Instant Booking
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I love Thumbtack but they seriously dropped the ball with instant booking. I am charged twice the price for a lead and I cannot chat with the client to get the scope of the job unless I accept the booking which never works with my schedule. Every customer I talk with now is after they get an inaccurate estimate from me because don’t know the scope of the job. I would rather pay more for the lead and have the competition with the other pros. Stupidest idea ever!!!
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I'm constantly instant booked by people who have no intention of paying my quoted prices and don't respond within the 15 minute mark. I try to get a refund but most get denied. I'm slowly moving my business away from thumbtack. At almost 600 reviews with an average 5 star rating, it's Thumbtack's fault for pushing me away with these changes. I used to recommend my clients spread the word about this platform but now redirect them to other means of getting service providers. Word of mouth is everything and it's obvious Thumbtack doesn't care.
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@Matt Thumbtack was really the only ease of use platform I used and recommended because of the lack of marketing that I had to do. Nextdoor and Facebook local community groups have surprisingly been working better than expected.
Now I educate my clients on proper research on who they hire as a service provider and am working on SEO to better market myself.
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I love seeing these recommendations, as a former business owner (and Thumbtack Pro) it's absolutely important to diversify when it comes to marketing. But, just wanted to hop in to say that we are currently working on (and testing and rolling out) a lot of improvements to Instant Book. Would LOVE to hear what would make Instant Book work for you, @rvgrand? Thanks for all of the input too @Matt!
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@Avixmovingpros try to email thumbtack support with the text message conversation you had with the client see if that helps in anyway.
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@Avixmovingpros I echo what @ShaquealThomas said, I would recommend emailing support@thumbtack.com and I took a few minutes to look at your account and I would also HIGHLY recommend taking a look at how you have your Max Lead Prices set, and set those to prices you feel comfortable paying for leads (you currently have it set at as high as it can go).
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I tried getting a refund the last time I was on Thumbtack and I never got a call an email or a response from Thumbtack for a refund, I requested due to the customer not responding to my text or even reaching out to me after I got the automatic lead, I would get charged for leads and they never responded nor did I get a refund, maybe this time things work out better, well see.
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@DustiO I do have a few recommendations to make instant booking more service provider friendly.
-Make instant book an optional feature per service provided. (Not every service is instant bookable)
-Make the calendar more customizable. Being able to customize what hours can be booked for example.
-This one is specific to me but being able to designate a location per day based on the first booked project for that day.
-Better refund policy. I often get instant bookings a week out of people thinking they're booking same day projects, only to respond hours later and not getting a refund.
-Instant bookings need to protect the service providers. Since there's no dialogue between client and service providers, once instant booked, the service provider is expected to show up on the booked date. I've had clients tell me they had their issue fixed an hour before the instant booked appointment. I have now lost money in many ways - lost time slot, gas, and other potential business.
So far, that's all I have off the top of my head. I'll put more if I think of anything else. Thanks for asking!
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@rvgrand this is great feedback, thank you! I don't know if I have already recommended this, so sorry if this is a repeat — but have you looked at all of the available partner integrations that can help with the calendar issue? Check them all out here (and more details about each here), there may be something available that will be helpful to you.
We do have some improvements rolling out as well that may address some other pain points, and I LOVE the idea of the are based on first booked appointment!
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I’m pretty sure that there’s many pros who don’t have resources to make this integrations work.
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Agree with everything, especially with the point about location
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I just got a message that I will be forced to use instant booking starting the 16th of this month. I am only posting this here because there is no other place to get in contact with customer support. I will not use instant booking it does not work with my business model and never will. I refuse to be forced to use this program and will be cancelling my account.
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Since, I’m now being FORCED to have instant book (not happy) it seems like Thumbtack could at least give me a way to set preferences on project minimum and control my booking time slots. I have a 4 hour project minimum (professional organizer). And most projects take more than that! This is one of those specific things I work individually with customers on. Allowing customers to book their own time is not going to work for my business and is going to tick off customer and potentially make them lash out at me with a negative review. I can see it now… customer books an hour and expects me to fix their home in that time, no more, and only wants to pay for an hour (meanwhile I’ll pay 3x more to explain that their expectations were not set reasonably)…. This is a recipe for disaster. Thumbtack please reconsider this!
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I am quitting using Thumbtack because I am being forced to use Instant Booking. It does not work with how I do business and it never will.
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Definitely considering a similar path…
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@DustiO What I would need, as a professional organizer, to make Instant book feasible.
- collect project minimum deposit at time of booking
- customer Agree to cancellation policy including forfeit of deposit. I would need to be able to write the text of the cancellation policy (so it is specific to my business)
- I need control over length of time slots for booking and a way to call customers attention to the possibility that a project is not guaranteed to be completed in that time (all project vary) and that their booking of that time slot only covers the labor during that time. Of course, an estimate will always be provided in advance but by booking the slot they are agreeing to complete the project minimum.
- I need a clause that explains that project supplies and materials may be needed and are not included in the hourly rate.
Thank you in advance for your efforts to integrate my requests.
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There is only one adequate reason to do so (as I can see it) that Thumbtack was acquired by other older/bigger company on the market, who want to get rid of the competitor. I stopped using their services when I switched to Thumbtack —seems like I’m going to have to go back. Because there’s no flexibility with that “instant booking” at all. The saddest part of it for me that I was going to use Thumbtack more starting on the following week, when I get the notification that I’m going to be forced to use that, to put it mildly, very inconvenient feature.
