Another one of our original “uses cases” when we started building the Hefe platform.
The Story.
The biggest problems facing a small local cleaning service was finding folks that were available to work. This was despite the fact that most of their clients was on a fixed schedule with payroll employees. Much of Maria’s staff was fellow housewives that started out needing to earn extra income. With that comes the unique employee challenges of kids, family and homes. Her employees usually called the night before a workday with problems that left her scrambling on the phone looking for folks to work the next day. Most of her clients required at least two people to clean within the allotted time. Which made it impossible to service the client with a single person, forcing her to reschedule constantly.
The chaos and disruptions for this small cleaning company was reaching all time highs and she was losing her customers faster than replacing them.
The Big Spark.
It wasn’t that she did know enough people to help fill in for others, it was the time it took to call everyone she knew to find out who was available. She had to balance finding someone versus the dreaded call to reschedule. After the third reschedule, it was certain that the customer would find someone else.
We figured if we could get her entire phone book into a single platform, she could just create a gig, then notify all of them at once, seeing who raise their hands first to take it on. Usually within minutes she had 1-2 people that said yes they could work. Shen knew within 20 minutes if she truly had to reschedule with the client. Typically telling the client the flat-out truth. Someone called in for a school event and none of her 46 regular people are available. This sounded so much better than I called a few folks.
Hefe as a client platform
We started to seek out other home owners directly or indirectly for cleaning. We bundled it with the whole home service approach. This has brought in additional revenue for Maria’s business, creating a new channel for her to bid on work. When compared to other platforms, the leads cost nothing for her out of pocket and the cost structure in general is much more attractive for her.
Selling Best Practices
We have only touched the tip of the iceberg with the cleaning space.
Staffing Shortages. Temporary workers is a big problem in the cleaning industry that you can easily solve with the platform.
Leveraging Strengths. Maria’s temp workers are always looking for more work in the gig economy format. While we helped out Maria, we also enabled those folks to take on other work from others.
Bundling. When talking to home owners and businesses, cleaning is only one dimension of a host of needs. You may want to consider selling Handymen services, hauling and others as well. Making Hefe the one stop shop for all their needs.
Stronger Networks. As an Agent, you can enroll folks like Maria to become an agent on a second Hefe account. Maria is very familiar with her client’s needs and her clients are always asking for referrals on getting something fixed. Typically leaking faucets, broken grout and other small problems she cleans. Position Hefe referrals as a way for her to earn additional revenue.