Will $23m in funding help Housejoy resolve its home services mess?

A few weeks ago, my best friend decided to fly into Bangalore. She was coming to visit after years and I wanted to roll out the red carpet. My house was crying out for some deep cleaning and so I happily placed an order on Housejoy, which had recently roped in Flipkart product head Saran Chatterjee as CEO.

The cleaners were scheduled to come home next morning, hours before my friend. Well, they didn’t. I got into a tizzy calling up Housejoy, demanding, pleading, and begging them to come as I had no backup plan. Finally, three cleaners landed and one got to work with me scrubbing the kitchen floor. I was much better trained than him at housecleaning. I also had better equipment – brooms, mops, wipes, dusters, and a solid Bosch vacuum cleaner. Soon my friend arrived. I gave her a duster instead of a hug. And a few hours of work later, there was no dust left and no joy either.

Horns of a dilemma

The Housejoy man trying to work the vacuum cleaner in my home.

This is the crux of the problem Housejoy will need to tackle if it wants to make a success out of its series B funding of INR 1.5 billion (US$23 million) announced today. Amazon led the round which had a consortium of new investors, including Vertex Ventures, Qualcomm, and Ru-Net Technology Partners. Existing investor Matrix Partners India also participated.

“Our new investment partners open up new possibilities for market expansion, new partnerships, and best practices in running a sustainable business. We look forward to the next stage of growth,” says Sunil Goel, co-founder of Housejoy.

The key issue for Housejoy and others jumping on to the online home services bandwagon in India is to manage their rapid growth without compromising on customer experience. Tech in Asia reported yesterday on the exasperation of online shoppers who are complaining about delayed deliveries, poor communication, and bad experiences with service providers like the one I had.

See: Bad business: how India’s startups are chasing growth but messing up customer service

Breakneck pace of growth

Housejoy has grown at breakneck pace since its launch in January this year, partnering with more than 10,000 service providers across 11 cities. That’s exciting for investors, but how does one ensure a consistent quality of service from so many partners in such a large, diverse land?

Housejoy CEO Saran Chatterjee admitted to Tech in Asia in an interview for yesterday’s article on poor customer experience that it’s a Catch-22 situation: “The [services] market is highly unorganized. Their training is not standardized. While we have an onboarding process, we do see some problems.”

The problem is compounded in a business that involves home visits by strangers, because there’s a looming security issue if the onboarding is not foolproof. Ask Uber about the humongous problems that arose in the on-demand cabs space in India after a convicted rapist became a driver. Housejoy is aware of the danger because it tied up with Bangalore-based background verification company BetterPlace just a couple of weeks ago. But it makes me shudder to think whether the unknown cleaners who visited my home earlier had passed any credible background checks.

Lessons from food delivery going sour