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| - Avoid for now.
If you're not familiar with Homejoy they are a Y Incubated statrup funded by Google and Redpoint. Impressive pedigree for a seemingly non-tech company on the surface. They are competing with the crowded yet severely regional and disorganized home-cleaning business, and most likely will branch off in other directions, unless they can't get cleaning right, and in my opinion have failed at.
I usually use a known cleaning company, and in a pinch can get cleaners from just about any company with about a days notice. I received an invite for 2.5 hours of house cleaning for 40 dollars, and considering most of my cleaners work in teams and take about 3 hours for $100 I thought this was a deal.
After booking I was sent an email to login and book my cleaner, with a very confusing "monthly membership" that was part of my purchase that is confusing, but hey, they interface was nice so I went forward. To my shock the earliest cleaning time was 3 weeks away, and it was for a single cleaner who supposedly needed 6.5 hours for my 2000 SQ Ft house. Okay. The extra hours were of course and extra charge of $60, so now we are at a standard rate of $100 but for one cleaner for an amazing amount of time.
Red flags are going up at this point because what cleaner will stay at your house for 6-8 hours, this is why they work in teams. And 3 weeks? I can get a cleaner here today, but I carried on.
The day of the cleaning comes and I get an URGENT (how they sent it) email that my cleaner had cancelled, and they had no backup options. No backup options, for a cleaning company? I gave them a call and the customer service agent sounded flustered when I said I was "trying" their service and besides the booking website they had a failing grade so far.
The customer service rep apologized and agreed it was not a good start, but said she would get someone out right away. She called back and said they had found someone for Monday (This all happened on a Friday) which is okay, I can wait a few days.
Monday roles around and my wife informs me no one is there, say what? I check the confirmation email and its for two weeks from now. Two weeks for a total of 5 weeks since booking.
I imagine their cleaners are cancelling when they find out they are booked for an entire day, 6-8 hours for one house. Or, they book and then if another more lucrative job comes up they ditch this one.
Homejoy has 40 million in VC funding and are growing like crazy, ads are certainly a next step. But, it doesn't matter if they have the slickest and cleanest interface with with intuitive analytics and best server but if they can't get someone to show up for their core business service then their service is not worth using.
Use at your own risk. I'll update if anything changes, since, I still have not been able to rate them on an actual cleaning.
****UPDATE 3/4/2014
As expected the day before the cleaner arrived they cancelled once again. I called Homejoy to find out what's happening with this market and they blatantly told me that they are very understaffed in Phoenix and the Scottsdale area.
It would seem that Homejoy expanded into the Valley without a good plan in place and therefore cannot get a cleaner out to your house, and cannot find backups for cleaners when one cancels.
I did mention that I believed the cleaners were cancelling because they were intimidated by the huge amount of time that Homejoy requests they stay at the house, which was supposed to be 6.5 hours, and probably got another job. They didn't confirm or deny this.
I would avoid this service unless you to want frustration, until the point where they can actually deliver on their service. It looks as though this startup has some kinks to work out before they can be a viable service. After all, a cleaning service that can't get a cleaner to come clean your house is well...
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