@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast - The name of the company was actually derived from the nickname of the piece of code written to handle the routing of client’s tasks. It just sort of stuck.
@arseNal - We never actually speak to you over the phone and the tasks go out to assistants verbatim to the way you have written them. The response to your request is also monitored by mentors who quality check and assure that you are receiving the best response we can give to your request.
@tdn - Nothing overly bizarre really. The strangest requests for me are when I am asked to phone a complete stranger (usually a friend or relative of my client) and say something funny, crazy or obscene. And yes, I am able to fulfill those requests.
@Yarster - It isn’t uncommon for Fancy Hands assistants to make more than one attempt to fulfill a request. Unless the request is overly complicated or involves a substantial amount of research, the client does not incur additional charges. It is possible that the request cannot be fulfilled for any number of legitimate reasons and then client would still be responsible for paying for the task. e.g. - “Find a place that can rent me a Ferrari in Council Bluffs, Iowa.” or “I need a reservation for 12 people at xxxx restaurant tonight.” or “I need a hair appointment today (the day before a popular holiday.”
And I think we do a pretty darn good job satisfying even our most discriminating clients…if I do say so myself.
I have to say, I started out quite positive with their service.
And, yes, if they can’t get it done, it still counts. Like, when I asked them to find trousers that look a certain way on a website. Can’t find it? Still counts. Fair enough.
Haven’t had much issue on this side though since their quality is relatively good. Used them a couple of months.
Note, though: Signed up for the unlimited plan – which of course I wasn’t naive to believe was literally unlimited.
I’ll admit I can be a heavy user. But then, they wanted to deny service even though they’re unwilling to specify how many tasks is actually in the unlimited plan, which I think feels a bit shady.
Obviously, it’s more profitable for them to have a few people paying for unlimited but only send out a few requests occasionally. But what peeves me is that when I asked how many tasks is actually acceptable in the unlimited plan, they’re not willing to specify.
Hate to point out a negative for a company that seems to be on the rise, and that’s been personally quite helpful. But if you’re a power user considering the unlimited plan, just take note.
Out of curiosity as a “heavy user” what were you asking them to do? In looking at their unlimited plan they do offer this warning below. Hardly seems “shady” IMO just prudent. They are only charging $ 95.00 a month for unlimited calls/tasks which seems insanely cheap to me. If you are peppering them with tasks I can see how they might roll over at some point. I think they need to adjust their pricing.
Request-wise, mostly web research and social media posts. Find shoes that look like this. Copy and paste something I did on one site to another site.
I think it’s definitely disingenuous to be hosting an unlimited plan with which they say, well, we may not be able to handle too many tasks, so watch out, but we can’t say how many is too many.
I’m all for being upfront, and I definitely don’t hold it against companies that go, it’s unlimited, but really it’s 50 tasks a month. I’ve used those and I respect them for being upfront.
It’s not great for a customer if I’m not told what $95 gets me. Where’s the benchmark and what stops them from acting capriciously case by case, which is what I believe happened to me.
I did not feel that they were willing to work on a solution either by pointing out, you know, this is actually the limit, please stick to it and let’s work together.
My take is that they weren’t willing to stand by their unlimited plan and acted to strategically cut off the top 10% heaviest users, leaving only those that underutilised the plan, and they can keep doing this without a benchmark. It’s pure profit, but a bit skeezy.
I’d definitely feel bad about being an unprofitable customer for a company I enjoyed working with at one point. Note: I even offered to get a second unlimited plan if we could be clear what each unlimited plan was offering. They just said, heavy user, nope, we don’t want you.
I’ve used them to call and complain to the city for me, check stock and hold gifts for me. Today I had someone make 3 phone calls to figure out who was the right person to speak to so I didn’t have to do the initial run around.
What I like about them is generally you can tell them a problem and some key details like you can say call all the post places in this zip and get me prices on this and if they say X say Z if you come to an agreement tell them to expect a call from me later in the day.
I don’t like conflict so I avoid some calls or some things are based east coast vs. west coast and not a morning person
Cross reference Internet research, hunt down shoes for me, call my jeweler to check a date… Wedding stuff. I had FH look up a mariachi band in the middle of a Forrest.
I am self employed 20 something that is getting married and generally still working at 3 in the mornining :o and it’s easier to leave messages in the middle of the night when an idea strikes than forget it in the morning.
Glenn has worked on some of my stuff before he is awesome. I’ve had regular vendors I deal with comment on how polite my assistant is.
Here is the but… One of my Fiancé s colleagues did get kicked off of FH but from my understanding he was running wild with it from what my fiancé saw and we have the super old plans so Ted and the other awesome people aren’t making a whole bunch from us.
a few times they did wonderful work for me. however, they fall down when i’m under stress.
for example, when i really need something done, i’d send a message, and hours (a few times days) would go by and i’d get no update. they really need to provide feedback on if and when the task is going to get done.
especially after they failed me once or twice, i lost confidence that a task i sent them would ever get done. it ended up being just more stressful, and i’d have to plan time to cancel the task and do it myself.