Urban Company: The Dynamic New Era of Home Services in Beauty
The 6-year-old Urban Company (formerly Urban Clap) offers a range of home services including a variety of beauty and wellness services across 22 cities in 4 countries and have about 30,000 professionals working exclusively for them. Abhiraj Singh Bhal – Co-Founder, Urban Company speaks to Ritoo Jhha about how the company attempts to take on the challenges of COVID-19 upfront.
There is a lot of stress in the industry right now for obvious reasons. How is the Urban Company challenging this unprecedented crisis?
COVID19 is definitely unprecedented — in the last two months, many of us have woken up not knowing if we have woken up from a nightmare or entered into a nightmare. And, it has been no different for Urban Company. We were amongst the first companies to recognise the impact of COVID-19. In early March 2020, we moved to full-time work-from-home. I would say that we responded to the COVID-19 crisis in phases.
Monetary Compensation: Phase 1 was the immediate response phase at the end of March and in early April, soon after the lockdown was declared. In that phase, our complete focus was on protecting and providing for our 30,000 service partners. We realised that many of them will have to face an extended period of time without any source of income. We had close to six and a half crores of their money with us. Rarely do advertisers return the money but as an aggregator what we did first was refunded every penny from that `6.5 crores our service partners had paid for subscriptions and credits. Additionally, we sanctioned `11 crores worth of zero-interest loans to them, which could be paid back when their businesses resume. Out of the 20,000 service partners eligible for this loan, 17,000 availed it and we have distributed more than `8.5 crores so far. The third step was setting up a relief fund to which the founders, employees, and well-wishers of the company contributed `1.5 Crores. We are going to use this fund to help some of the professionals who are impacted the most, both medically and otherwise.
A COVID Insurance: As a part of our immediate response to the crisis, we also bought COVID-19 insurance and income protection plans for all our service partners. They already have accident insurance and many of them have health insurance as well. Over and above this, the COVID plan offered free of cost, will get them up to `25,000 for hospital bill reimbursement as well as `40,000 for the days the could not work, in case they get sick from the coronavirus. It is a 3-month insurance plan that we have purchased until the end of June and we are now in talks with our insurance provider to extend it to a year.
Home Delivery of Services: In Phase 3, as the lockdown was being lifted in several areas, we submitted a request to the government to consider allowing salons and spas to offer home services. Even restaurants are being allowed to do home-delivery of food, while dine-in operations remain suspended. Similarly, beauty services could be delivered at clients’ home on a one-to-one basis, while making sure that all safety protocols are in place.
A major concern for the government regarding this is how we can maintain social distancing and hygiene standards when local barbers often conduct their business on the streets. Considering opening salons and barbershops for home services only could help minimize this risk. The government has a difficult role to play right now. There are about 70 lakh professionals dependent on the beauty and salon industry — so, the balance between lives and livelihoods is the priority.
But home delivery of food is not the same as home delivery of beauty service? Protocols may be breached and lives maybe risked apart from having a complete clamp down upon that brand or that industry?
It’s a genuine concern but my view is that no process is 100% foolproof. Right now is all about minimizing the risk, because then the reality is that until there is a vaccine, we all have to stay at home and our business cannot resume. That will probably cause more damage to our economy than the virus itself. So I think, the safety protocols companies put in place is aimed at significantly minimizing the risk. Also, salons resuming operations will follow the prescribed guidelines to get back to business. They also have to completely operate on online bookings to ensure that consumers don’t congregate unnecessarily.
When we say that all salons will follow the right safety protocols, we need to consider that 99% of the industry is unorganized. Who is going to ensure that these local barbers and parlours will follow safety protocols?
Within the beauty industry, everybody from their vantage point thinks that they are the safest because it suits them to have that view and that argument. As it is rightly said, “If you are a carpenter with a hammer everything looks like a nail”. So, I think that as an industry it is important to make a singular voice and pledge to certain safety norms. The government should consider opening up the entire industry with these safety standards in place. If at all the gradient opening of this is to be considered, then one should look at “at-home-services” because it is significantly less risky compared to the physical format. I am sure our friends at physical formats may have differing opinions but at the end of the day, we are all in this together. Also, first and foremost, this industry needs to get back on its feet and needs to resume operations.
*This is an excerpt from a digital interview published on our YouTube channel.
To watch the full interview, log on to Beauté Espace TV on YouTube.