Is this a shot at Detroit?
Alright. Let’s cut to the chase.
In a business plan setting…
Who is the main “marketing objective” of Houshold?
- small/medium sized businesses who are seeking a customer management system?
- potential customers who are looking for service (leads) which will be held as the ‘carrot’ for potential 'advertisers?"
Answer of “neither” will require an explanation.
“Shot?”
“Detroit?”
Is THAT a shot at Detroit?!? 
i get where you’re coming from. i’m just wondering if there isn’t a bit of circular logic going on here though.
for instance
- if you start to work with the booking app and get good clients from it, why would you ever bail? you’ve already been promised to be grandfathered in at zero cost for that. that automatically gives you a CPC advantage over those late to the party if HouseCall decides to monetize that end down the road.
- if you don’t get good customers from the housecall app, then it’s almost certainly because the app doesn’t generate leads from your target market. and if that’s the case, are you really losing out to your competition if they are booking work you don’t want to do anyway?
- let’s say you get a new client from the booking app. later, you decide to stop using the booking app completely. if that client goes back to the booking app to book a new window cleaner, who’s fault is it that you lost the client? HouseCall, or yours? I think we would both agree on the obvious correct answer.
not trying to start a war, just playing devil’s advocate. this thread is reminding me of just how tough a nut to crack the window cleaning community can be.
why can’t it be “both”? is it really so impossible to envision a software company that wants to help both consumers and businesses at the same time? i think a synergistic relationship could be forged between the two, if the software was really dedicated to that end.
Yeah, that’s the way I see it. If their CRM can help me manage routes, I’ll use their system regardless of whether or not it can generate me leads.
By piping out their list of contractors, it promotes their contractors to customers who use the app which is a win in my book.
There’s going to be a void that used to be filled with yellow pages and having an app with a list of contractors would be cool. Angies list, yelp, and others might also do this, but Angies list you have to pay for, yelp has shown it’s unreliable when it comes to honest reviews… so IF they can promote this app as having 100% reliable reviews AND it’s free to download and use (for the customer) they could easily grow their market share considerably.
Roland’s interested in making this the best CRM on the market, so I’ll see what they come up with. As it is right now, it is limited for what I want it to do.
I don’t think my suggestions would be hard to implement and I’m certainly not the authority on how the perfect software should work, but I’ve seen franchise software (which sucked for the most part, but had all the makings of a good software if they hired a good developer) and I’ve evaluated a bunch of third-party software and I think there’s room for some more ideas and solutions.
I’d write it myself except
a) I suck at beautiful interfaces, you like squares and 90’s style table type layouts, I’m your man
b) I’ve got a window cleaning empire I’m trying to build
c) I don’t have the 6-12 months to write the sucker
d) I just don’t want to be responsible for upgrades, backups, and feature requests from annoying people like me
That’s impossible for me to imagine. If it’s free for the customer, the contractor is paying the bills. The second they decide to sell advertising, it isn’t synergistic anymore.
PS - I feel just as strongly about windowcleaning.com being a bad investment for many companies, and I was very vocal about it when they came on the market. It seems like you think I’m picking on this guy. I’m not. Just being willing to talk about a danger I see, down this road.
I believe the thing you’re thinking of is called Google.com. The customer finds YOUR WEBSITE. No need for a middleman.
Or you can pay for the privilege of letting yet another middleman get between you and your customer, like Yelp, Home Advisor, Angie’s List and a host of others are already trying to do. They actively try to outrank you in your local market, for your keywords, and given enough time, HouseCall will do that too.
They’ll be using your monthly SAAS fee (which we learned about earlier in this thread) to try to route future customers through their ecosystem.
I can’t imagine how good their CRM would have to be, for me to be willing to help that happen.
there has always been a zone between the consumer and the provider where various middlemen will try to exist. there always will be. you know why? because consumers LOVE them!!! they are traditionally better at connecting consumers with what they want (ie. appropriate vendors) than the vendors are themselves.
here’s another irony: the very example you used to illustrate your point about bypassing the middleman, Google, is perhaps the largest middleman of them all!
they monetize all activity between the consumer and vendor by a)selling adjacent ad space in search results and b)favoring the vendor whose willing to pay them the most to act as middleman (Ad Words).
so it really comes down to this: we can’t eliminate middlemen. so the next best choice is to throw in with the good ones (google? angie’s list? windowcleaning.com? everyone’s read on this is based on their personal experience, and therefore unique), and ignore the bad ones (at this time, the yellow pages seems to fit that bill). simple as that.
i’m sure you aren’t trying to railroad this Housecall thing. but i do think there is a bit of an unfair critical attitude going on with this service. and i do think it’s unfortunate when we are quick to judge or dismiss a product without giving it a fair shake. you talk about a danger that i just don’t see. i guess that’s where our opinions diverge on this particular subject.
