Instant Booking

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Comments

  • yea I’ve had 161 views and 4 leads 2 of which were direct booking then cancelations 1 of which was for concrete repair and another one who won’t return calls or messages


  • The only way to stop this insanity and outright thievery is for EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE to pause their account. No matter how much your business relies on TT. It's just not profitable this way. Every time a major company's employees goes on strike, IT WORKS.

  • Dusti... we have all shared... your turn. 1) How much is revenue down since TT mandated direct booking? 2) How much has PRO satisfaction declined? 3) How much has client satisfaction declined? 4) What is the email address of the executive who has been ignoring our requests to make direct booking voluntary? 5) Is there any chance things will ever go back to the way it was before? You know... when TT won, Pros won, and customers won? 6) Am I just wasting my time monitoring this forum in hopes that someone over there will trip over their own feet, fall on their keyboard and somehow hit the button to disable this dumb idea?

  • Maybe we should look into the legality of how Thumbtack changed their business model dramatically and in the process has taken thousands of our hard-earned dollars . If Instant Book is the new "model" how/why then am I still getting Leads ? These supposed "leads" are bogus and 90% of the time I get no response. I'm pausing my account until I recoup some money and understand how the heck they operate. Seems sketch.

  • Terms of service nothing will happen. Just stop using and switch to Angie’s or run ads on Facebook or Instagram

  • I know. I should've left a month ago.

  • I am still hiding my profile. I/we suspect an alternative motive. This executive decision has poisoned several careers. Your lack of empathy is kind of shocking.

  • I can't believe I have no job... No work for weeks.. I'm so in shock right now.

  • Chuva
    Chuva Posts: 3

    @DustiO , paying this much for customer who is just getting a quote and cancel the booking. Why did you guys just put 15 min limit for the credit refund? Who makes a decision in 15 min? These are came through”Instant Booking” and cancelled within a day. Most of the people they don’t read the minimum number of hours for the move. After we request a refund you guys send automatic message saying Thumbtack gets your business in front of customers for free. I understand if the customer just message us not instantly book. We understand there is going to be ups and down for using lead provider but paying this much for nothing us ridiculious. This is just a few example and we have tons of these since Instant Booking was mandatory. Are you guys planning to make this optional or not? Are you guys make the 15 min at least a day to get the refund if customer cancels???


  • robf
    robf Posts: 18

    After a month I decided to try it out. I got one instant booking, paid $37 for a $450 job an hour away. Not great, but I can live with that. Until today, when he called and said he got another price of $400 and needed me to match it. Even though he booked me, he went back on the app to price shop.

    Then I just paid $47 for a $375 job. I agreed to the scope, price and schedule, immediately. The the the customer cancelled, 23 minutes after I received the lead. No reason stated.

    This is as bad as I thought, and I am done. I hope someone with more time and energy than I have sues Thumbtack. This is stealing @DustiO, and you defend it every day. As a former business owner and Thumbtack user you know better than most what a load of crap this is

  • robf
    robf Posts: 18

    @Sean82 yes, and really dumb. Guilty as charged

  • Chuva
    Chuva Posts: 3

    @DustiO Another case, cancelled again. Received a booking at 3:29pm and cancelled at 4:19pm. Booked the move and customer cancels without giving description. This is just the examples only happening today not to mention the other days. No hope of getting a refund???


  • My response to you needs approval and won’t be posted so take that as what this platform has become. Terms of service and community guidelines

  • I emailed the CEO directly via LinkedIn... he actually responded.

  • Matt
    Matt Posts: 157

    @AngelicHousekeeping care to share what he said ?

  • I'm sorry to hear it isn't working for your business. What would it take to get it there? We're committed to enabling customers to book pros (that's what everyone wants) but we're equally committed to make it work for pros like you.

  • Earlier in this thread I posted a message with CEO Marco Zappacosta's email address, which he posted on Twitter, and my post got deleted. I suggest everyone look that up and let him know your thoughts. Help him understand that you are not just a number on a spreadsheet, and that accumulating mass amounts of wealth and status among his San Francisco tech bro peers comes at a human cost for thousands of working class people.

