Here comes the handyman

K Sunil Bopaiah, CEO and founder of At Your Service (or @YS as they call it), had seen the long and the short of the telecom sector by the time he was in his last job at Seventymm.com. He was the general manager there when an epiphany came his way — he had to get out there and start his own thing, as soon as possible.

Bouncing around ideas with a childhood friend, NG Deepak (they had been schoolmates in Andaman and were in Bangalore together studying engineering and afterwards), he zeroed in on the idea of an organised handyman service for India.

Of course, as anybody who’s been at the receiving end of errant electricians and crabby carpenters would know, things were brought to a head with trouble brewing at home when small odd jobs went wrong for him. “It is such a disorganised sector that problems are inevitable. That’s where we decided to step in,” says Bopaiah.

Thus, in September 2009, along with his brother and friend, Bopaiah started At Your Service. Deepak, who was already into construction and interiors helped with putting a team in place.
Growing from an initial team with a plumber, a carpenter and an electrician in 2009, At Your Service has now grown into an organisation that takes care of painting, waterproofing, pest control, house-cleaning, sump or overhead tank sanitisation and other services along with plumbing carpentry and electrical work.

They have a customer base of over 1,200 people and offer a membership plan at Rs365 a year. For members and non-members they promise to provide a service person with 24 hours of receiving a request.

“We have a core team of three electricians, three plumbers and three carpenters, who are in the office six days a week, going out on calls when assigned. And there is a larger team on call for add-on services like painting and so on that we outsource to,” says Bopaiah.

Service and safety are of paramount importance and the workers are recruited on the basis of known and verified references only. And when they have to outsource jobs, @YS goes only with established and trustworthy operators. “For bigger work like interiors or pest control or painting, we have tie-ups with multiple agencies. That way we can always ensure delivery of quality service. We can’t and won’t use fly-by-night operators,” assures Boppaiah.

@YS is open six days a week now. Their office being at RT Nagar, they have a lot of registered members from north Bangalore, but they do serve the rest of the city as well. Bopaiah points out: “The most critical part of it is electrical work and if we can’t send a person, we request the customer to get somebody else to  take care of it immediately. But it is unusual for us not be able to provide a service person within 24 hours.”
For plumbing, electricity and carpentry, @YS charges Rs200 per job, provided it is done within two hours; for longer services they levy an additional charge per extra hour. Services like painting, masonry, pest control etc are charged according to the size of the house. They have annual packages as well, ranging from Rs2,700 (silver) to Rs6,500 (platinum).

The packages cover a fixed number of services. For instance, the gold membership at Rs3,800 covers two pest control services, four plumbing/electrical/carpentry jobs, one upholstering service for the house or the car, and one advisory service in the span of one year.

Wiring up the whole city is the ongoing agenda for them now. “But in five years time we’re looking at being present in other cities as well, either with franchisees or on our own,” promises Bopaiah.

Contact:
Tiguan Facility Management Services (Ind) Pvt Ltd., 3/1, 80ft Road, P&T Colony, RT Nagar
Phone: 080-23333000
Mail: inso@ays.co.in
Website: http://www.ays.co.in/
m_anindita@dnaindia.net