The Marketing mix of an Urban Company analyses the 7Ps of an Urban Company, which includes the Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Physical Evidence, and Process of an Urban Company. Urban Company was founded in 2014 in New Delhi, India. The company is the brainchild of Abhiraj Bhal, Kanpur Varun Khaitan, and Raghav Chandra. It is a service marketplace whose primary purpose is to connect customers to service professionals.
The company employs over 300 people, with over 65,000 enlisted professionals. It is fully operational in at least 16 cities in India and their suburbs. It is just in its preliminary stages, with real profits anticipated by 2019.
Urban Company collaborated with Snapdeal, an e-commerce platform, to make services that help consumers in search of booking/buying services via popular mobile applications. Today, its main competitors include Timesaverz, Zimmber, Housejoy, and LocalOye.
About Urban Company
- Type: Online marketplace for local services
- Industry: Consumer services
- Founded: 2014
- Founder: Abhiraj Bhal, Ashish Goel, and Raghav Chandra
- Headquarters: Gurgaon, India
- Area served: India
- Key people: Abhiraj Bhal (Chairman) and Aditya Sanghi (CEO)
- Number of employees: 2,500
Table of Contents
Urban Company Product Strategy
Urban Company (formerly UrbanClap) is a home services platform connecting service professionals with users needing various services. Their product and service mix includes multiple services across different service categories.
The new Product Mix of Urban Company in 2024 is as follows (Source).
- Beauty and Wellness: This category includes salon services for women and men, massage services for men, and beauty and grooming services from the comfort of one’s home.
- Cleaning and Pest Control: Urban Company offers deep cleaning services for homes and commercial spaces, bathroom and kitchen cleaning, sofa and carpet cleaning, as well as pest control services for a variety of common household pests.
- Home Repairs and Maintenance: This category covers a broad range of services, including electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and appliance repair services for ACs, refrigerators, washing machines, and water purifiers.
- Home Painting and Renovation: Urban Company provides services for interior and exterior painting, waterproofing, and complete home renovations, catering to customers looking to refurbish or enhance their living spaces.
- Packers and Movers: For customers looking to relocate, Urban Company offers packing, moving, and unpacking services to ensure a smooth transition from one place to another.
- Health and Wellness: This includes fitness trainers, yoga instructors, and dietitians who provide personalized services based on the customer’s health and fitness goals.
- Business and Taxes: Urban Company also offers professional services such as tax consulting, accounting services, and legal consulting, catering to the needs of individual professionals and small businesses.
- Lessons and Hobbies: For those interested in learning something new or pursuing a hobby, Urban Company connects users with professionals offering lessons in music, dance, photography, and more.
- Events and Occasions: This service category includes photographers, event planners, and decorators for weddings, parties, and corporate functions.
- Disinfection Services: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Urban Company introduced disinfection services for homes and commercial spaces to ensure a safe and virus-free environment.
Urban Company Pricing Strategy
Urban Company’s pricing strategy is critical to its market positioning and business model. As a leading platform for home services, the company employs a multifaceted approach to pricing its services that aims to balance customer satisfaction, service provider welfare, and competitive market dynamics. Here are the key points of Urban Company’s pricing strategy:
- Value-Based Pricing: Urban Company sets prices based on customers’ perceived value of its services. This approach ensures customers feel they are getting good value for their money, enhancing satisfaction and loyalty. Services that offer higher convenience, quality, or exclusivity are priced accordingly to reflect their added value.
- Dynamic Pricing: Urban Company may use dynamic pricing for its services to manage demand and supply effectively. This means prices can vary based on factors such as time of day, service demand, and availability of service professionals. Dynamic pricing helps optimize earnings for service providers while managing customer demand efficiently.
- Tiered Service Levels: Urban Company offers services at multiple price points through tiered service levels, catering to a wide range of customer preferences and budgets. For instance, beauty services may range from basic to premium, with prices varying based on the experience of the professional and the quality of materials used.
- Transparent Pricing: Transparency is a key element of Urban Company’s pricing strategy. Before booking a service, customers are provided with a detailed cost breakdown, ensuring no hidden charges exist. This transparency builds trust and helps customers make informed decisions.
- Competitive Pricing: While focusing on value, Urban Company also keeps its pricing competitive within the home services market. The company conducts regular market research to ensure its prices align with or offer better value than its competitors, helping to attract and retain customers.
- Bundled Services and Packages: Urban Company offers bundled services or packages at discounted rates compared to purchasing services individually. This strategy gives customers better value and encourages them to try multiple services, increasing user engagement and loyalty.
