Voice of the tradie takes centre stage for hipages with new Customer Advisory Board

At hipages, tradies are at the heart of what we do.

We regularly consult our community, but we wanted to extend this relationship to have tradies share their views in a dedicated forum. That’s why we created our Customer Advisory Board. It’s like the customer brains trust for hipages, where we have an opportunity to hear directly from our customers and go even further in developing the best products and services that meet their needs.

The value of Customer Advisory Boards to tech businesses

Google, Microsoft, Amazon — some of the biggest names in the tech industry have adopted customer advisory boards, and for good reason. A Customer Advisory Board has a powerful role in ensuring tech businesses don’t get lost in the excitement of innovation and remain laser focused on their customers.

Technology is changing all the time and customer needs are evolving at pace too. As a forward-looking tech business, hipages needs to stay closely connected to tradies to understand the way their business is changing and how the products and services we’re delivering need to adapt.

A Customer Advisory Board is a powerful asset that ensures tech businesses remain aligned with customer needs, keep abreast of market trends and continuously improve their offerings.

The Customer Advisory Board is an integral part of the hipages evolution to a single tradie platform. As we work towards integrating our hipages and Tradiecore platforms, we’re making it easier for tradies to manage and grow their businesses in a single platform, from finding leads and winning business to invoicing customers and getting paid. Our vision is to have one powerful app in the hands of tradies to help service their customers end to end.

The Board is a direct line from our customers to our key decision makers about what’s working, areas that can be improved and opportunities for product innovation.

Our commitment to being a customer-centric business

At hipages, we have a healthy obsession with customer stickiness. It’s the cornerstone of our hipages Group strategy to help tradies build their businesses. We want our customers to love our product and stick with it, and one of the best strategies for customer retention is to be indispensable.

The Board is a vital source of customer insights that help guide product development, validate strategic decisions and ensure customer-centric design across our platform. Utilising these insights, hipages can design all of our products and services for our tradies with the goal of improved usability and ultimately user satisfaction. During the first quarter in operation, the Customer Advisory Board has already provided valuable feedback on a new profile page design, elements of the tradie/homeowner engagement process and the tools used to manage their business.

The Board will take a strategic role in identifying and prioritising opportunities to improve UX and gather market intelligence. Our customer commitment helps improve the average revenue per customer, which improves our bottom line.

The value of building long-term relationships

As a long-term initiative, tradies who are part of the Board can share their views on new product features, value-adds and services in the pipeline to strengthen our offering and build loyalty through long-term relationships with tradies. hipages knows that tech companies which can effectively utilise consumer insights data are more successful in delivering sustainable growth.

It’s a free and open forum, where honest opinions and feedback are encouraged. And we’re not afraid to hear from customers who may be unhappy or unsatisfied with an aspect of our business. On the contrary, this provides valuable insights into an area that may need a bit more attention. We welcome the chance to hear directly from customers about their business and how our services can help them.

We’ve been careful to ensure the Board has a diverse mix of trades and to include women and cultural diversity to provide a broad perspective. It’s an important way to bring real-world insights to shape new services and identify areas for improvement within the hipages offering, which includes pricing, support, sales and subscription packages.

The Board meets every month to discuss the industry, their businesses and how hipages can better meet their needs, both through our marketplace and our growing SaaS offering.
hipages is on a mission to be the tradie’s indispensable wingman, and in inviting some of our customers to form our Customer Advisory Board, we also hope to build hipages brand champions.