Instant Booking

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Comments

  • Denn
    Denn Posts: 7
    edited October 2023


  • Eryn
    Eryn Posts: 9

    I’d like to address a recent situation with the 15-minute refund policy in the forced instant booking system. I responded immediately to an instant booking request, reaching out via text and phone( all within 2-4 min) , but received no response from the client and no indication that they opened the message. This leaves us uncertain about the booking, and with the 15 min policy in place, it can be a challenge for all of our businesses. I believe there should be more flexibility in such cases, as it doesn’t provide a fair and workable solution for businesses like ours. If a client doesn’t reply at all, we should get refunded regardless of the time.

    For instant book to even have a chance of working, clients need to be required to pay a deposit before submitting a booking.

  • just got the new update about instant booking. they literally changing everything from regular to instant book. by the end of the year we won't see opportunities anymre it will be instantbook and if client don't want to hire you they just going to open another request for the same project which mean s another chage for someone else to pay.

  • Matt
    Matt Posts: 162

    @DustiO I called up customer service about "Required instant bookings" and the rep said that I could turn it off if I didn't want to use it, is that true for my industry?

  • DustiO
    DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 1,809

    @Matt Your category is eligible for bookable onsite estimates, but you can turn that off. Did they show you how to do that?

  • Matt
    Matt Posts: 162

    @DustiO Yep! I know how to enable/disable the feature. Is it going to be turned on automatically on November 6th?

  • DustiO
    DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 1,809

    @SilverLiningCleaning thank you for all of this feedback! I am sharing this thread daily with teams to be sure all of the feedback is being heard.

    Can you send me a DM with the leads that were canceled within 15 minutes that weren’t refunded? Thank you!

  • @DustiO can you clarify on this lead for me. Thank you I seen that this morning and it raise some alerts about insiders I request a refund and haven’t heard nothing back


  • @PaceCleaning in some category I max out my budget on when I use the customer app to look for pro in the area that I serves I have to scroll down and get to another slides before I find my business. And without criticizing other companies. I see new company with 0 reviews and company I have more reviews den and better rating. If I’m paying max for more competitive why am I below someone who’s new on the app. That makes no sense to me. And the fact that you can put your max lead to competitive in all categories and still get a messages saying raise your price cause so you can be shown in search is outrageous. Worst thing is the fact that a client can contact more den 3 - 4 pros at the same time is crazy. If someone contact 4 pro and the lead was $20 and client decide to cancel the projects after 15 minutes. That’s almost $80 plus goes straight to thumbtack for no reason. I remember when thumbtack was different back den I use to spend 300 to 600 a weeek for leads and would get 30 plus leads now I just spent $150 for an average of 6-8 leads where I can only close on only 4 good leads.

  • DustiO
    DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 1,809

    @chilogm1 looking into this now and for sure it looks fishy - I can see that you submitted a request, but it was less than 24 hours ago. I'm seeing what I can find out for you and I will send you a DM!

  • @PaceCleaning my other issues for instant booking is how am I getting book for a client who’s just shopping for quotes from 3-4 different pro. Is like I’m paying to give a free quote without knowing if I’m getting hire. I paid double the price because I was instant book and if the client cancel after getting the quote from me passing the 15 mark I don’t get a refund den the client go and book someone else and repeat the process as many time as possible until they satisfy with a quote from someone.

  • rvgrand
    rvgrand Posts: 51

    @DustiO I read one of your comments stating that instant booking isn't forced but I just tried booking a service through my client thumbtack app (not thumbtack pro app) and here is where it took me.


    Nowhere through out this process did the app ask if there should be other pros to seek out.

    If this isn't forced, please clarify.

  • DrewL03
    DrewL03 Posts: 13

    The beginning of this thread has a poll asking if we want the instant book. With 50 responses as of this moment, 76% of them want instant booking totally eliminated and 22% want the ability to opt out. Only 1 person, who in my opinion has a conflict of interest, voted in favor of the current IB policy. So the verdict is in. 98% of the pros do not want required participation in IB. @DustiO, you say you owned a business prior to working for Thumbtack. Can you tell me that if you instituted a policy change that 98% of your customers didn't like, you would keep that policy? Of course you wouldn't. So what are we doing here? Why has Thumbtack not reacted to this overwhelming feedback?

  • Denn
    Denn Posts: 7


    Agreed, and when I posted about that conflict of interest you speak of and showed a public interview on Medium of the person who implemented IB (I did not doxx them) it was a public interview where I could show using 500 TV mount installs was not good data to roll out this change, my post was deleted!

  • rvgrand
    rvgrand Posts: 51

    @Denn Do you happen to have a link to that interview? Maybe PM me so it doesn't get taken down.

  • @Denn I'd be curious to see that interview as well.

  • I want to know which pros they work with to get the info because from the feedback we been giving about instant booking there’s no way she said they work close with some of the pro. Also we were all surprise by the new changes that role out on us without notice the only notice we get was a reminder or warning about hey you will be enroll in instant book. I don’t want to sound rude but some of those answer have no back up claims from any pros that I know in here.

    I want to know which one of the project manager run a business on the same platform and share their ideas about instant book. Read carefully the line I highlighted please tell me if those things are true cause instant booking not only it wasn’t easy to understand it took a long time to get use to. And by saying cancel the back and forth is such a bad thing cause who wants to go to a client house for tv mounting that show on thumbtack there was the need for 1 tv mount den when we get there the client said oh I have 4-5 TVs and I thought the price shown cover all 5s. Saying instant book cancel the back in fourth when client is pretty much going back in fourth asking question and showing what exactly they want to get done and looking for quote is crazy. Cause no matter what the back and forth still happen no matter what.