Feedback About Premature Review Requests

ArthurHandyman

I’d like to share some feedback about the automatic reminders encouraging Pros to ask customers for reviews shortly after receiving a lead.
　　I frequently receive a new lead, and only about 10 minutes later Thumbtack sends me a message suggesting that I ask the customer for a review. At that point, in many cases, the customer and I have barely started communicating. Sometimes the customer hasn’t even responded yet. We may not have discussed the details of the project, agreed on a price, scheduled an appointment, or even decided whether we are going to work together.
　　So asking a Pro to request a review at this stage simply doesn’t make sense. A review should represent a customer’s experience with a completed service. How can I reasonably ask someone to review my work when I haven’t performed any work for them yet — and may never end up working with them at all?
　　There is already a much more logical opportunity to request a review after the job is completed. When a Pro marks a job as completed, Thumbtack provides the option to ask the customer for a review. That is the appropriate time for this reminder because there has actually been a service and the customer has something meaningful to review.
　　I believe these early review reminders are unnecessary and make the lead conversation more cluttered without providing any real benefit. They also put Pros in an awkward position by encouraging us to ask customers for something before we have earned it.
　　I would suggest removing these review reminders from the beginning of the lead conversation and only showing them after there is a reasonable indication that the job has actually taken place — for example, when the job is marked as completed.
This would make the communication flow cleaner, more logical, and more professional for both Pros and customers. I would appreciate it if this feedback could be forwarded to the product team for consideration.