Ever considered the possibility of getting your laundry done from the luxury of your office? How about paying all your bills without leaving your house? Now there’s a way to get all that done, and then some, without (figuratively) hitting the pause button on that TV show you’re streaming.
Enter FreeMyTime, the new kid on the block who will help you pull off stunts like the above, and a whole lot more. As their slogan suggests, they will help you “free your time to do the things you love”. Brainchild of Ranuka Wijayapala and Suren Mendis, FMT appears to be Sri Lanka’s first concierge service that touches on this wide a spectrum of services.
Why FMT?
There’s been a rapid increase in the number of dual-income households with the upturning of the traditional ‘dad-provides-while-mom-looks-after’ stereotype. There’s a day-care centre at every intersection and delivery-services promising everything under the sun, but the folks at FMT seem to have found a niche that was left untouched so far, personalised concierge services, so to speak.
FMT’s Driving License Recovery Service is an excellent example in this case. Although the company was sceptical at first of getting into this service, what with the various legalities and their implications, it is currently the service with the highest demand, according to FMT. Say for instance you get your driving license taken away for a recoverable traffic offence, if you’re a registered member with FMT all you have to do is log a request with them, make a copy of your temporary license and hand over the original temporary license to the FMT agent who will pick it up from wherever you are at the moment. FMT takes care of the rest.
Getting started
FMT has a relatively simple sign up process for which all you need is a working email address and a phone number. Once you submit the webform, an agent contacts you via phone to set up your account and you’re good to go. FMT does feature a charge-per-service in addition to any costs that will incur for the requested service(s).
What else can FMT do?
Special Requests are as simple as this
FMT has four basic categories of services: Automobile, Personal and Household, Entertainment and Event, and Pet, which in turn have their own subcategories. Can’t find the particular service you’re looking for? FMT will consider custom requests based on feasibility and legal implications, something that they emphasise on. Although it is a personalised concierge service, at the end of the day FMT functions as a business and they will do their due diligence in determining where to draw the line.
How do I keep track?
Once you’ve initiated a process with FMT, they allow you a rare luxury that you don’t usually get with service providers of this calibre; so maybe you’re a bit controlling with your responsibilities and chores, or, for the sake of diplomacy, let’s just say you don’t like being left in the dark, FMT features a nifty tool in their web-dashboard that will let you follow the progress of whatever task you’ve set them with. The field agents update the customer-service desk on where they are and what they have got done so far, and this information is then relayed online, which lets the client keep a tab on the job as it gets done.
And yet to come?
Although FMT offers services that anyone and everyone could benefit from, a limitation they have thus far is the lack of a dedicated mobile app. Chances are you won’t always have access to a computer or a phone when you need their services the most. Imagine making a phone call to get your laundry picked up while sitting in a business meeting? We can’t. Fortunately this is something that they are working on. If everything goes according to plan, FMT will feature dedicated iOS and Android apps in the near future.
Another limitation with FMT is their service radius. Although they have plans of expanding, currently their service radius is limited to the areas within Colombo 1 – 15 and immediate outskirts upto 5 km.
When all’s said and done, what FMT is selling is not a service. It’s time. Does time sell? Only time will tell.
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