Connecting Home Owners with Reliable Contractors

1. Consumer Trust:

Ordinarily, consumers have little trust for contractors who generally have a reputation of being unreliable with timing, pricing, etc. Our approach to bridge the trust gap on the consumer side was multi-faceted. For starters, we introduced a feature to enable back and forth negotiations. This ensured pricing was fair to both players. This was also to mimic the interactions that happen during engagements like this. In addition, we introduced job ratings. Ratings here are meant to hold workers accountable, and to rank users using data from different consumers. For ratings, we initially considered emojis and stars. Decided on using stars because they're a more familiar metaphor for rankings. I am however curious to the actual usage data and see how the use of the ratings feature transforms the way consumers seek for workers. Finally, we allow consumers to log complaints- for when ratings aren’t sufficient.

  Above is a video of the sequence for rating a worker.

2. Worker Trust:

Customer service is biased towards optimising for the customer's experience, sometimes, at the expense of workers. Because workers aren't direct employees, we have to carefully craft the worker experience on the app as well. To do this, we position the ratings as a badge of honour, instead as a score-card. This was meant to evoke positive emotions around the ratings feature. We also designed the job requests so that consumers provide all the information necessary (dates, descriptions, photos, etc.) for workers to make fair estimations and plan better. When there is clarity, workers are able to deliver more reliably. In addition, workers will be trained and assisted by the Ayuda back-office, so that the tool (mobile app) doesn't become an impediment.

  Above is a video of the job details when posted.