This article was published on March 27, 2013

Fancy Hands teams up with TaskRabbit to move beyond reservations and research with physical tasks


Fancy Hands teams up with TaskRabbit to move beyond reservations and research with physical tasks

Fancy Hands, a service which helps you do things like make reservations and research trips abroad, has announced its integration with TaskRabbit, a network for posting and bidding on physical jobs like installing IKEA furniture.

Fancy Hands has become well-known for its personal assistant-styled offerings, but because it has yet to expand beyond the computer screen and phone, physical requests such as getting your car’s oil changed could not be catered to. This partnership with TaskRabbit changes the dynamic of Fancy Hands slightly, but the integration isn’t as tight as you might hope.

Now, Fancy Hands explains, you can simply say something like this “Please find someone who can come today during our business hours and install six coat hooks in our wall. They should have their own drill and level and other needed tools.”

The assistant could then reply with the following: “Hello, the lowest TaskRabbit bidder for this job is Frank, a handyman with all of his own tools. He will do this job for $50 and he can be there in two hours. Does this work for you?”

In other words, the job posting and selection process has been streamlined, but the experience doesn’t sound as luxurious as services like WunWun, which we reviewed earlier this year.

Still, this is a pleasant change for avid Fancy Hands users with the occasional need for non-digital services. For TaskRabbit, this shift could also help grow its own user base as well.

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