Instant Booking
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A lot of complaints about instant bookings. Just curious how many pros have hidden there account. I have. My prediction: within 2 months Thumbtack will either do away with the mandatory thing or be out of business. I'll wait it out a see. Thumbtack worked great for me in the past but it's not the only way to generate business.
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The plan is to keep it hidden and look for another referral option because TT is now trash. You are running this like a casino in the fact that the house wins no matter what. The pro's lose each and every time. You say that it will equal more jobs, BS. TT customers are always looking to have things done on the cheap. I have had many online discussions and once I tell them the price (which is listed for them to see), they ghost me. Apparently $125 for a service call is too much to find out what problem they have.
Of even better, the customer accepts the job request, I get on site, do the job and then they try to negotiate the already agreed upon price. This is not "lets make a deal".
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So do I get a refund in this situation or they gon take my money welll here you go another $20 plus go to waste
This client was looking for quote and was force to instant book me see the screenshot
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Instant Booking's forced feature is the zenith of arrogance, believing that as a platform, you can account for all the variables in some industries that cannot be neatly contained in this system and then chaotically forcing your providers to comply with some self-gratifying "algorithm" of perfection.
As someone who spends over $400 a month in leads here and has a high customer satisfaction rate with 40 years of experience in the industry, I will state, not predict, that this is the absolute start of the demise of this platform.
1) Customers, with no fault of their own, do not know how to perceive the time required for all facets of construction. Redundantly, you have to meet face-to-face and help them understand times.
2) A customer thinks they need "patch and paint", so it must be a 2-hour project. Well, under further evaluation, they have black mold behind the gypsum board stemming from a roof leak, and a 2-hour booking can turn into a large-scale project.
3) A large portion of customers add on to the original scope as you work to complete the original plan, lengthening the required time of completion.
Construction as an industry is not only full of variables, but dynamic variables, constantly shifting and changing. Instant booking is not compatible with the industry.
Whoever is conceited enough to believe they can program a system to account for such random variables is seriously undermining this platform.
FINALLY
Under large umbrella terms such as "handyman", customers will book you for things either...
- That exceeds regulatory value allowance per job.
- Jobs that do not actually "fit" into handyman skillsets, like "My TV doesn't work".
- Projects that are too small * the distance required to travel to them.
- Projects that are too large for your labor force or physical capabilities.
Instant booking as a function does not allow for any of these ever-shifting variables.
Forcing this is draconian and seems to be someone's auto-gratifying idealistic solution to increase job acceptance rates, which will result in absolute platform failure.
Unless rectified, I will be shifting my budget elsewhere.
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@chilogm1 customers are not forced to book - they can click to reach out to the pro directly if they do not want to book a time (those would be just like the usual direct leads as always). Thanks for sharing this screenshot, I am sure it will be helpful to the team to see that the customer in this case was confused.
@Denn Thank you for this really detailed/category specific feedback, really appreciate it!
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What a shame, Thumbtack. Years of investment in a 5-star rating and you throw this junk on us. Fire whoever made this decision revert to the old arrangement or your company's going down. My account is hidden for the next month, after that I'm out. Just wow
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@Judy please review our Community Code of Conduct if you see that a post has been hidden or removed.
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Hi
Yes, I too have avoided instant book as long as I could. I tried it a few months back but got hit with a break-even lead cost. I backed out of it immediately. Now that its part of the system, I'm trying to live with it. Sometimes its okay but today I got charged $39 for a lead to hang a single mirror (15 mins work). With one hour travel cost and materials, I would be better off returning to my old job and closing my thumbtack account.
I'm okay with Instant book, but the lead prices have got to make sense.
Tom
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Until enough pros hide or close their accounts nothing will change. Thumbtack will continue sending the leads to the pros that hang on. Its pretty clear they don't care. There is 6 pages of negative comments on this thread, and not one response from thumbtack. The reason Thumbtack became popular is that it wasn't Home Advisor. With this latest change they may actually be worse than Home advisor
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This "strategy" was obviously made at the c-level of the organization (high up) and their hubris will not allow them to correct it yet until they see the true results of it. I've "paused" my thumbtack and will soon deactivate it.
The AMAZING part is the decision was allowed by more than one person and they PAID to have this developed and rolled out. Not a single person had the common sense to stop it.
Thumbtack lost touch with the industries it serves or didn't know them to begin with.
Add them to the radioshack, kmart, blockbuster pile and sell the assets to Spirit Halloween
I know for a large company $400 a month in ad spend isn't much, but this is going to seriously add up for them. You will have some desperados who lose money in the hopes of lead acquisition but eventually they will have to concede to the fact it is not sustainable.
