As the number of smartphone users, as well as mobile services, has ballooned over the years, people find themselves pulling out their phones for much more than just communication. From clicking pictures, taking notes to calling cabs or playing games, the possibilities are virtually limitless. But we aren’t here to preach about the miracles of smartphones or mobile apps for that matter. We are here to talk about a business opportunity emanating from this new user behavior.

Since people now want quick and on-the-go solutions for each of their problems, how do you think they would feel they would have to scroll through yellow pages to find a plumber? Frustrated! In fact, for most of the handyman tasks, people still rely on their general contacts or those 90s style yellow pages. This is the opportunity we are talking about- build an app like Uber for handyman. And to lay down a general initial strategy, here are few of the key factors:

Broad catalog

One of the fundamental issues before every such startup is to decide what services to offer. The problem is if they offer fewer services they can maintain higher quality and customer satisfaction but would have to sacrifice on exponential growth. However, if they offer more services, they have higher growth prospects but risk spreading themselves too thin resulting in a decline in quality and customer satisfaction.

For instance, many of the popular Uber-like handyman apps offer a wide range of services that include:

• Beauty and Wellness
• Electronics Repair
• Cleaning and Pest Control
• Home Projects
• Other professional services

But this is by no means an exhaustive list and you are free to offer other services like dog walkers, babysitters, to name just a few. Ultimately it depends on two key factors:

• Your target location and popular services in that region
• You team strength and resources

Transparent billing

Customers should never feel cheated. That is, after using your services they shouldn’t have the impression that you tricked them or that they were billed unfairly. This not only leads to a drop in customer satisfaction but bad publicity might even be fatal for your venture.

It is worth emphasizing here that our suggestion isn’t to offer cheaper services- people are indeed ready to pay a premium for convenience but what they don’t like is predatory behavior. That is, you can charge as much as you want as long as you are upfront about it.

Customer loyalty programs

While customer retention through loyalty programs is common across all kinds of applications, it is perhaps the most relevant in handyman apps. The reason is that most of the handyman jobs aren’t repetitive in nature. For instance, you can expect any customer to always have plumbing issues or carpentry requirements. Even repetitive tasks like pest control are required only once in a few months. But if you have a large catalog of services, you can reasonably expect any customer to require at one of those services at any given time. That is, if a user orders plumbing services from your app, retaining them would ensure that they would also order carpentry services, yoga trainers, electronics repairs, etc. if and when required.

Schedule and tracking

Since most of the handyman services require customer availability at the given time and location, appointment scheduling is a non-negotiable feature that all such applications must have. Also, because customers hate last-minute cancellations, apps must have a dedicated section for tracking their orders. This works as a reaffirmation that their order is still on track and would be delivered as scheduled.

On a related topic, once you start your operations you notice that each of your order peaks around any given time. That is, customers would generally demand gardening and yoga services in the morning, tuition services in the evening, pest control on weekends, and so forth. To prevent bottlenecks, you can choose to adopt a dynamic price model wherein your rates peak during the busiest hours and offer discounts in during odd hours.

Closing remarks

Overall, as users get more accustomed to the digital ecosystem, mobile app service providers are looking for ways to integrate the convenience of online to orders to the essentiality of brute manpower. After all, no matter how technologically advanced we become, a broken refrigerator won’t fix itself and would always require a human helping hand. That is why building an app like Uber for handyman isn’t just about following the trends but creating the future.