24 Center is a new-age service centre that brings together building services expertise in one place. The idea behind it all is to serve people like an emergency call centre. Founded in 2017, the company has been helping and amazing Finns for a few years now. What is it all about?
The office building in Aviapolis, Vantaa, is buzzing. In one room, a meeting is taking place, while in another, the voice of a customer service agent can be heard: "24 Center, how can I help you?" It's a normal day at the building services emergency centre.
Building services emergency call centre - what is it?
"Building services emergency centre" may sound strange, because there has never been one in the world before. 24 Center is a term that sums up the concept of a new service and an innovative company: the desire to solve building services problems quickly and reliably, regardless of time and place. One call is enough, as the company's website describes it.
The 24 Center was established in 2017 with the aim of bringing together all building services expertise under one telephone number. This was based on the experience of an ordinary plumbing company wanting to help a customer they couldn't reach themselves. The company had passed the job on to another professional who helped them to get the job done quickly. The customer was satisfied and a new business idea was born: a completely new service concept, where people's needs are routed through a single centre to professionals, 24 hours a day.
"We operate like an emergency centre and our customer service is on call 24/7.
"That's exactly what 24 Center does," says CEO Joose Pinomaa. "We operate like an emergency centre and our customer service is on call 24/7. Our customers range from private individuals to property owners and corporate clients."
The world is changing, and so is the job description. "We find it difficult to find building services professionals to do smaller maintenance jobs these days, as plumbers and electricians are often employed on larger sites," says Pinomaa. That's where the 24 Center comes in: it allows anyone to call in a building services professional. "It has to be easy, fast and punctual," says Pinomaa.
Thousands of customer feedback have shaped the service
There seems to be a demand for an emergency centre like this. The case studies posted on the 24 Center blog show that unexpected problems can arise in people's everyday lives. On a recent skiing holiday, one family's cabin had frozen water pipes, while in another case a wedding was almost cancelled due to a power failure. Sometimes everyday life can be even stranger than fiction: in May, a deer swooped through a window pane into a living room in Helsinki on a normal weekday evening. In all cases, 24 Center brought in a professional to help, as promised, quickly and reliably. This is made possible by their extensive network of partners and a 24/7 customer service centre. So there is plenty of work to do, and the service is constantly evolving.
It all comes down to the fact that the customer experience has to be excellent"
Customer experience has been an important part of the development. "Thousands of feedbacks have shaped our service. It all starts from the premise that the customer experience must be excellent," Pinomaa says.
The start of the business was not without problems. It was a challenge to get people to join the partner network at the start of the business. "We came to the market with a completely new concept. It raised a lot of doubts among contractors," says Pinomaa. "Fortunately, we found a few innovative companies who got excited and got involved." Today, 24 Center's network of partners includes more than 500 companies, from one-man firms to organisations of several hundred people.
Getting help should be easy and quick
The company operates on a simple principle, taking into account the ease and speed that customers value. For example, when a pipe bursts - even in the middle of the night - a single call to 24 Center is all it takes. Customer service agents take stock of the situation and then partners are quickly notified of the open order on their mobile device. They receive the order and attend to the issue on site. The customer is kept informed and kept up to date on the progress of the work.
With the emergency call centre principle, the company aims to ensure that one contact is enough.
The 24 Centre number will always be answered, whether the case is urgent or non-urgent. Capacity extends to all building services, from plumbing to specialist cleaning and from locks to vacuum trucks. The company's emergency call centre policy is designed to ensure that one contact is enough: everything that happens after that is handled on the customer's behalf. From the customer's point of view, this eliminates the hassle of finding an on-call operator and worrying about how to deal with the situation, while from the partner's point of view, it provides a way to get work done.
We want you to live your everyday life and your holidays as smoothly as possible. For your life to be full of miracles.
The article was originally published in Kiinteistöleihe. Read the article here.
