I worked at a startup doing exactly this last year[1], [2], [3]. Unfortunately, the parent company shut us down after we ran out of runway but it was starting to gain traction. One issue we had was ultimately a lot of people wanted someone to come out anyway and to make sure we had the right quality (and so gain customer/brand trust) we had to do this in-house - i.e. hire actual plumbers and handymen to be on call as well as building logistics software to support all of this entirely outside of the video call aspect.
It was more than a bit depressing the parent company pulled the plug because it really did feel like it was about take off. Maybe we could've instead integrated into a set of preferred suppliers cross country as a lead gen service. Though if you read the TrustPilot reviews it was the fact we were the whole package that customers loved.
We started by first charging for calls but in order to grow switched that to free calls with the assumption that people would then book a home visit if needs be. Nobody wanted to pay £10 on a call and find out they needed a plumber to come out. It felt like something that with Uber-style levels of investment (i.e. tons) could be pretty profitable if you owned the sector. To expand on our offerings we would do things like allow people to simply book a handyman for an hour to do whatever - put up a curtain rail, fix that loose light fitting and so on.
People were using the video aspect as a precursor to someone actually coming to do the work so the video bit was never the end of the transaction. As soon as you start needing a team of people to field customer calls, do support and manage your countrywide team of tradesmen it gets expensive.
It definitely did have a lot of value and customers, once they used it, loved it. From perhaps an emergency "this has stopped working" first call out you would have people then asking about exactly the sort of thing you mention with window blinds and become a repeat customer.
One thing we were looking to do was to offer it to companies as an employee perk - so the company would buy a certain amount of hours that could be used. Then staff could have a face to face call with the relevant tradesperson to discuss anything they like. It was too near the end though to get going :(
If you ever revive it, I worked for an insurance company that loves giving those kind of services as add-ons to their homeowners insurance (they're usually little-used and serve as great promotional copy).
Alas Homeserve, the massive insurance company who were the primary investors, took over all the IP and I think they just killed it. They bought CheckATrade [1] around the time we shutdown, so maybe it will see the light of day as part of that someday.
It was more than a bit depressing the parent company pulled the plug because it really did feel like it was about take off. Maybe we could've instead integrated into a set of preferred suppliers cross country as a lead gen service. Though if you read the TrustPilot reviews it was the fact we were the whole package that customers loved.
We started by first charging for calls but in order to grow switched that to free calls with the assumption that people would then book a home visit if needs be. Nobody wanted to pay £10 on a call and find out they needed a plumber to come out. It felt like something that with Uber-style levels of investment (i.e. tons) could be pretty profitable if you owned the sector. To expand on our offerings we would do things like allow people to simply book a handyman for an hour to do whatever - put up a curtain rail, fix that loose light fitting and so on.
People were using the video aspect as a precursor to someone actually coming to do the work so the video bit was never the end of the transaction. As soon as you start needing a team of people to field customer calls, do support and manage your countrywide team of tradesmen it gets expensive.
[1] https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/dad.co?page=2
[2] http://www.eu-startups.com/2016/05/london-based-dad-secures-...
[3] https://s3.amazonaws.com/poly-screenshots.angel.co/enhanced_...