Are phone numbers going to be verified?

Merk

I'm on the fence about the new change - not offering refunds anymore on unread messages but offering a leads phone number.

What I want to know is if the phone number is verified as belonging to the lead? Or can the lead just type if any random phone number they want?

DustiO

@Merk I don’t know the answer to this, but I’m finding out for you!

But, overall I’m so excited to see phone numbers required - it has been something I’ve been hoping to see for so long.

I'll let you know what I find out!

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DustiO

@Merk Sorry for the delay, I was out of office until this morning. At this time, phone numbers are not verified. But there a few things to note -

• You only receive the phone number when the customer has reached out directly to you (so they shouldn't be getting lots of calls).
• Customers can only contact 5 pros in the first 4 hours of posting their project.
• We've seen that customers who provide their phone numbers are more serious about getting their job done, so you're more likely to get hired.
• If you do find that a customer has given you a phone number that is either not theirs or that led to a dead end. Please request a refund and choose "customer stopped responding."  We'll review the situation and work to make it right.
• Finally, we are actively working to find the best ways to deliver accurate phone numbers for you.

We would love to hear about your experiences as this rolls out - so let's keep this conversation open.

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Max_Saber

I'm on the same page as you are @Merk, I feel like the space TT is entering here looks good on paper but not so much in execution. I envision this being similar to the "Get a moving quote" where you put in your information then are inundated with calls. I would hope this is revisited and something as simple as a "My preferred contact method: call/text," I know I would prefer to receive 5 texts about a request vs. 5 phone calls.

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DustiO

Thank you both for the insightful feedback. Would love to hear how things go when you start to get leads with phone numbers. As stated above, customers are limited to 5 pros when they first start a project, and speaking from my own experience using Thumbtack as a customer, I honestly wouldn’t reach out to more than 2-3 people and I love when a pro reaches back out quickly. So I don’t think customers are really going to get “inundated” with calls, but time will tell! Remember that customers need to reach out directly to pros in order to see a phone number, so it isn’t exactly like “filling out a need a mover form” where tons of pros are getting a phone number… We are tracking feedback on both pro and customer sides. So please keep it coming!

Hope you’re having a great weekend!