Any visitor to CPS’ website knows that we’re fascinated by ways of rethinking business models and processes, and reinventing them to build deep prosperity in a changing world.
Today I’m noticing how often this requires holistic thinking, and a clear focus on the customer’s world.
Example: A customer buys a lawn service, a pesticide service, occasional pressure washing, a pool service, some external repairs, gutters cleaned, etc. S/he gets occasional internal home maintenance, needs home appliance repairs or maintenance and sometimes forgets to replace the aircon filters, causing the whole air con thing to freeze up.
The customer is busy. Arranging these services, paying the bills, checking that the providers do their jobs and get access to the property etc is a hassle.None of the actual work is that hard, but the thinking and managing and scheduling and remembering is a pain in the neck, in a world of information overload and endless complexity.
Enter Mr/s Entrepreneurial Thinker. The ultimate value, for the customer, is freedom from the frustrations of the drip-drip-drip of endless little tasks, and nickel-and-dime bills. Some kind of general property preservation contract sounds wonderful. What if someone else did this, and did it properly? Didn’t cut corners (enough fertilizer on the grass!), didn’t screw up (the gutters are always cleaned on time, properly), and didn’t overcharge….
What if there were regular, coherent reports about what was done? Ahah! Peace of mind, paper or electronic, and one could present the reports to a buyer (or critical parent!) like a car’s service record to prove excellent maintenance of the property.
Of course it takes thinking…
Some people are doing it already. And plenty of people are buying.