Please, reconsider!
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Instant booking does not work for everyone, and we do just fine competing and winning jobs, that I do not need this service, nor do I want it. We are a property maintenance company, and we do pretty much everything and anything you could think of for your home or business. We already have problems with leads being priced high because customers fill out that they want 10-20 lights, and then they really only want 5 lights, and they'll say it should take 2-5 hours to complete... no offense, but customers have no idea how long work is going to take or what the work entails to be answering these questions and then thumbtack basing the appointment time on these details without conferring with the pro first. If we cannot opt out of this service, we will leave thumbtack, and we spend $10k-$15k every year, at least, on thumbtack leads... I am in shock that they are forcing this on us. Has anyone found a way around it? Right now I have all of my services turned off under instant booking, but I'm not sure that will be an option come 10/16.
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As an interior designer instant booking does not work at all for me. The first issue is my jobs are quoted once I've spoken to the client and found out what the scope of the project is going to be, secondly, a project can take as little as a day or months to finish. I can't just have people booking with me anytime they want and I don't book appointments until they have paid the retainer which is different with each job. Also I have had two instant bookings that if I hadn't called to confirm the details I would have been driving 2 hours away for a job she said she hired somebody else for and when I contacted customer support they wouldn't refund me the money because they said she has to cancel the appointment, but the customer tried and she couldn't figure out how. The refunds have been getting ridiculous. I have been getting leads for services I'm not providing and when I request a refund they are being denied. Ninety five percent of my jobs come from Thumbtack but if this continues I will go elsewhere.
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I also will be leaving. $75-$90 lead cost on a $350-$400 inspection doesn't work. I also am posting here because there is no way to talk to anyone. I have been using Thumbtack for 7 years. I do not believe they have done anything in that 7 years to help me be successful. They gave us account executives for about a month, then that was gone.
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Same. It’s such a shame because Thumbtack has been great up until this. It’s a horrible, greedy decision on their part. I’m sure they will be losing A LOT of pros with this new tactic.
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To the admistrator... one reason instant bookings does not work, as well as, some of your regular lead prices, is because the customers do not have to pay anything, and they do not realize, or do not care, that they cost our businesses money. Maybe they should have to pay a fee to do instant bookings, or if they do not follow through with one. That way there would be consequences to these customers that are costing your businesses money for instant booking appointments, and then not being available or returning calls, or not canceling appointments. It seems thumbtack thinks that us Pros work for them, and not the other way around. Please do not force instant bookings on us, because you will lose us as a customer, as you are losing a lot of business with this requirement I'm seeing.
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As a NYC house cleaner for a 1bed1bath for 110$ Thumbtack takes around $25-40 ( honestly i have no idea how they pull these numbers) So now they want to take 3x the amount for INSTANT BOOK that is 75?$?$ So im doing this for a lousy 25?$? IF THEY CANCEL WITHIN 15MIN THEN YOU GET YOUR MONEY! HALF THE TIME THE CLIENTS DONT EVEN READ IT! THEY ARE IN ANOTHER STATE!! THIRD PARTY REQUEST! OR SOMEONE JUST SHOPPING!. THUMBTACK is not from NY so they dont understand what we go through!!! Migrants are flocking in and taking our jobs! They allowed so many people to apply for jobs with no cap and we have to consistently fight with 5 other pros. I had clients get mad at me because they dont realize its a rat race and we pay for these leads!!! Thumbtack used to charge 8$ for a lead three years ago!! Then now they got greedy! So your kicking off the small businesses that need all the support they can get for the big corporations! I have to close my doors and im just in shambles. They gave me my 2 weeks notice in the worst possible way. How can you force someone to pay these ridiculous prices?!!!
. Unbelievable.
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I was wondering why the were so few voices on this topic when I first posted about it. From the email I received, they made it seem like it was a global roll out when it started, but it seems to have only been the beginning.
Just for reference to anyone reading this, I do spend over 14k annually for thumbtack as well and at that price point, one would think some sort of developmental feedback or updates would be available to me... as a minimum. But they are not.
My suggestion, if you're in a position where you can drop the platform, do so and maybe come back IF changes get implemented. The only way this is really gonna change is if people stop giving them money.
From the looks of it, the slow roll out of instant booking means that massive dissatisfaction is expected. The slow roll out is a means of mitigation so that there's not a mass Exodus from the platform.
@DustiO yes, you have mentioned those solutions before. I've looked through them and none of the resources linked actually help with any on the features I outlined in my previous post.
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I am very disappointed in the way that Thumbtack has gone lately. The instant bookings are so overpriced and the estimate it gives the client is a joke and if I try to raise the estimate it told me it was to high. But I have to factor in travel payroll ins. Etc. The overhead for the job and by then I'm working for free a couple times I almost was paying for a job to clean a house. I am so upset because I have 70 reviews that I am just out if I don't keep using this platform. Wish I would've realized this and gotten my clients to leave my reviews on Google. Because if I don't pay Thumbtack I'm not even seen as a business. There go my hard earned reviews.to a platform getting wealthy off the little guys hard work. Capitalism greed don't know what else to say
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Whenever I have had a dispute with Thumbtack I remind them who the actual customer is. It is unfortunate that they don't care. They force us to post generic pricing. Customers generally pick the lowest. Then they raise the lead price, but tell us we control what we pay.
I also will be hiding my business on the 15th.
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