  • Also, I just noticed that they rigged the dates on the posts in this thread to appear 2 weeks older in order to push this thread down to the second page. For shame, Thumbtack.


  • DustiO
    DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 1,754

    @DrewL03 it is not possible to rig the dates of a post. We've never had a post with this many comments and it is most likely a bug of some sort, I will reach out to Vanilla, our platform provider. Please review our Community Code of Conduct and keep conversations constructive. Thanks.

  • DustiO
    DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 1,754

    I think it's fixed now! If it still isn't fixed, feel free to start a new thread around Instant Book feedback and we can merge them once it is, but on my end I am now seeing the post with today's date (the date you see on the post should be the date of the most recent comment).

  • Matt
    Matt Posts: 157

    @DustiO I had two instant books with no hires on either of them (one was just asking for numbers, the other pushed the project to next year).

    the issue is, Thumbtack is assuming I was hired based on the instant book, and is falsely reflecting I was hired by these two clients. I don’t mind that it increases my hired “X” amount of times, but it does seem weird that TT counts that. So is a “book” always going to be a hire?

  • Design and architectural services skyrocket from Nov and only starts slowing down around July. Yet, on TT I have none. I was told by a TT rep the reason I have 0 leads is because there isn’t much customer interest in design or architecture currently. This is not accurate in either field.

    My insights don’t show the graph anymore, as seen on the bottom image, and instead says to work on my pro page. I’m a top pro so that’s not the reason.

    Just letting the others know without leads, it’s also effecting me at our busiest time of the year. If anyone has recommendations for me please let me know. Thank you.



  • I’ve not got a lead in almost 4 weeks but have had 158 views. But thumbtack allows non licensed pros to advertise so I guess they are just undercutting me

  • It is fixed on my end I see on the front page as well.

  • DustiO
    DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 1,754

    @Modern_designer11 I will take a look and see if I can find anything that might help. In the meantime @Ashish_Architect do you have any advice for this pro?

  • DustiO
    DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 1,754

    @Modern_designer11 Ok, I took a few minutes to look into your profile — a couple things I can recommend. Try boosting your competitive level (even if just a little bit), and you could also try responding to your existing reviews and getting a few more new reviews, as well as decreasing your response time and adding a few new photos and/or featured projects. All of those things will help bump you up in ranking. However, you are already showing in the 5th spot, so you are still on the first page, which is great.

    If you look at your "how you compare" page in your insights you'll be able to see the number of active pros vs the number of requests and there haven't been a ton of requests in your categories so that may also be a factor. Maybe due to the recent holiday? Hopefully it pick up soon.

    I am seeing the graphs on my end when I log in, which is strange. I would maybe recommend submitting a bug report about that.

  • Hi @DustiO , I am stumped as to why @Modern_designer11 is not getting any design related leads, the market for that seems quite hot. What was it like last year? When did the traffic stop for you? The only thing I can think of is to make sure you have reviews showing up and of course, you reply quickly. I cannot go your profile page, so cannot see your page to make any suggestions.

  • DustiO
    DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 1,754

    Speaking of looking back at this time last year, I would love to hear what tools you all use to track your ROI for your businesses? I think this is something that is extremely important to do, but a lot of people don't actually track it. When I was a business owner I used a simple excel spreadsheet, but I know there are so many amazing tools out there.

    If any of you do track your ROI and are willing to share what tools you use, that would be great. Tracking your ROI and sending that feedback in numbers to Thumbtack is always incredibly valuable as well. You can send it to support@thumbtack.com so that it gets logged specifically under your account (I am sharing this thread with teams, but this doesn't get logged under your account specifically). We're working on a feedback mechanism in the Community that will link to your TT accounts, hopefully early next year. In the meantime please keep sharing, I am committed to sharing your feedback and will update here a soon as I have updates to share. Thank you all for your continued contributions.

    @Matt I will find out about the "hire" question.