- Promotional Offers and Discounts: To attract new customers and retain existing ones, Urban Company runs promotional campaigns offering discounts or special deals on various services. These promotions are often timed around festivals, holidays, or the launch of new services to maximize impact.
- Subscription Models: For regular customers, Urban Company may offer subscription models that provide services at a reduced rate in exchange for a commitment over a period. This model ensures steady revenue flow and customer retention by delivering significant value to frequent users.
- Feedback-Driven Adjustments: Urban Company actively solicits and monitors customer feedback regarding pricing and service quality. This feedback is used to adjust pricing strategies, ensuring they remain aligned with customer expectations and market conditions.
- Cost-Plus Pricing for Service Providers: To ensure a fair and sustainable model for service providers, Urban Company adopts a cost-plus pricing strategy where the cost of providing the service, including labor and materials, is considered when setting prices. This ensures service providers are fairly compensated, promoting loyalty and high-quality service delivery.
Urban Company Place Strategy
Urban Company’s place marketing or distribution strategy is integral to its operational success and market penetration. Here are five key points that outline how Urban Company approaches its place marketing strategy:
- Wide Geographic Coverage: Urban Company operates in multiple cities across different countries, ensuring a broad geographic reach for a diverse customer base. This extensive coverage enables the platform to tap into varied market dynamics and consumer needs.
- Online Platform and Mobile App Presence: The backbone of Urban Company’s place strategy is its robust online platform, including a user-friendly mobile app and website. This digital presence allows customers to easily access and book services from anywhere, enhancing convenience and service accessibility.
- Localized Service Operations: Despite its comprehensive coverage, Urban Company employs a localized approach to service delivery, tailoring its offerings to meet local markets’ specific needs and preferences. This strategy ensures higher customer satisfaction by being relevant and responsive to local demands.
- Strategic Partnership with Service Professionals: Urban Company partners with local service professionals in each area it operates, ensuring customers can access a wide range of services. This partnership model expands its service footprint and empowers local businesses and professionals.
- Continuous Expansion into New Markets: Urban Company continuously explores opportunities to enter new markets and cities domestically and internationally. This expansion strategy is driven by market research and demand analysis to ensure successful entry and growth in new regions.
Urban Company Promotion Strategy
The company believes more in growing as you delicately balance between supply & demand at every single growth stage. It is, therefore, the purpose of Urban Company to know and champion only the customer interests with a focus on justifiable economics as they sustain growth. The team creates seamless innovation engines upon learning the data and knowing the broad customer base contours.
Upon attracting customers, these customers are asked to be the company’s ambassadors. Personal connections are, therefore, essential at this stage. Customers are requested to spread the word as the company management also directly contacts the potential customers. This was more important to the company management at its initial stages. Today, Facebook, Google Search, and Instagram are some of the most important social media platforms that have helped the company to sell its agenda.
The best offline/onsite marketing strategies the company has used involved the launching of water leakage repair in Pune and Mumbai when the two cities experienced water shortages. Local communities responded positively. In addition, the free post control during the post-Chennai floods catastrophe also did the company a lot of good.
Some Recent Video ads and Print ads for Urban Company are:
Urban Company People Strategy
The “People” aspect of the service marketing mix is crucial, especially for a company like Urban Company. This company relies heavily on the quality of service its professionals provide to ensure customer satisfaction. Here are the key points regarding the “People” component of Urban Company’s service marketing mix:
- Skilled and Certified Professionals: Urban Company emphasizes the importance of having skilled and certified service providers on its platform. Professionals undergo rigorous selection processes, including background checks and skill assessments, to ensure high-quality service delivery.
- Training and Development: The company invests in continuous training and development programs for its service providers. This includes technical skills in their respective service areas and soft skills like customer interaction, ensuring a consistently high-quality service experience.
- Performance Monitoring and Feedback System: Urban Company has a robust performance monitoring system that tracks the quality of its professionals’ services. Customer feedback plays a crucial role in this system, with ratings and reviews impacting the visibility and opportunities available to service providers on the platform.
- Service Professional Welfare: Recognizing the critical role of its service professionals, Urban Company has initiatives focused on their welfare, including health insurance, safety measures, and financial support programs. These efforts contribute to a motivated and loyal service provider network.
- Empowerment through Technology: Service providers on Urban Company’s platform are empowered with technology tools that help them manage their schedules, accept service requests, and navigate to customer locations. This technological empowerment improves efficiency and enhances the overall service delivery process.
- Customer Service Team: Beyond the direct service providers, Urban Company’s customer service team plays a vital role in its marketing mix’s “People” element. This team handles customer inquiries, complaints, and after-service support, ensuring a seamless and satisfactory customer experience.
