new area. Having to develop a list of trusted and competitively-priced service professionals from scratch, everything from carpet cleaners and electricians to plumbers and painters, is a daunting task which HouseCall looked to address through technology.
The thinking was to provide an efficient process to crowdsource such a list of service professionals through people who already knew much of the information on their own. Gather that information in one place and it would provide significant value to the new people in town.
Mr. Mier and his colleagues knew the value extended to service professionals, so marketing solely to real estate professionals no longer made sense. Show the carpet cleaners, electricians, plumbers and painters the value of coordinating their client base through HouseCall and you not only provide them a valuable tool, but you also have a de facto sales force ready to promote HouseCall to their existing client bases, Mr. Mier said.
“We needed to grow the supply side first, to get the service professionals first,” Mr.Mier explained. “When get them to import their clients into the system, there will be more users to download the app users get them to download the app and book other categories of service providers.”
“It is sort of a viral coefficient,” Mr. Mier said. “You get one pro to upload 10,000 clients and then you get those clients to book services in other categories. It’s a lot better than going directly after the consumer.”
Get enough professionals and consumers should logically follow, Mr. Mier said.
“It is imperative to ramp up our customer acquisitions. We are going after the pros and letting them get the consumers for us.”
When the plumber completes a job for a client, that client receives three text messages prompting them to download HouseCall. When they do, they get access to professionals from other service categories.
The level of detail available on HouseCall increases its value by providing real-time data on service professional availability which comes in handy for emergency jobs such as a dead furnace or damage inflicted during a wild party when the parents are due home soon.
Users can compare hourly service fees, read customer reviews of each professional and even check to see which ones are available in their geographical area on short notice, Mr. Mier said. “Professionals can set their time slots and block off down time such as travel between appointments so they can be booked more efficiently.”
HouseCall will soon allow business users to customize electronic communications with their clientele, so they remain point-of-mind in between service calls, Mr. Mier said.
“We eventually want to roll out customer re-marketing in the form of postcards and e-mails that will go during desired touchpoints such as four days after service or two to three months after they’ve had their carpets cleaned. The professional will be able to customize those actions and when they’re sent.”
HouseCall-generated invoices can be customized with a company logo just like traditional paper invoices, he added.
The change in focus has served HouseCall well. They have only been national for two months and are preparing to pursue Series A funding this April.
“We’ve been well-received,” Mr. Mier said. “We have plenty more users and plenty more pros. We’re in virtually every state and seeing these pockets of activity happening with users and professionals in these clusters.”
HouseCall sees their strongest adoption areas mimicking America’s population distribution, with top download rates happening in the four corners on both coasts.
“Eventually it’s going to be nationwide where there’s enough consumers and professionals from every geographical area to handle a marketplace across the country,” Mr. Mier predicted.