Remember when we told you about Gabe Abshire’s Utility Concierge, the brilliant company that hooks up all your utilities and services when you move into a new home? Thinking of what a pain in the neck all that can be gives me a headache and makes me almost not want to move!
We told Realtors and readers how smart this company is, and how it’s free to the consumer. You move into a home, you call Utility Concierge, and within 24 hours a nice gentleman who speaks English calls you back. They are in Dallas, not Bangladesh, I have seen them with my own eyes. They handle all of your utility hook ups from the water to the high speed internet and security. Cost to you: nada. And they get you the very best pricing. How? Easy: they have huge market share so they can lean on the utilities for the best rates. They come back to you with the best package rates, you decide what you want, supply a credit card or check, and it’s done. Gabe tells me that with most homeowners, all it takes is ONE call!
Well we love being first, and we love it when big media copies us: this weekend, The Dallas Morning News ran a nice piece on Gabe’s company:
“We want to make sure we give you the best rates,” said Gabe Abshire, founder and CEO of Dallas-based Utility Concierge. “We’ll save you time, money and stress.”
Abshire estimates that the average consumer could deal with 36 different people and nine companies when moving into a new home.
That’s a freaking migraine!
Utility Concierge is one of the bigger local players in the industry. Founded in 2009, Utility Concierge operates mainly in the Dallas-Fort Worth region with about 8 percent of the marketplace, Abshire said. The 25-person firm also operates in Houston, San Antonio and Austin.
The company focuses on the residential market, partnering with real estate agents, mortgage brokers, insurance agents and others to find clients. Abshire wants to eventually branch out to the commercial sector.
Gabe tells me he is in Midland, also. And the article says that there is competition now: WhiteFence is a Houston-based company that provides online tools for consumers to compare prices for home services. WhiteFence was acquired last year by competitor Allconnect Inc. in Atlanta. And The Colony-based Utility Connect started in a similar way, helping customers find electricity providers. The company has recently expanded into cable, Internet, telephone, insurance and city utility services.
Utility Connect CEO and president Nate Steele said sales have increased 400 percent in the last year and a half as residents have become more aware of the service.
Amazing to see how it all plays out. The world gets more complicated, what were once simple human tasks take over your every waking moment, someone starts a company to sort it all out, and voila a new business is born.
