Service Design for recommendation based maid-hiring in gated communities

After understanding implications of rating system on the domestic helpers, we looked for methods to gather more insights and get answers for the questions that we were asking. We thought of taking interviews of the residents of gated societies to get an idea about how they use the rating system. We wanted to target societies that had the MyGate app.

We visited the society ‘NCC Meadows’ that uses the MyGate app. There we took interviews of 12 residents. We prepared a semi-structured interview where we initiated the conversation based on our questions and then we let the conversation take it’s own flow.

Our Findings and Insights

After taking the interviews, we saw that our participants belonged to 5 basic age groups, between the age of 20 and 60. We divided the groups in the range of 10, the groups being 20–30, 30–40, 40–50, 50–60, and 60+. We focused on asking if they were aware of the rating system, what was the criteria they preferred while looking for a maid, etc.

Interview from Residents

1. We found that out of 12, only 4 users use rating system to rate their maids.
2. They turn to trusted sources when it comes to hiring a maid.
3. Some of them don’t have issues in giving advance or bonus once in a while.

Feedback received after the initial proposal

1. What if there was an alternative to the star rating system?
2. Do the domestic workers use phone?
3. Are the domestic helpers tech savvy?
4. In what way does the rating system actually affect them?
5. Would changing the format of rating system remove inequality in the system?
6. How can the domestic workers negotiate better?

After the feedback received and our own findings, we discovered that not many people use the rating system provided in these apps but rely on in-person recommendations. Also, merely improving the rating system might not make a better system for the domestic workers as the rating is still going to be there. So we thought of changing our approach from ratings to recommendations.

Revised Problem Statement

Designing a system where residents can hire maids on the basis of recommendations.

Our next step:

We plan to see how the current system works when it comes to recommending maids and then translate it into a platform. After mapping the current user journey and finding how people recommend maids, we will find out the possible touch points in the system. Few of our touch points could be an app, the security guard, and the maintenance office. We are going to see how can we create a system that includes them.

Expected Output

We plan to create a Journey Map of the system users and a Service Blueprint.

Team

Saroj Tailor, Sindhu Neti, Vipul Negi