Opportunities Are Not Really Opportunities

STL_Shooter78

When is Thumbtack going to stop hiding the messages that are sent from Pros to job posters via the Opportunities?

The messages are NOT put in the job poster's Thumbtack profile inbox.

They are HIDDEN under a section called "Pros who want to work with you".

See pics attached for a visual of how this works.

For this job example, I was logged into my job poster account. I only contacted Advantage Contracting Services, LLC.

Marshall Contracting saw my post, either from an email or the Opportunities tab. They sent me a message through their Thumbtack profile. (Pic 1) The message did not go to my Thumbtack inbox (Pic 2). I had to click on Marshall Contracting's profile to see their message. (Pic 3).

I can figure this out because I am a Thumbtack Pro and know basically how the platform works. But the average job poster is not going to know there are other Pros sending them messages.

Hiding these messages makes zero sense. And it actually hurts Thumbtack for 2 reasons:

1). Thumbtack is losing money by not having these contacts made and therefore Pros being charged for the contact.

2) It hurts the brand from a job poster perspective. The job poster doesn't connect with a Pro that can do their job, so the job poster walks away from Thumbtack thinking "Well, that website didn't really work. I don't think I'll try that again next time."

Matt

Thank you for posting! I have always been curious what the client sees on their end when they receive an opportunity. The staff have always been cagey about telling us exactly how it is shown.

DustiO

I agree we could do better about making the app more understandable on the customer side — and lots of work is being done to make it better currently. I would suggest dropping this feedback to support@thumbtack.com as well, to be sure it's logged. Thank you!

STL_Shooter78

Dusti, this is not a glitch that needs to be logged. This is the way the platform was built, intentionally.

I did reach out to one job poster in TX when I got an email about his lead. He wanted a music video shot. He responded to me. So I'm not saying that the connection is never made. But 98% of the time, there is no evidence that they even saw my message. And a majority of those people are not hiring anyone on Thumbtack. I can see this from my "Sent Messages' folder. So Thumbtack is losing out on money and failing to make a connection between job poster and qualified Pro.

I've seen job posts for very specific things like adoption plea videos. I've actually made a couple of those before. Will that job poster see my message and respond to me? I don't have hope that they will.

So I don't think this is a matter of someone looking into an issue with the platform. This is a top down thing. Someone like Marco needs to take a hard look at the platform and decide if they want to change it fundamentally.

Ganeshboy1

Thumbtack Opportunities are not Opportunities follow up.

I had experienced the same problems as you have described. I reached out to more than 40 opportunities and not a single response, no even a "NO". I investigated it and found out your are correct. On top of that, their pro ranking a searching is also suspect. When I put in my zip code and search for painting jobs as a potential customer it will show me in the search ranking for 1 through 3 rooms to be painted. But once you toggle it to 4 rooms or more, I dont even appear in the search rankings. This means that the bigger jobs are being reserved probably for their higher revenue pro contractors. Please read the email below I had sent to Thumbtack explaining what I had found out and what the details and evidence are:

Hello, 

I am writing in regards to a refund dispute.  This was not an actual job.  We had to investigate how it was possible that if we had reached out to over 40 opportunity clients and not a single response was received, not even a "No" response.  After investigating the matter it was revealed there was not a single response because none of these clients are able to see our messages reaching out to them because Thumbtack does not show the message to the clients and some other Pro's have complained about this and this is listed in your Thumbtack community posts (see attached images) 

I had called in and asked customer service how it was possible that not a single client responded to more than 40 attempts to contact them through your opportunities tab and was told it was based upon varying factors.  It turns out this is not the case in that they are not actually seeing any of the messages because they can only be seen if you click on the pro profile picture so they are hidden.  I have a Masters in Business Administration and had taken statistics and realized that it was not possible to not have even gotten a single response from more than 40 attempts.  In addition to this, there was one contractor that we were able to see their message from the single opportunities request.  I was told that ranking will affect your ability to be seen.  If this is the case, then why is it that you allowed this one new contractor that has only one confirmed review and one confirmed completed job to show their message when we have been in business much longer and have so many more positive reviews than them and we have been on your platform much longer with so many more jobs?  

Another problem we discovered which makes no sense is this.  When a client goes and searches for painting services in our area, if they put in a request for painting a 1, 2, and 3 rooms, you are able to see our profile, but once it is toggled to more than three rooms, we are not seen then?  This shows that for the bigger jobs we are being purposely restricted from being seen (see attached photos where we can be seen for 1 through 3 rooms but not seen once the selection goes above 3 rooms???  This means that not only are we not being seen for the larger jobs, but you are also allowing a brand new pro with only 1 review and no experience on your platform to have their actual message be seen to the clients.  What we have discovered is very concerning and it shows us that your are restricting our company from even being seen for any larger jobs, not allowing our opportunities messages to be seen by over 40 clients, and also allowing a brand new contractor with only one review and 1 job history to have their message be seen to a potential client and not us with our vastly larger number of jobs and reviews.  We had to check on these inconsistencies to understand why this was happening because it affects our livelihood.  On top of this, you denied the refund?  Please review the information provided and if you can provide an explanation it would be greatly appreciated.  We had reached out to your corporate office to discuss the matter in that there seems to be very clear evidence that your system has placed some contractors under a severe disadvantage while competing with others on your site.  Your attention and consideration is appreciated in this matter.  Thank you.