How revamped i4Tradies messaging system has saved tradies’ jobs through coronavirus
Tradies noticed a sharp decline in customers at the start of the first coronavirus lockdowns — but a quick-thinking entrepreneur has helped keep many businesses alive.
Victoria Business
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During the initial weekend of Melbourne’s first lockdown, calls to Jerome Beekman’s business stopped.
For two weeks the Lara-based electrician’s mobile barely rang.
“It was like someone had turned off the telephone system,” Mr Beekman, owner of Mr Electric, said.
“People were worried about whether they would continue to have a job or not and people had to start working from home and manage kids schooled at home.
“But once people started working from home, things picked up. They had to set up a home office or a study area for kids and they needed more power points or light fittings, or they needed more data points wired to their modem so their Wi-Fi worked better.”
Helping Mr Beekman find new jobs to keep his four electricians busy is a cloud-based platform that quickly links tradespeople with customers.
The i4Tradies platform was developed three years ago by IT expert Logan Nathan.
In May, Mr Nathan revamped the system when he saw COVID-19 taking a toll on work for local tradies.
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The company teamed up with SMS platform MessageMedia to launch an Emergency Response Centre that helps Australians find a qualified tradesperson by texting details of their job and their postcode.
“You send an SMS with those details and we match you with local tradies who call you back within an hour or two,” Mr Logan said.
“Customers can see a tradie’s credentials, including their qualification and licence, if they have a police check and working with children check, and we encourage tradespeople to get COVID certification so people know the tradie coming in to their home is aware of COVID rules.
“We saw an 80 per cent drop in people using our platform in a weekend at the start of this pandemic. Now we have about 80 per cent of that traffic back.”