Finnish service innovation 24 Center is expanding its operations to Norway. The platform had taken a strong hold in the building services market in Finland and Sweden and plans to do the same in Norway.
You've just returned relaxing from a tropical vacation only to discover that you've lost your car keys. Standing in the airport parking lot next to your locked car in a light summer jacket as an icy breeze welcomes you back to your Nordic home, you desperately try to find a locksmith on your smartphone who's on duty as your fingers start to turn blue with cold.
Your sense of humor is limited when the locksmith you find doesn't even answer the phone. It shouldn't be that hard to get help, right?
Getting help, especially in an emergency, should be effortless
"Getting help, especially in an emergency, should be effortless," says CEO of 24 Center, Joose Pinomaa. "Our service is based on the idea that there is one phone number you can call, any time, any day of the year and get the help you need - fast. At the best of times, we can even find the required craftsman and send them to the site within 15 minutes. We'll find the right, closest, locally available craftsman who has the right tools to solve the emergency in front of them."
The service is particularly useful for those who need help quickly, are facing technical problems that they themselves don't know how to solve or what kind of technicians are needed to solve it, or simply appreciate the effortlessness of getting the help needed.
Success in Finland and Sweden - what about Norway?
The service is made possible via a platform that 24 Center has developed internally and it has been tried and tested over several years in both Finland and Sweden. "We have solved most of the problems by active feedback from our customers. Now we are ready to expand our services to cover the whole of Scandinavia," says Pinomaa.
"The Norwegian people have given the service a warm welcome based on the few months pilot period. We are rapidly approaching the milestone of 1,000 jobs placed in Norway," says 24 Center's Norwegian team leader Jens Haug.
"We Norwegians, we're pretty open-minded and tech-savvy people, we give opportunities to new innovations that promise to make our lives easier or better, as long as they can really deliver," Haug continues with a slight grin and a twinkle in his eye. "We strongly believe in our mission and our potential to be disruptive in the way we solve building services problems and buy building services."
We can see a strong demand for our service both in Finland and Sweden, now also in Norway
It's not often that service innovations and new platform economy solutions come from Finland to the other Nordic countries; more often than not, innovations from Sweden and Norway are introduced to Finland. "However, there are exceptions and we believe that our service concept is strong enough to grow internationally. We have been actively developing our service for years based on feedback from both consumers and our craft company partners, and solving the problems. We can see a strong demand for our service both in Finland and Sweden, now also in Norway", says Pinomaa.
"Of course it takes courage and a lot of effort and belief for a small start-up to expand into new markets, even within Scandinavia, but we truly believe that we are solving a real problem for real people."
The pilot period gave way to growing market demand
24 Center's service concept has been piloted since December 2021 and is quickly gaining a foothold and appears attractive. The service is well established in Oslo and Viken. "We take an average of 30 calls a day and the number of calls is growing steadily, regardless of the fact that the pilot area has been quite limited both geographically and in concept. For now, we're only on call during office hours and weekdays, but we're aiming to extend our hours very soon as we see demand increasing," Haug continues.
Rapid development plans to cover all of Norway and to a full 24/7 concept
24 Center aims to expand its Norwegian operations to cover the whole of Norway by the end of the year and extend its on-call hours from 08.00 to 20.00. Time will tell how well and how quickly Norwegians embrace the new way of solving home technical problems, and how quickly we are able to expand our offering and on-call hours to match the Finnish service with 24/7 on-call service, every hour and every day of the year.
"Everyone should be able to help when needed, not just when it's convenient for the craftsman," Pinomaa concludes.
Is there any additional information regarding house technical emergencies or about 24 Center that we can provide? Please do not hesitate to contact us!
24 Center is a craft service center, where we always know which professionals can get to the site the fastest. We want to solve craftsmanship problems quickly and reliably, anytime and anywhere. We forward the assignment to the installation company that can get to the site fastest. It's enough to contact us once.
