Over the last four months ServiceGuy went from and simple idea to a nationwide service with more than 1000 contractors in ten cities. The 1,000th contractor to sign up for the ServiceGuy referral system was Mike Fox from Norristown, PA who offers landscaping services.I arbitrarily set our Phase One goal at 1,000 ServiceGuys. Now that we have met our Phase One goals we are ready for Phase Two. Phase Two is where we start getting business for our ServcieGuys. Imaginuity is developing interactive advertising for placement on Comcast’s ad network that is slated to start just before Christmas. We are also testing physical placement of ‘tear sheets‘ in grocery stores (400 stores per market) delivered on a weekly basis. Finally, we are testing Google Adwords in several markets. Our goal for Phase Two is to generate 2 calls per day per call queue.
Since early August Mike has made 27 major upgrades (some might be better termed bug fixes) to the system. The final items include some goofy things like allowing users to reset/retrieve their password, providing a method for news/announcements to users and finally an upgrade to the user profile pages. Once these last seven to-dos are finished Mike will be turning over day-to-day management/tweaking to Francis. Mike will be starting another pretty cool project that involves ACH, USB signature pads and data warehousing.
Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Washington DC, New York City or Philadelphia? ServiceGuy might be just what you need. (most of these don’t have many providers so if you are not connected to someone try again in a couple of weeks) Give it a try:
ServiceGuy is a new service the Big in Japan team has been rolling out over the past couple of months. What is ServiceGuy? I wrote about it back in May in a post titled, “Quick Project: ServiceGuy Referral Network” when I was having trouble finding a pool guy. The idea is simple: You need help now. You don’t want to wait to receive a call back. You don’t want to wait for an email response. You don’t want to create an account or provide demographic data. You want to talk to a service provider in your area right NOW! Just call the ServiceGuy number for your area and the service you need. Your call is then connected to a service provider. No voicemail. No email. No accounts. Just a direct connect to someone who can help you right NOW!
Phase one of our launch is focused on seeding each service with providers. We need to find a minimum of 25 providers in each category before phase two can begin. Phase two of our launch is focused on getting consumers to call our providers.
The Big in Japan team develops intellectual property to allow brands to create unique interactions with their customers. Our clients include FOX Television, LEGO, TechData, The United States Postal Service and The Federal Reserve to name a few.
Our latest development, ServiceGuy, utilizes patent pending technology to allow for ‘live connections’ between homeowners and service providers. ServiceGuy is a real world example (visit http://serviceguy.org) of the type of interaction that is possible utilizing our technology. Our team is prepared to implement our technology within your brand’s internet presence, allowing for a private label experience for your customers.
Typical referral systems focus on demographic matching, while ServiceGuy allows for ‘availability matching.’ Combined with your existing referral system (or a new system we implement), the underlying ServiceGuy technology will allow you to provide immediate ‘live connections’ between homeowners (users) and contractors (service providers). In many cases an immediate connection is more valuable than a perfect connection. What if you could offer users the ability immediately talk to a service provider 24/7? The ServiceGuy call engine can call 25-250 service providers at the same time, ensuring at least one provider is available to take the user’s call. For example:
Each service provider who accepts the call from the ServiceGuy call engine is prompted to press a key to indicate their availability. The first provider to do so is given answering instructions and is connected to the user. The call is recorded for the service provider’s records.
The system can call the user at a later date (1 day, 1 week or 1 month) and request feedback about the service provider. Feedback can then be used to increase or decrease a providers position in the call queue.
For more information please contact:
Alexander Muse
amuse@biggu.com
1+214.558.1079
Less than a week after we decided to build and launch ServiceGuy, the final logo has arrived. Thank you for your comments, suggestions and ideas. What do you think:
Hopefully ServiceGuy grows on you. It is not certain that ServiceGuy will catch on outside of Dallas, but the team is excited enough to invest a week of their lives to see. The guys are in Portland for RailsConf and should start in earnest next week.
My pool guy stopped showing up a month ago. I tried Craigslist, but it was too hard to reach an actual pool guy. I guess most of them are cleaning pools and not answering their phones. It only makes sense. Yesterday I thought about the system we built for Architel and thought it might help me with my pool guy problem.
Architel’s referral system allows the sales team to transfer non-qualified prospects looking for immediate IT support to independent contractors. We entered the cell phone numbers of more than 25 computer guys into a dedicated phone system and when we find someone who need help now (i.e. help Architel can’t provide) the system calls all 25+ engineers at the same time. The first person to pick up their phone and press one (i.e. indicating their ability to take an immediate support request) is connected to the caller. There is always atleast one guy available to take a call. Neat huh?
Well, Mike built this system for Architel and I thought, “why don’t we apply this same idea to other ’service’ business like pool guys? It seemed simple enough and since we already built it, why not create a referral network for a number of services in each city. The system is NOT a matching engine, but rather a system that allows for immediate connections between people who need service and those who provide it. No emails or voice mail messages ~ just live connections. We call it ‘ServiceGuy’ (guy is gender neutral in my world).
This evening Jeremy laid out a simple design and after RailsConf, the guys plan to populate Dallas. LogoWorks is doing the logo (cross fingers). Thoughts? Ideas?