Our story
The
journey
The Company got formed in August 2013. The
idea originated out of a personal experience of not finding a serviced
apartment on the net and when we did, it was not what was advertised on the
net. This gave rise to a thought that a similar problem existed for others too.
Since none of four were from travel/
leisure/ hospitality, we engaged a research/ survey company to do an extensive
research on the nature of Serviced apartments, their numbers, their clientele,
their problems, occupancy, the quality of service etc. This was phase one of
the company which lasted almost 7 months.
Our second phase was the development of the
website which tried to solve the problem from both the SA and the user
perspective. This also resulted in the creation of the rating system (more of
which later).
The third phase was of registering SA. We
now had a website and a plan to start marketing them as well as give them a
rating.
Once we had 300 SA in about December 2014,
we started approaching business houses with the SA stay as a solution. This
phase began in December and is now continuing. Our first commercial sale was on
4 January.
Rating
system
Rating was a huge success as even the
largest and top most end SA like Frasers were happy to be rated. Rating is
driven by an algorithm which takes into account the following
First criterion is the existence of
amenities out a list of 54 such . These amenities are weighted and the
weightage changes with the geographical location/ relevance of the amenity. For
example while a heater in Delhi might have a weightage, in Chennai, it will not
have any relevance at all.
The second parameter is the quality of
these amenities. This was not left to be subjective but is based on a drop down
list which gives the type and the type itself has a further weightage. For
example, if an SA has air-conditioning, the FSO is required to list out as to
whether it is window, spilt, cassette, central, etc.
Finally, customer feedback is taken three
times during the engagement with SA. Once after check in, once after the first
night's stay and finally after the check out. The feedback is taken on a
numerical basis on SMS.
The algorithm then spits out a rating. SAs
are audited every 6 months to keep the certification alive and the rating
correct. FSOs also give feedback to SA owners on what they could do to improve
the rating, both in terms of amenities as well as quality of service.
We have filed a global process patent on
the rating methodology.
Supply
side
In India, there are 30000 individual SA
units (clubbed under 10000 brands/ names). We have a distinct way of finding
out this data, though it is not easily available from net scraping or from Just
dial or similar listings. We do not envisage a problem on the supply side.
While we presently have 300+ units , totalling
5000 + rooms, we are adding 10-15 SA per month.
The average room rent per night is around
2000 and our "B" category is the mode.
Demand
side
At present we are predominantly in B2B2C,
through corporates. Our target customer generally travels on "direct"
rather than "Bill to company" . So the customer logs on and does his
booking himself. The tie up with the company is to make the company a
facilitator in the process. The company based selling allows us to do targeted
marketing and this marketing comes with a lot of credibility, since it is
supported by the admin team.
In January we sold 60 room nights, in
February, 125, in March, 200 and we might do a much larger number in April.
However, the time from tie up to first sale is 2 to 3 months, as it takes time
to "sell" the idea and change mindsets. But our experience has been
that once this sets in , it develops traction.
About 10% on an average of our room nights
are B2C.
We have also become a member of a reputed international
business networking group BNI, which has helped us get B2C customers to the
tune of room nights (15%) in March 2015.
We have just started "organic"
B2C marketing using facebook and twitter.
We have also started participating in Admin
related seminars to access direct contacts and build relations with decision
makers –The HR/Admin heads.
We have also launched an innovative
freelancer model, which is currently a
commission based sales generation model. We expect the corporate employees to
start using SM for their own personal needs too and have planned campaigns for
the same
The
work force
We have 8 people on the development side
and 8 on the field. Corporate marketing is presently done by the promoters
themselves. We have 5 freelancers working with us. As we progress we plan to
increase this across the country.
