Why Your Customers May Want More Than One Service
You may have built your business around one clear service: accounting, delivery, beauty care, tuition, repairs, food, logistics, or professional consulting. That focus is useful. It helps you explain what you do and serve customers well.
But customers rarely think in neat business categories. When they trust one company, they often want help with the next related problem too. A customer who books a service may also need advice, follow-up support, payments, records, recommendations, or access to a trusted partner. The challenge is deciding whether to expand carefully or create a confusing collection of features that nobody uses.
Grindr’s move from a dating app towards a broader community platform offers a useful lesson for Malaysian SME owners. The company is exploring healthcare, travel, personalised recommendations, and premium services around its existing user base. Its strategy is not simply “add more functions”. It is to understand what customers already need before and after the main interaction.
TL;DR: Start with a problem your existing customers already have, not a random new feature. Test adjacent services in small steps, measure actual usage, and keep trust, privacy, and service quality at the centre.
What This Means
An “everything app” brings several related activities into one customer experience. Instead of asking users to leave one platform and search elsewhere, the business provides connected services in the same place.
For example, a travel platform may offer bookings, local recommendations, transport, insurance information, and customer support. A fitness business may provide classes, appointment booking, health content, progress tracking, and referrals to specialists. A retailer may combine product discovery, payment, delivery tracking, warranties, and after-sales support.
The important idea is not that every SME should build a giant app. That would be unsuitable for most small businesses. The useful principle is adjacent value: identify the next problem your customer faces and make it easier to solve.
Grindr’s approach is based on several connected moves. It is increasing the value of its existing customer relationships, testing premium features, using artificial intelligence to personalise recommendations, and extending into areas such as healthcare and travel. According to the source article, its revenue is guided to exceed US$540 million in 2026, compared with US$195 million in 2022, while its adjusted EBITDA margin remains above 40%. Source
The company also reported 1.4 million paying users in the second quarter of 2026, representing 9% of its user base. Source For you, the lesson is not to copy these figures. It is to ask whether your existing customers have unmet needs that your business is well placed to serve.
The best expansion usually follows an existing customer journey. It does not begin with a feature list; it begins with the next problem your customer needs solved.
How This Applies to Malaysian SMEs
1. A Malaysian clinic can build around the patient journey. A clinic does not need to become a full hospital to offer a more connected experience. If patients regularly ask about appointment reminders, medicine instructions, follow-up consultations, health screening, or nearby diagnostic services, these are natural adjacent needs. A simple WhatsApp workflow, online booking page, digital reminder, and approved referral directory may be more useful than a complicated new application.
For example, a general practice in Selangor could allow patients to book appointments, receive preparation instructions, get reminders, and request follow-up information through one channel. If the clinic refers patients to a laboratory or specialist, the referral process can be made clearer. The clinic remains focused on care while reducing unnecessary back-and-forth communication.
2. A retailer can become a trusted product guide, not only a seller. Malaysian retailers often compete on products that customers can find elsewhere. You can create more value by helping customers choose, maintain, replace, and use what they buy. A home appliance retailer might offer installation coordination, maintenance reminders, troubleshooting guides, warranty records, and vetted technicians. A mobile phone shop might provide data transfer, device setup, repair coordination, and upgrade reminders.
This does not require building every service yourself. You could connect existing tools and trusted partners. The customer should experience one clear process, while your business manages the handover behind the scenes. Start with one common request that currently consumes staff time or causes customer frustration.
3. A service business can use customer history to provide better recommendations. A salon, automotive workshop, tuition centre, or fitness studio already collects useful information through appointments and conversations. With proper consent and sensible data handling, that history can support relevant reminders and recommendations.
An automotive workshop could remind a customer about a follow-up inspection based on the vehicle’s previous service record. A salon could suggest appointment timing based on the customer’s normal schedule. A tuition centre could send parents a progress summary and recommend suitable revision materials. These are practical forms of personalisation. They do not need to feel intrusive or rely on complicated artificial intelligence.
The source article says Grindr reported a 2.5-times increase in engineering productivity over one year and that about 80% of its code was AI-written. Source You should not treat that as a reason to put AI everywhere. Instead, consider where automation can help your small team summarise enquiries, classify customer requests, draft replies, or identify follow-up tasks. Keep a human responsible for important decisions.
A Simple Expansion Framework
| Question | What to check | Example |
|---|---|---|
| What is the main customer job? | Why does the customer choose you? | Repairing a vehicle |
| What happens next? | Identify the next common need | Maintenance reminder or inspection |
| How often does it occur? | Review enquiries and repeat requests | Ask for the last 6–12 months of records |
| Can you serve it well? | Check capability, partners, and compliance | Use a vetted specialist |
| What proves demand? | Track usage, completion, and complaints | Count completed requests, not clicks |
Keep the first test narrow. If you operate a logistics company, do not immediately create a marketplace, finance service, warehouse network, and customer portal. Begin with shipment status updates and delivery exception handling. If customers repeatedly ask for storage, then investigate storage partnerships. Let evidence guide expansion.
Practical Takeaways
- Map the customer journey: List what happens before, during, and after your main service.
- Review real enquiries: Study WhatsApp messages, calls, complaints, and repeat requests from the past 6–12 months. This time range is a planning guide, not an external data claim.
- Choose one adjacent problem: Select the need that is frequent, relevant, and close to your existing capabilities.
- Test without overbuilding: Use a landing page, form, WhatsApp workflow, spreadsheet, or staff-assisted process before commissioning custom software.
- Set clear success measures: Track completed bookings, repeat usage, response time, referrals, and customer satisfaction.
- Protect customer trust: Explain what information you collect, why you need it, and who can access it.
- Use partners carefully: Agree on service standards, response times, data handling, and responsibility for customer complaints.
- Keep the core service strong: Do not add new services if your existing delivery is already unreliable.
Where Artificial Intelligence Fits
Artificial intelligence can support an adjacent-service strategy, but it should solve a specific operational problem. You might use it to suggest relevant products, summarise a customer’s previous requests, route enquiries to the right employee, or draft a follow-up message. It can also help your team identify customers who may need a reminder, provided your data use is appropriate and transparent.
Start with low-risk tasks. Do not allow an automated system to give medical advice, approve sensitive applications, make employment decisions, or promise a service that your team cannot deliver. For regulated areas, including healthcare and financial services, check the relevant Malaysian requirements and use qualified professionals.
The Bigger Picture
The long-term trend is towards businesses becoming more useful across a customer’s full journey. This does not mean every company needs one super-app. It means customers will increasingly value fewer handovers, clearer records, faster answers, and recommendations that feel relevant.
For Malaysian SMEs, this creates an advantage. You may not have the resources of a large platform, but you often know your customers personally and understand local needs. A focused business with strong trust can connect a small number of services better than a large company with a confusing menu.
Grindr’s experience also shows the risk. Its expansion into premium and healthcare-related services depends on customers believing that the new offerings are genuinely useful. The source article reports that its proposed EDGE premium tier was still being tested, with pricing experiments rather than a final confirmed price. Source This is a reminder that a bold idea still needs careful testing.
Your next step is simple: speak to ten existing customers and ask, “What do you usually need after buying from us?” Record the answers without defending your current process. If the same issue appears repeatedly, design the smallest possible solution and test it with a limited group.
The goal is not to become everything to everyone. The goal is to become more helpful in the moments that matter most to the customers you already serve.
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