- Community and Engagement: Urban Company fosters community among its service providers through events, forums, and social media groups. This encourages knowledge sharing, peer support, and a strong sense of belonging among the professionals on its platform.
Urban Company Process Strategy
The “Process” element of Urban Company’s service marketing mix encapsulates the operational and service delivery methods that define the customer’s experience from start to finish. This aspect is particularly crucial for a service-based platform like Urban Company, where efficiency, reliability, and customer satisfaction are essential. Here are the key points regarding the “Process” of Urban Company:
- Online Booking and Scheduling: Urban Company’s process begins with a streamlined online booking system through its app or website, where customers can select a service, choose a preferred time slot, and book a service professional. This system is designed for ease of use and convenience, allowing customers to schedule services at their convenience.
- Service Customization: Customers can customize the service according to their specific needs during the booking process. This may involve selecting from various service packages, specifying particular requirements, or choosing from add-on services, ensuring that the service is tailored to the customer’s preferences.
- Matching Algorithm: Urban Company uses sophisticated algorithms to match service requests with the most suitable and available service professionals. This matching considers factors like the professional’s skill set, customer ratings, proximity to the customer’s location, and availability, optimizing the match for both the customer and the service provider.
- Real-time Tracking and Communication: Once a service is booked, customers can track the service provider’s location and communicate with them directly through the Urban Company app. This transparency and open line of communication enhance the customer’s trust and comfort.
- Quality Assurance and Compliance: Urban Company has a set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) that service providers must follow, ensuring consistency and quality across all services. Compliance with these SOPs is monitored, and professionals are regularly audited for quality assurance.
- Feedback and Rating System: After completing the service, customers are encouraged to rate it and provide feedback on their experience. This feedback is critical to Urban Company’s process, as it informs service improvements, professional development, and customer satisfaction initiatives.
- Customer Support and Resolution: In case of any issues or dissatisfaction, Urban Company has a responsive customer support process that handles complaints and resolves disputes. This process is designed to be fair, efficient, and focused on finding a satisfactory resolution for customers and service professionals.
- Continuous Improvement: Urban Company employs a constant improvement process, where insights from customer feedback, service provider performance, and operational data are used to make iterative enhancements to the service delivery and customer experience.
Urban Company Physical Evidence Strategy
The “Physical Evidence” in the service marketing mix refers to the tangible and intangible elements that customers use to evaluate the service quality before, during, and after service delivery. Creating a sense of trust and quality through physical evidence is crucial for a digital-first platform like Urban Company, which operates in the home services sector. Here are key points regarding the “Physical Evidence” of Urban Company:
- Brand Identity and Website/App Design: Urban Company’s brand identity, including its logo, website, and app design, serves as the first point of physical evidence. A professional, user-friendly interface assures customers of the company’s reliability and professionalism.
- Service Professional Uniforms: Service professionals associated with Urban Company may wear branded uniforms, making them easily recognizable and reinforcing the brand’s commitment to professionalism and trustworthiness.
- Branded Equipment and Materials: Urban Company professionals use branded equipment and high-quality materials for certain services. This ensures service quality and serves as a visual reminder of the brand’s promise of excellence.
- Service Vehicles: In some cases, Urban Company service professionals may use branded vehicles for transportation. These vehicles serve as moving billboards, reinforcing the brand’s presence and reliability.
- Physical Documentation: Although Urban Company operates primarily through digital platforms, any physical documentation provided, such as invoices, service summaries, or safety guidelines, is designed to be clear and professional, enhancing the customer’s perception of the brand.
- Customer Reviews and Testimonials: Online reviews and testimonials act as physical evidence for potential customers, providing insight into the experiences of others. Urban Company highlights these on its platform, offering transparency and building trust with prospective customers.
- Quality Assurance Certifications: Any certifications or quality assurances displayed on the Urban Company platform or mentioned by service professionals reinforce the standard of service customers can expect, serving as physical evidence.
- After-Service Follow-up: Follow-up communications or satisfaction surveys sent to customers after a service has been rendered further contribute to the tangible aspects of the service experience, emphasizing the company’s commitment to customer satisfaction.
- Safety and Hygiene Measures: Visible safety and hygiene measures taken by service professionals, primarily in-home services, provide critical physical evidence of Urban Company’s commitment to customer well-being and service quality.
- Social Media Presence: Urban Company’s active social media presence, showcasing service offerings, customer experiences, and behind-the-scenes glimpses, is physical evidence of the brand’s vibrancy, engagement, and commitment to quality service.
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