Do you think thumbtack should refund a direct lead you pay for and that lead doesn’t respond?

aroundtheclockAlex1

When dealing with leads we have exact matches which we get charged for by thumbtack

and alot of times those leads don’t answer any calls or direct texts /messages from us as pros.

we reach out to the customer who we just paid for their direct lead and they never answer or respond yet we have to still cover the cost . Do you think that policy should change because we never had a chance to sell our services to the customer so it’s unfair to have to pay for something that wasn’t verified by thumbtack?

DanPincus

Yes

Whenever this happens to me, I pause targeting. It’s just too frustrating.

Fact: we don’t pay a monthly fee to be on Thumbtack. Clearly, Thumbtack has to make money, and the way they do it is to allow a customer to send many direct leads for which they deduct the fees from us. I would rather pay more for a job I get them to pay it this way. Of course, Thumbtack benefits when a shopper. Another possibility is to raise our direct lead fees only slightly for jobs we get, but reduce them if a customer doesn’t respond at all. Somehow, someway, we all have to benefit. The current system is like a monthly fee.

KTCOorganizing

Yes

Paying for direct leads without getting to pick and choose is entirely frustrating for me in my industry. Not every lead is a good fit! Some jobs just isnt a job for me!!! I've set my budget to the lowest possible just so I can show in the search results. But I am about to start requesting a refund for every lead that doesn't fit! Cannot stand their automatic charge feature!!!

DanPincus

Yes

Clearly, Thumbtack figures this is the ideal business model. However, it is demoralizing to us professionals. I would rather pay more for jobs I get, or even a monthly fee. This is room for improvement.

Jubal

Yes

TT.com is nearly broken from my point of view. With no published definitions of Services, "Leads" must self-navigate... (If they know what they were doing, they might not be on TT.com.) and this causes Pros to pay more for Direct "Leads" that are wrongly aligned. Bad for Lead, costly for Pro, and eventually the end for TT.com-like platforms, as-is.

gracecompletepm

100%yes

Especially when the lead takes a quarter of your weekly budget. I think the customers should have to pay a fee of some kind, so that way they take it more seriously. I've had customers put duplicate leads that I end of getting charged for twice (which thumbtack will refund), but it's because they are unaware that we get charged, or they just don't care. I'm not sure if they think we are big businesses, and that little charge won't matter to us, or if they just don't know that it charges us. I'm pretty sure they just don't know. Even if there was a pop up when they submitted their request, asking if they were sure they wanted to go through with it because they are costing pros money to request their services...