Practical request cleaning service now allows customers to rush through your application

In the middle of a national conversation about tip in restaurants, cleaning and maintenance personnel Application Handy, a rising star in the world "on demand", added the ability to carry your failover smartphone app to make it easier for customers, their gratitude for to make their work expressed.

Practical enables customers to find and pay for house cleaning or repairs with an application on your phone, one of a legion of businesses in the culture "gig economy", people that connects a service - laundry, delivery food, transportation - with an independent contractor who specialize in this work. (Practical called the "pros") Professional cleaning and repair in the corporate network can find the requirements for a job, and collect payment through practical application.

"People have been forward leaning heavily species, and that a better way was," said Oisin Hanrahan, CEO practice at Harvard Business School, he retired in 2012, the company with co-start room.

Most earn about $ 18 per hour in average contract workers and many other companies in the application, you can choose the hours and the frequency with which they work. Practical contributes 20 percent of earned income, without peaks which reflect the professionals in their entirety.

Beta testing of the new failover capability that customers are willing to use it to make extra money, your car were to send. "With the cleaning and maintenance staff, in particular, this is where you give them a tip, if they were satisfied with the service want," Hanrahan said. "As a result, it becomes more likely that people will also change."

Tipping has become a point of contention between independent contractors who for other services "à la carte". In October, a group of owner operators Uber is trying to organize a strike for higher wages society and included a request for the application between their demands Uber error integrated circuit performance.

The change debate gained momentum in October, as a New York restaurateur Danny Meyer decided to raise prices and to eliminate tilting restaurants. The decision sparked a debate about when the tip is mounted, and if the service request should be a feature that customers tip are allowed directly on their applications.

An informal survey conducted by the Boston Globe says that customers tend to use a failover, if available: Driver lyft after customers up to 50 percent of the time received by the Lyft application - with a choice at the end - more experienced drivers Uber inclination of up to 5 percent of the time, cash, because the application is missing Uber option.

Practical he announced in November that it had received $ 50 million in new funding, bringing total venture capital investment of 110 million US $. The immediate goal is to focus on the development of the customer base and the "Pro" in existing cities, "to prove to the rear end of next year, expanding into new vertical markets and new cities," Hanrahan said.

"Handy Book", the company was named for the introduction, first offered his services to Boston and New York in July 2012. This fall Hanrahan and the team moved to New York to build the company. In September last year, the founders changed the name of "practical". If the service now 10,000 entrepreneurs recorded in its network and one million bookings in June this year

Practically is headquartered in New York, but maintains a small office near Downtown Crossing.

Nidhi Subbaraman writes about science and research. Tell nidhi.subbaraman@globe.com.
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