Imagine getting all kinds of repair for your house under Rs.631 per month. Did we hear a ‘Naah’? Well, wait till you read about Tripty Arya’s story. A couple of years ago, when the Mumbai-based girl realised that people with busy work schedules, had to run from pillar to post to get their house repairs done, she decided to fix the issue for real. Travtus Workforce was thus born, and the city got some ‘handymen on call’!
After an MBA from Columbia University, Tripty today is the founder and director of Travtus Workforce which is a home repair service made available to people through an app as well as an online service. The best thing is that it allows you to place unlimited requests in a month under a fixed amount. So, you can basically stop fretting over how much the plumber will charge, or who will change your broken lock!
In an interview with iDiva.com, Tripty Arya tells us what makes Travtus Workforce different from other similar services, the new branch in Singapore and more.
Fixing house repairs is typically a man’s job. How big was the challenge?
A profession may be male-dominated, but it does not mean that a woman cannot do the job. I have previously worked in male-dominated industries like architecture, construction and private equity, and I never felt that I am at a disadvantage because I’m a woman! I feel that any kind of prejudice or biased opinions held against you will be eliminated over time when you have what it takes and are willing to learn.
It must have taken a lot of time and effort to initiate this one-of-a-kind service. What kind of glitches did you face initially?
The biggest challenge was to get this right and not give up. The operational roadblocks are always easy to solve, but it’s the struggle with perceptions that is the real challenge. Until you prove yourself to be successful, most people question your ideas and also pretend to know better. A home repair club with a monthly model doesn’t exist anywhere. It’s not even a copied model from the US so that one can say “it works in America”. The biggest challenge was sticking to a completely new idea which hadn’t been tested before.
What sets Travtus Workforce apart from similar agencies that handle almost the same job?
Being part of a construction company, no other service provider has actually trained workmen with over six years of experience. All our workmen are on company rolls and we do not outsource our jobs. Each and every job is supervised by a company manager and moreover, we are the first company to give a quote-free and flat rate service. By converting your home repairs to a monthly fee, we have gotten rid of most of the grey areas that make similar services unreliable.
Considering everyone has a smartphone, an app was a brilliant idea. Tell us more about it.
In today’s day and age, creating an app was a necessity. My business is to serve people and in order to deliver good service, I had to make the process extremely simple for the client. Keeping their perspective in mind had to be our top priority. This app was a part of the concept since day one. My app makes this service easily accessible to my customers on their fingertips, literally.
The annual maintenance plan sounds a good deal. What’s it all about?
Our annual plan is based on one motive that you don’t need to wait for occasions like Diwali or when you mother is in town, to fix your house repairs. You can be extremely proud of your house if it is taken care of on a regular basis. For just Rs 631 a month, our members are allowed to place unlimited requests for any kind of house repair required, be it electric, plumbing, wooden work, tiling, patch work and window work. We have many other plans other than the annual one which are of a shorter duration such as quarterly or even for one- time jobs. Our customer gets to choose which plan suits them best depending on their needs.
Typically, it works like this –>
1. Look for all those things that need to be fixed in your house, give us a call and register your request.
2. Confirm the schedule for the repairs to be done.
3. Relax on your couch and watch your favourite TV show! We’ll take care of the rest.
So what is the marketing strategy that you follow at Travtus Workforce?
Over the past six months, we have prepared a repertoire of very happy customers. A substantial chunk of our new customers are referrals. And, as we all know, word-of-mouth is a lot more powerful than any marketing activity undertaken. We are able to showcase our successful operations and let’s just say “Unlimited repairs for Rs. 631” is not a hard thing to sell.
You’ve recently started a branch in Singapore. How different is the city from Mumbai?
Singapore is a very different city from Mumbai. If finding skilled labour in Mumbai is difficult, then Singapore is another thing altogether. Before starting with Travtus Workforce, I had to recognise the challenges of a city. In Mumbai, the harder part is marketing and convincing people to do things in a new way. Singapore’s proven to be easier because people out there have been more willing to try out something new.
The actual setting up of the workforce in Singapore required a lot more compliance with regular procedures as well as adapting to the pricing model. Singapore has an expectation that any good service will provide the needed technology. We could never have launched without our Customer Apps in Singapore, whereas in Mumbai, most of the requests are still coming in over a phone call.
You also created a hashtag called #Houseproud. Very innovative we think.
When we were launching our operations in Mumbai, we brainstormed a lot on what we wanted as a tag line. We felt that we needed a statement that made people realise the need for our service. My mother is a very houseproud woman and when I was a child, she had created a game where we would both grade people’s homes from A to D after we saw it. Our customers are people who want an A+ for their homes. The unlimited service from Travtus Workforce is part of the empowerment that helps them create and maintain a home in good repair. We realised that our service was not just an ‘on call’ service, but can help trigger a change towards the very culture of housekeeping. So our message is simple – Be Houseproud! The hashtag on Twitter was just a natural extension of our message.
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