Traditional Household Services Move to Subscriptions

by Tricia Reilly

I was watching TV the other day and noticed a Terminix ad which touted a subscription offering called Ultimate Service Guarantee. For a nominal fee (which varies depending upon zip code, square footage, etc.), the subscription service includes a 24 hour SLA, 100% satisfaction, and a lifetime damage repair coverage, in the event of future damage caused by termites—for as long as you maintain your subscription.

When I was growing up, we got a call every so often from a local pest control company offering to come by and spray. My Mom swore that if you said no, they came by the following evening to drop off a load of ants, but that’s another story...

The service was somewhat haphazard with the vendor having to manually call you to schedule a service, rather than a recurring revenue model where you paid the same fee on a monthly or quarterly basis for on-going service.

As a condo-dweller myself, I don’t have need for a pest control service, but it got me thinking about the rise in subscriptions overall. When you think about it, household services are the perfect industry for subscriptions. Whether you’re talking about pest control, pool cleaning, gardening, carpet or upholstery cleaning, all of these services lend themselves to a subscription model.

It’s a win win for both consumers and vendors. For busy household CEO’s , it’s one less thing to have to schedule, plus it allows for easy budgeting; and for vendors, it provides a more predictable revenue stream.

Does your household subscribe to any cool services? Let us know; we’d love to hear about it.

Comments

[Dentist Modesto]

That seems very interesting. We never thought that it can be used for subscription plan. Though it may be a tough one, because there might be too many subscription in a household and would have a hard time paying specially now that we are still recovering from the economic slow down.