Thousands of users have signed up for SweepSouth Connect and are using the app to find artisanal and professional services around SA.
Introduced by on-demand cleaning services firm SweepSouth in February, SweepSouth Connect offers users access to a range of services through professionals listed on the app.
Developed as a separate app to the SweepSouth mobile app, the platform helps artisanal and professional services, such as electricians, psychiatrists, handymen, Web designers, yoga instructors and accounting consultants, to find access to work opportunities and generate income.
While SweepSouth caters for home cleaning, having helped over 20 000 women find work in SA, SweepSouth Connect is a marketplace platform native app that links users to vetted professionals and qualified service providers that are geo-fenced across four cities − Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban.
SweepSouth Connect currently has over 400 active service professionals that provide over 20 types of services.
SweepSouth founders Dr Aisha Pandor and Alen Ribic told ITWeb that after witnessing huge demand from new and potential customers, the company has had to add new service categories almost daily.
“Connect is part of SweepSouth’s overall objective to create a home management platform with a wide range of services and products that you can access in a seamless way through the use of smart technology,” says Ribic, who is also CTO of SweepSouth.
“Since we launched, the number of service professionals and service requests has been growing rapidly. We went from listing only four to over 20 services offered, and we’ve had an over 500% increase in customer engagements between May and June.”
Ribic believes SweepSouth Connect will increase access to jobs and earning opportunities for those who provide services and products through the platform, especially during SA’s current national lockdown period.
Innovative use of technology on the platform, such as geo-fencing tools, focuses on making the user experience seamless and convenient, he adds.
Discussing the advantages of using the SweepSouth Connect app, in comparison to running a Google Search, he explains the platform provides access for services of qualified leads, using numerous variables such as location, quality and the service price to provide customers with access to reliable and rated services.
“It’s become very difficult using Google Search to identify the right service professional from the hundreds of listings that will come up via a search – with the top-ranked being so because they bid the highest, not because they have the best quality,” asserts Ribic.
“It is also often really tough for service pros that do a great job but don’t have the marketing budget or digital marketing know-how to ensure they are ranked on the first or second page of a Google search.”
Available on Android and iOS app stores, Connect has an in-app in-house-built chat and bot capability that helps service pros and customers engage about the offered services.
The app is also interfaced with an image recognition feature, allowing users to take a picture of a household area or broken item, and uses artificial intelligence technology to identify which service professional users require to help fix the problem.
“Future exciting updates we’ll be introducing include audio-visual aspects into the app to seamlessly enable engagement between customers and service providers. We will also be integrating the SweepSouth cleaning app and Connect into one single platform,” concludes Ribic.
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