Thumbtack Lead Quality and refund

Jingjun

We've been spending more and more money and getting less and less quality leads from thumbtack. We are literally Top 1 on the platform in the area. We tracked our spending the month of September and below is what we got.

Total: $1,008.7 spent, NOT retained for a single job

Among the leads received, 11 leads Total $312.were fraudulent and thumbtack refuse to refund. When I say fraudulent, I meant one of the below situations:

1. customer's phone number does not work at all and no response from app either. We make sure we call every lead at least 3 times on top of responding in the app.

2. Customer is looking for completely irrelevant services or the project is illegal. We provide architectural design service. Some of the leads are people looking to get their window replaced or wants to divide their 2 family house into 4 family, which is illegal.

We've called customer service and was told to consider thumbtack as an advertisement service. And the "sale" is final. Well when I sign up for advertisement service, I pay for time to be visible which is measurable. When thumbtack steal money from our account, it's based on "lead" sold to us. When the so called "lead" has no valid contact info or no potential project, it's not a "lead" by any definition. It's steal, not sale.

All other leads, total almost $700 were from none-serious customer who just wants free consultations.

The main problem with thumbtack is they don't qualify customers. Anyone can make up a user name and a phone number and contact any pro. It's easier to use for customers, but pros are hurt and thumbtack profits from our pain. It's time for us to move on to a fairer platform.

Matt

I agree, we need at the very least 2 factor authentication for the customers reaching out to the Pro's. The biggest issue I have seen is people rarely come back on the platform after submitting a request. Calls and texts have resulted in all my jobs. I also think customers should be required to give the pro a valid email (That TT verifies), so we have multiple ways of getting ahold of them. The general sentiment is that TT doesn't care about the Pro's on the platform, which based on the recent actions, I tend to agree, but the more we bring up these concerns, the more likely they will be forced to change.