The community manager (admin) here is not responsible for such a horrendous model of business.
All they can do is pass it along but by the time the technocrats fix it in shame our personal businesses will be elsewhere.
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Horrible decision by Thumbtack. Lead price spike 4 to 8 times! We need to increase our prices and charge customers service fee in order to make our margin to survive. I own a moving company and we charge by the hourly rate depends on how many movers customer would like to hire. We always put our customer first before we even think about profit but now we have to think money first to cover the expensive lead cost. We will definitely increase our budget on different lead sources and reduce Thumbtack from now on. At the end of the day we are Thumbtack customer no the customers who is hiring us!
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I just paid $60 for a lead and the customer didn't even want the job. When she saw the price she bailed. I've been on Thumbtack for 8 years and have only 5 star ratings. I will not be using thumbtack services anymore and I'm sad about that since I loved the platform. This cash grab will drive away pros and they truly deserve it for tripling the price on the community that supported them for years.
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Hey...I'm done! This instant booking is one sided (Thumbtack's best interests). I've been with Thumbtack 3 years and it has been a great way for me to grow my cleaning service business. I have taken the steps to hide my business and I have reached out to other marketing sources to help me generate better leads that allow for better margins.
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Iam a contractor that depends on Thumbtack and iam new to thes community but just like many of you I rely on thumbtack for new leads. From a horrible exp with a different service that basically ate up y funds and didn't produce one valuable lead thumbtack was like a ray of sunshine . I nearly doubled my buisness in one year and I was so happy but then thumbtack decided to apply this instant booking its horrible i got a lead for $250 the customer instant booked it and I charged 450 for the job these case removing junk alone from loosing 250 on the lead the job was a headway which ate at the profit plus my employee and the dump fee litterly just working to pay my expenses iam so disappointed in these service I worked so hard to get reviews up y service I spend some were between 400-600 for leads every week but with these option were I have to block my whole calendar or I might get one of these instant booking leads . I hope these changes soon
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I just got the email/notification that I am being forced into instant book, the biggest issue is, I RARELY do in person estimates as I travel all over the state. How was this even a required thing? Why can’t we opt out of this feature? I am so frustrated this has become such a needless hassle for us Pro’s. I might be hiding my business for the rest of the year when they require it. Such a shame.
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Hi!! I thought I would post some insight of how successful insta book has helped my business. I run a successful hvac/plumbing business that I started 3 years ago, I use thumb tack heavily everyday. Insta book is treated as a hot lead, which for us means communicate with customers within the first five minutes of receiving the lead. We’re doing this we have over a 90% non cancel rate and sell over 70% of these leads. When somebody Insta book means are usually on the site or near their phone and are looking to settle that booking and move onto the next thing in their life if you do not call them and communicate with them immediately the lead is not as hot and your chances drop if confirmed booking. A lot of people are not familiar that Insta book is actually booking their appointment. Well some other ones know that it is and don’t want to move. I’ve had a success with communication and I think that’s key with the Insta book. Are used several lead sources in the past, and spent thousands upon thousands of dollars I’ve come to the realization that Thumbtack is probably the best today.. without Insta book I doubt I would’ve been able to grow my business and compete with the other people that have been on here for longer than me.
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Show us some screenshots of your instant booked leads along with lead costs and what you charged for the jobs.
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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.
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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.
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Like the above pros, this feature does not work for me. Of the first two instant bookings both canceled one was for the wrong trade (asked for refund) then the other had a neighbor do it instead. This is a bad feature and I would like to opt out ASAP. I have been with TT from the start and I/We feel like we're being punished.
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Required instant booking is such a slap in the face to pros. I started using Thumbtack in February of 2022 and it’s been so good up until this point. It’s unbelievable that I’m now paying 2-3x the price of a normal lead and not only this but that instant booking is essentially what Thumbtack is pushing for customers to do.
I’d average 5-7 leads a week before the change and now we’re halfway through the week and I’ve only gotten 2 leads? One of which was an instant book and put me at half of my weekly budget for leads. It’s so greedy and slimy.
We’re not going to boost our weekly budget in hopes of more work, we’re deliberately being put out. More money for them, less opportunities for us.
They don’t care that customers don’t actually want to book sometimes, they don’t care that customers won’t always understand why a business needs to operate the way it does, they don’t care that some of us depend on this keep up financially with our lives.
Required instant booking and instant booking in general is NOT a good or helpful feature. Really turned off by this. The app was great when I could use it however I felt like using it.
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