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When customers become the experts

Cape Town – It started last week Monday with new users, who had no experience and no understanding of the micro jobbing enterprise. After one week, M4Jam increased its members by 1 724% and its new users have taught each other how to use the service and answered queries on behalf of the company.

This was the company’s major insight after one week as a micro jobs provider.

M4Jam is a digitally enabled micro jobbing platform hosted on WeChat, which allows companies to allocate simple micro jobs to thousands of jobbers, who earn up to R30 a time carrying out small tasks using their smartphones. The jobs might include geotagging a business, carrying out a mystery shopper visit or answering a poll. Jobbers are paid via MTN Mobile Money and can collect their cash at Pick n Pay or Boxer stores.

"There were a few unplanned systems and process challenges that we had to deal with as a result of the flood of registrations and queries, and we apologise for these,” M4Jam co-founder Andre Hugo told Fin24 on Monday.

“The turning point, however, was when our jobbers started posting comments to fellow jobbers helping resolve queries." 

M4Jam advocates

“Some jobbers who experienced challenges and who had queries have now become our advocates,” he said. “One jobber has posted on LinkedIn that he is employed by M4Jam as a jobber.”

When M4Jam picked up an issue with the dispensing of money earned, they turned to their own model to solve the problem.

“Some of our partners who were responsible for dispensing money were not trained sufficiently and so we came up with a job to help solve the problem,” he said. “We posted a job in which jobbers had to watch a tutorial and successfully answer a required set of questions. Once they completed that task, they could then cash out their money and teach the tiller what they had learned to earn even more money.”

Decrease in queries

“At first we had 200 in-bound messages to resolve issues; however, within 24 hours it reduced to two messages,” he said. “The 5 000 jobbers on the platform had gone through the system and had trained cashiers how to process the payments.”

A retired man living in Knysna made contact with M4Jam to help improve the experience. “He helped us by doing the jobs successfully and then sending us tips on how the job could have been completed faster to improve the overall experience,” said Hugo.

“We have seven people who work for M4Jam, but now we have a massive workforce that is helping us," he said. “We hoped it would happen. When I used to be a consultant, I explained to my clients that the tipping point was when the client started moderating - then you have won."

People adopting like wildfire

“It went like wildfire,” he said. “We didn’t think it would go that quickly. The adoption, quality [of jobs and jobbers] and engagement have been amazing. It’s been 100 times more positive than we could ever have hoped for.”

The oldest jobber was 77 years old; in the first hour 206 jobs where completed; in the following 24 hours 7 404 were completed; at the peak M4Jam signed up jobbers at 20 people per minute.

“There were few unplanned systems and process challenges that we had to deal with as a result of the flood of registrations and queries, and we apologise for these,” he said.

Changing lives

A disabled woman who battled to pay her medical bills said becoming a micro jobber changed her life. “She posted on a forum that this has helped her pay her medical bills now,” said Hugo.

“Another amazing story was that of a family that is battling to send their daughter to New York, where she has modelling contract,” he said. “Both parents are jobbing to help pay for her plane ticket.

“The stories are amazing. When we looked at this product, we thought we could change lives one job at a time, but in the first week, we have seen a huge amount of change in people’s lives,” he said. “There is such a demand for R15 jobs and the adoption has been phenomenal.”

Call to brands

With a number of major enterprises already aboard M4Jam at launch, others waited to assess the response before adding their micro jobs to the platform. With the overwhelmingly positive response in week one, thousands of new jobs were set to be made available in week two.

He said the case study of these showed companies how they could use M4Jam to roll out training in a unique environment. “If a company wants tactical rollout of training they can use this platform,” he said, adding they should email brands@m4jam.com if they would like to learn more.

M4Jam: We have a problem

Fin24 user Talisha Ramnarain said she catches the train every day and instead of checking social media or playing games on her phone, she tried to complete a few jobs. “At the end of the week, I walked away with R100 that I wouldn’t have normally had.”

She said it was a great initiative. “However, anything that involves money, work and payment needs to operate like a proper business, even if it is on a mobile platform. To me it seems like the system launched without proper testing.

"Also, they do not seem to have the support capabilities to deal with slow response time and other system bugs like incorrect information feeds, but that’s just the business analyst in me and the frustrated user using the system.”

She sent Fin24 a few queries, which M4Jam answered:

Ramnarain: My wallet was not updating with cash after the job completion, even when removed from “submission” state. Also, there was no message to allow users to know what’s happening.

M4Jam: It might be that your session is cached. Please clear your session by tapping “More”, then, “Exit”. From there, tap “More” and then “Wallet” to see if cash has reflected. If issues persist, please contact info@m4jam.com by sending a description of your problem, your device and a screenshot of the issue.

Ramnarain: There are extremely slow comms when a job has been selected and started and in general any request/communication, response times are just way too slow.

M4Jam: This is unfortunately a server issue. WeChat servers are based in China and respond as fast as possible. We are working on a local solution to speed up communication times. Please do not send a response twice as this will confuse the system and take you back to square one. Simply wait it out for now.

Ramnarain:  Jobs are being removed instead of starting even when correct input is entered to start a job. Somewhere, instructions get lost in the system even when the user selects the appropriate response.

M4Jam:  You need to reply with the job number found next to the job description in order to continue with active jobs. (For users experiencing issues, please note that we are aware of this issue and are sorting it out as we speak: please send a screenshot of your issue, along with your device and a screenshot to info@m4jam.com)

Also, check out these Facebook links for more details:
- How to grab job
- How to complete job

Other comments from users:

Le-humor Grown-up Molapo: This is soo cool, M4Jam #Genius!!! Empowering people :-)

Thomas Masongo Jnr: This is evolution.. This will change SA and how businesses interact with customers

Tamaryn Munro: Great! Thank you so much. As a disabled woman, I struggle so hard to pay my medical bills, and no one wants to employ me... so this is very important for me.

Johan Du Toit: Naturally I was skeptical, did a couple of jobs, made a pay-out on Thursday afternoon. Next day, Friday, received my sms, went down to the local PnP, and got paid. No strange questions, nothing. Gave them my cell, they typed in the code and voila, received payment. Great app!

Thembayena Ntleki: My employer absolutely needs this. This will make them very effective, without doubt!

Thembayena Ntleki: Guided my unemployed siblings living in the #WildCoast to get @WeChatZA & add @m4jam. 1 in EL & 1 in Flagstaff. This will change their lives!

Lulushezi: Guys you HAVE TO add @m4jam on @WeChatZA. It’s pocket money-nyana for doing easy-peasy stuff.

-Fin24.

Do you have an experience with M4Jam that you wish to share? Send us your story.

* WeChat is owned by Tencent, a company that Naspers has a 34% stake in. Fin24 is part of Media24, a subsidiary of Naspers.

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