I just recently expressed this pain for the first time, so excited to see your service. Some pain points:
1) Scheduling required filling in the same qualification form multiple times, and texting/calling with a rather disorganized office. The better reputed the service company, the bigger mess their schedule is. You're solving this.
2) I didn't have a quote until the people came out to visit. You're solving this.
3) Once the service pros gave quotes, I had to share them with my landlord, have them approve the work, have the service pro complete it, confirm that the issue was fixed, and have the landlord complete payment. Coordinating parties was a major PITA, I hope you solve this in the future.
4) When the service pro diagnosed the issue and gave me a quote, I didn't know whether the diagnosis was truthful, and the quote was reasonable. After the fix, the symptom went away for a bit, and then came back, and the service person tried other fixes. This back and forth was a major pain. I don't know how you'll fix this, maybe a warranty on your service, or an annual insurance plan/maintenance subscription instead? Similar to Forward's model for healthcare - don't make money when you have to fix problems, make money when I don't have problems.
5) Thumbtack had a fixed price service, but it was too large a premium over the more ad hoc services. I hope you keep prices reasonable when you start swallowing more unexpectedly large scoped problems.
Hey, Vineet here, one of the HomeBreeze cofounders. Really appreciate you sharing this. We've seen a lot of #1, #2, and #4. We haven't seen too much with landlords yet and would love to learn more...What kind of unit do you rent (single family, large managed apartment, from a big company or single owner, etc.) And what repair issue did you have?
I'd be down to trade emails to chat live too, if you're open to it - myhomebreeze at gmail
1) Scheduling required filling in the same qualification form multiple times, and texting/calling with a rather disorganized office. The better reputed the service company, the bigger mess their schedule is. You're solving this.
2) I didn't have a quote until the people came out to visit. You're solving this.
3) Once the service pros gave quotes, I had to share them with my landlord, have them approve the work, have the service pro complete it, confirm that the issue was fixed, and have the landlord complete payment. Coordinating parties was a major PITA, I hope you solve this in the future.
4) When the service pro diagnosed the issue and gave me a quote, I didn't know whether the diagnosis was truthful, and the quote was reasonable. After the fix, the symptom went away for a bit, and then came back, and the service person tried other fixes. This back and forth was a major pain. I don't know how you'll fix this, maybe a warranty on your service, or an annual insurance plan/maintenance subscription instead? Similar to Forward's model for healthcare - don't make money when you have to fix problems, make money when I don't have problems.
5) Thumbtack had a fixed price service, but it was too large a premium over the more ad hoc services. I hope you keep prices reasonable when you start swallowing more unexpectedly large scoped problems.