I agree with your larger point about middlemen always being there. I gladly use many of the middlemen listed in your post. But not as the provider for my CRM. That is one of my biggest points. Additionally, I would simply like for business owners on this forum to see HouseCall as what I believe it is… Not just a CRM provider.
Not trying to railroad anyone, but I don’t think I’m being unfairly critical. I was exactly as forthright in my comments regarding windowcleaning.com.
HouseCall Pro is whatever you want it to be.
If you want it to be just a CRM, it can be.
If you want it to be a more modern way to run your business, it can be.
If you want to be a combination and also make yourself available to be booked in a more modern way (via app), it can be that too.
It’s as flexible or inflexible as you want it to be, but we’re designing/engineering it to fit with much more than just CRM in mind. We are building the entire workflow so that it makes your business more seamless and efficient to allow you to give the best customer experience and service as possible, thereby growing your business.
If this sounds like something you’re interested in, or have feedback and/or ideas, I’d love to hear them - call my cell: 858-365-0850.
Otherwise, sign up on our website, HouseCall Pro, give it a spin, there is never any contract, simple month-to-month or yearly plans, and an unconditional 30day money back guarantee.
i guess my overarching point, and rebuttal to that is, “so what?” i don’t believe that, in and of itself, is necessarily a bad thing. in the end, you and i could probably go round and round on this thing ad infinitum, so this is probably a good place to let it go. “agree to disagree” as Ron Burgundy would say 
I’m glad you’re willing to give HouseCall the benefit of the doubt that, in spite of the fact that their company started out with a focus on the consumer market, they will always have your, the contractor’s, best interest in mind. That takes a lot of faith, seeing that Angie’s List, Yelp, Google, Home Advisor, Thumbtack and Groupon have proven it highly unlikely.
No answer to this clear and simple question yet.
The whole subscription based model is annoying for any of these services but I understand them as a necessary evil. The cost for stand alone software that does “it all” is extremely expensive.
My fear has always been when the one you love goes out of business or is sold or creative differences between the owners and things go sideways.
For me they need to help me as a priority if they do that I will be allowed to make my customers and potential ones my priority.
Sent from my iPhone using Window Cleaning Resource
have any of the above mentioned companies launched a contractor-focused crm congruently with their consumer-side product? nope. so the comparison is moot.
there are lots of companies that service more than one market and do it well. why is it so difficult for you to accept that a software provider could change their focus, or broaden their focus over time? you seem really hung up on that booking app being some sort of trojan horse.
and to assume that, because it hasn’t been done yet, i can’t be done at all, seems terribly narrow-minded. in fact, there appears to be a small but thriving ecosystem in the launch market that is very happy with the system.
We hear that a lot, and some companies choose to offer that model, for sure. It would be like one of your customers asking you to charge them, just once, for all of the rest of their window cleaning, as long as they have their house or business. That would be a PRETTY BIG invoice, and rightfully so. On the much more affordable side, they could pay you the same amount (MUCH smaller invoice) every month. You’d be happy to have the consistent cashflow, and they would be happy with the affordable price.
It’s a necessary evil, but also sort of a win/win.
No, they haven’t, which makes their intentions clear. They want customers to match with paying contractors.
And they will let you (contractor) know who they are, if you do this and that.
-flat out.
Houscall is almost a conflict of interest.
Main Objective: Increase our customer database.
Side gig: “Go ahead, Mr Contractor, enter all of your current customers (who AREN’T seeking new bids) to our list.”
Intention- gain more names: new, mine, yours, and any other ones they can get.
A CRM should have no real use for names/numbers, but Household?
They’ve got EVERY reason on Earth to keep those names, don’t they?
Again… what happens to the names in this ‘harmless CRM’ when you decide it’s not for you??
(like you did with Jobber)
I’m just letting you know what I think. No barking, just saying.
If it’s for you, I hope it’s all good.
I’ve been very vocal about this one…
You are literally paying someone with the hope they BEAT you in the rankings.
I mean, wtf?!? 
It would be different if they were ‘impossible to beat’ but that just isn’t the case.
This ain’t 1992 anymore where www.business.com was a million dollar domain name. :rolleyes:
Humm, maybe this is something that [MENTION=38534]rolandal[/MENTION] can clarify for us. It was my understanding that you enter your customers into the CRM and they’re captive to you. I don’t think the other side of house call has access to your customers.
Then from the other side, people who download the app get access to you. So you’re not seeding house call’s customer base, but they are funneling their customers to you.
