Babysitting as a Service…The Importance of Trust in Subscription Success


by Megan Golden, Interactive Marketing

Are you a busy Bay Area parent? Do you and your hubby work late nights? Or do you just need a night to get out, away from your rugrats? Well then Wondersitter.com might just be what you need.

For all those Bay Area parents working Silicon Valley hours, subscriptions have come to the rescue, saving marriages one babysitter at a time. Since I’ll be checking No Dependents on my taxes this year, clearly I haven’t been in the market. However, I can confidently say this is the first subscription-based babysitting service I’ve seen. But the idea behind it is ages old: parents want a reliable, responsible babysitter who will reward their loyalty.

At the root of Wondersitter, lies its “Wonderdollars” program. Wonderdollars are purchased by parents in order to get discounts on booking fees, rewarding parents who frequently book. You can also sign up for a $99 a month subscription for daily day care.  And perhaps best of all, if the babysitter is late, doesn’t clean up, or otherwise fails to meet the customer’s expectations—the booking fee is waived. And this really seals the deal for me, as a someday-in-the-far-off-future Mother, that the company really does stand behind the sitters they send to your home to care for your children.

That’s ultimately the tipping point with service-as-subscription models. In order to subscribe, you need to trust the service to provide quality care every time. No one wants an experience like The Simpsons’ in the infamous first season episode– you know, the one where a babysitter service sends a sitter who promptly tries to rob the place? So it looks like if Wondersitter’s employees rob your home, you’ll at least have your booking fee waived. Which is highly appreciated.

All jokes aside, Wondersitter is simply taking the service-as-subscription model and tying it to a business that, like massages and car rentals—is all about reputation. As Wondersitter continues to build its sitters’ reputation —  and I hope it does, so that my someday-in-the-far-off-future babies can take advantage of this — the company’s reward programs will ultimately make it an attractive alternative to simple word-of-mouth recruitment.

 

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