Saturday, 8 March 2019 3pm, Nutmeg, Bangsar Village II.
We did something out of the ordinary this time. Usually, Maideasy organise it’s makan-makan session with the cleaning crew to gain feedback and what is important to them on Maideasy. These makan-makan is a great way to provide context to our business and giving a face and a voice to our customers or crew who we usually communicate only through the digital world. It was time for us to get to know them personally, and we realise, our most loyal customers have a lot in common with the founders themselves – that is urban, educated, an MNC or overseas background, short on time and in general, do not like a stranger or a domestic maid to live with them.
What turned out to be a planned 2 hour light chit chat session, turned into a 3 hour borak-borak session. We not only talked about Maideasy, showed them the new apps interface, our plans for the future, our vision for the company and them, but we also delved into their lives. Their occupation, their families, their thoughts about efforts to uplift especially the B40 of the country. There were no barriers, all of us were open and critical on the ranges of topics we talked about. They provide valuable insights on our customer profile, and what they value.
One of the most important highlight of the makan-makan session was that they used Maideasy because of trust. As these were our Elite members, they have been with us for more than one year, the reason they stay with us is because of trust. Trust that we will provide a predictable and good service, and care for the sensitive information about their homes and ultimately, their lives. It’s not just the reviews on Google, or our clean website that they are attracted to, but because we took a stand, albeit a difficult one, to give jobs to Malaysians especially, hence helping uplift the lives of the B40.
Our customer highlighted an important aspect of our business. He knows for the RM100 he pays for the service, a bulk of that goes to the rent, education and lives of the B40 community under Maideasy. And we shared with them the difficult conditions and reality of what these B40 face, and our endeavours to support the community to foster a sense of belonging and stability for the B40 community.
Our 3 hour borak-borak, makan-makan session inspired us to write a set of standards of the products and services from Maideasy and those that Maideasy use to promote. Customer Ruzaini posed a key element on why he’s been with Maideasy, is that we will not misuse their trust on us to hard sell other products to them, or simply use them as a ‘mailing list’. We listened attentively to his comments, having been appreciative of his support for us. Other ‘suitors’ in the form of product companies, have been courting us to push their products to our valuable customers. We take a stand to be extremely selective and the products to be strictly curated to only give the best in terms of value and relevance to our customers.
Over the three hours of cakes and lots of laughs, we ended the makan-makan on a high note. Among our customers, the brand Maideasy is highly recognised by them and we hope to maintain our high standards.