Instant Booking
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@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!
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Customer relationships begin when the pro contacts a lead and they work out details. You'll only refund if that cancellation is within 15 minutes??? When has Thumbtack ever responded to a concern in less than 15 minutes??? What an insulting attempt at a compromise! All, not most, of my clients want to chat before booking. One older, immigrant client who was forced to instant book referred to you as "stupid Thumbtack" She said she hates it, it's hard to figure out and won't use it again. What about the small print that tells pros that we will be removed from searches when we have less than 12 hours available????? I'm booked this week but not the next two-I received 0 leads this week and no opportunities. I would like to see you inform customers in the Thumbtack community about your new policy to be sure they understand how much we are paying for leads and that some of the best pros will not show up in their search because they are busy.
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@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.
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@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.
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@DustiO I am high rated pro in my city i spend from $400-500 on my thumbtack account and frankly besides everyone complaining that these service is affecting their buisness and explaining how these can potentially affect their buisness to were they have to possibly close their accounts or move on from these platform . Let me say that Iam thankful to thumbtack to having my company grow to the size it has but since the instant booking came into effect ive had to add more money and have booked less leads we have tried to raise our prices o accommodate the your prices because ultimately is what you guys thought we were going to do right but now the minute we give a qoute the customers complain and leave its leaving us dead in the water . with out generating buisness and competent leads I honestly feel that the customer should be responsible for some of the cost of the lead if they instant book . 1.) it would show that they are committed to the job and the cost of the lead to us would still be reasonable . Or get rid off instant booking all together and we get it your showing the team everyday but what besides just reading is thumbtack considering . I switched from Angies list and not only iam in a litigation battle with them and always praised and recommended you guys to other pros but seriously if these is around to stay I think us that dont like these should get a hard answer maybe like "look these is happening is here to stay weather you like it or not " That way we can just get the picture and then we can make a decision to find another solution or if there is hope for these bad judgemnent to vanish then there is hope and hopefully we can get the pic I just feel like some of use really created a buisness around you guys and have been loyal and I feel to those pros that have held downtime fort we should be considered and before making decisions that can potentially hurt everyone maybe even just holding a vote on stuff like these in the pool thats going on I think not even one pro has agreed that its working and if it is great for them but what about the other 95 percent
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@Jthandyman03,
I completely and totally agree with you! However, I can't wait around for TT to wake up and smell the coffee. I have people to pay and a business to build and have decided to hide my account, remove my payment option and look for another way to find leads. I'm going to have to pay for them one way or another and I refuse to pay for a service that only has their best interest at heart. I'm out!
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After many years ive had to cancel our thumbtack account , as we cannot competently pull off instant booking. It won't work out for us nor the customers. I'm hoping at some point they will make it no longer mandatory. It may work for some companies , it doesn't for ours .
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I am hiding my business indefinitely and possibly closing it entirely until resolved. It appears that, with some exceptions I am sure, whoever makes these executive decisions has never worked as a trades person in the field service industry. Too bad for all of us.
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@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.
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I just received an email telling me that my account was suspended. I tried to take action into my own hands, as many have said, because clients who respond much later than the 15 min time frame are not eligible for a refund and that the exorbitant costs of instant booking is ridiculous. Plenty of clients that use instant book are looking for quotes and not to hire. I made the decision to be upfront with clients about instant booking but that is apparently against TOS. I let clients know that they should be canceling their booking if all they're looking for are quotes. I also let them know that by instant booking, I will tack on that fee onto them. I am transparent with all my clients about the cost to hire me. If thumbtack costs x, that fee will eventually be transferred to the clients.
Please keep in mind that I am a 5* pro with over 550 reviews who spend over 14k in thumbtack annually and I am treated as such.
BUT THESE ACTIONS ARE AGAINST TERMS OF SERVICE.
DO NOT PERFORM THESE ACTIONS UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE SUSPENDED.
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If the customers have no "skin in the game" and feel that everything from the leads to the service calls should also be free or close to it.
I do mention to some customers with high lead costs, that it does cost money to have them find me. Many times the customers apologize as they did not know we get charged for the leads (duh).
In any event, we have decided to suspend our business on TT until the higher powers within the company realize this is a bad decision and costing small businesses a lot of money they cannot recover.
It was good while it lasted, but time to move on!
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Register me as one more pro who is holding off on doing business with TT until mandatory Instant Booking is cancelled.
As a locksmith, the only way to use IB that might make sense would be to list the service being performed - for example rekeying one lock at a set price of say $90 - and if the customer decided to have more locks rekeyed I would do so for further charges. But what I'm hearing from other users about the steep referral costs, customer indifference, and the strict refund policies, it doesn't seem worth it. And other more complex tasks would be out of the question.
I have added automotive locksmith services to my repertoire after receiving extensive training over the summer. Automotive locksmithing wouldn't work at all with IB, because of the complex variety of different cars and tasks. Soon after preparing to launch these new services on TT, I received the email notice about mandatory Instant Booking, which I recognized immediately as an unworkable concept when it comes to most locksmithing tasks.
I don't wish to speculate about the reasoning for this erroneous decision on the part of an executive, but I am hoping the decision will be reversed, and that improvements will be made to the platform that will actually benefit Thumbtack's real clients - the businesses. And I'm certainly not mad at DustiO, who has a difficult job handling all the discontent caused by mandatory Instant Booking. I an holding out, waiting for the change that needs to happen.
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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?
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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!
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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.
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All my Thumbtack jobs this week were forced into instant book. I've had booking for picture hanging of 1-5 pictures or one tv. Both take less than an hour and I charge $69. Thumbtack took $43.30 leaving me with $26.
$69 - $43 Thumbtack fee =$26...
...with a two hours return drive, thats a little over $8 and hour before tax. McDonald's in California are paying staff $25 per hour.
Thumbtack have blown through my budget for the week before it ended. I'm not increasing that. I've minimized my lead price to the lowest and raised my rate.
If Thumbtack don't fix this mess I'm closing my account and using a different platform or going back to an employer. I have been a Top Pro since 2018, but the dream is dead.
It almost seem Thumbtack are purposely running the platform into the ground.
Taking 60-75% from the pros jobs isn't going to last.
It was beautiful while it lasted.
Tom
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Well Catherine Morrison I'm sorry your vision isn't working. I've had multiple customers instant book me on an available day and then request I come sooner. I try to facilitate but that doesn't always work and frustrates both parties and leads to cancelations. Please stop the instant book.
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Looks like she left TT in 2021.
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