Instant Booking
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I have opt out for all the services , until further notice . I hope TT team find a resolution if not all contractors will migrate to a different platform. @DustiO what solution is TT working on to fix the insta booking future? And preventing an exodus of contractors in their platform?
thank you
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Another update on metrics here:
Same consistent budget on my end. I used to get views in the hundreds and 20+ leads on a weekly basis has now turned to a fraction of that. Only 1 of these 8 actually panned out and it was a direct lead, not an instant book.
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Is TT broken today? I've never seen all zeros here before⁉️
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instant book strikes again. Customer instant booked for Nov 8th at 1pm but when I called then wanted earlier and said they would shop around. I convinced her to have us come Thursday morning but then when i made sure she knew about the $125 service call which is clearly marked on my profile she said nvm and hung up on me. Customers need to be educated about this service and an acknowledgment box needs to appear for them to read and be checked by the customer before they are allowed to book or request anything @DustiO
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As of now you must have instant book enabled to receive any lead period
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I've done this and have been suspended for going against TOS
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Lead generation has been gradually declining to this point for a while. My budget used to be completely gone in the first few hours of the new week. A bit before instant booking and much so after, leads now only trickle in. Sometimes I don't get a lead 2 or 3 days after the new week starts.
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I know I am not the first or the last business to be furious with the instant book!
First of all the customer has no idea how instant book works and it is not explained to them. I am being charged a ridiculous amount for this feature and the customers are flaking last minute which books up my schedule and doesn't allow for other serious customers to book with me.
Then I get customers who tell me that they're "thinking about using my services, but aren't sure and want to see how things go before hiring me!" And then say that maybe they will use me on a different day that week.
How is it fair that I am being charged and the customer isn't. Where is the culpability on the customer's end or on Thumbtack's? I should be getting reimbursed by the customer and compensated for the jobs I am losing because of this. This is my livelihood! How is Thumbtack getting away with this??
The bigger insult is Thumbtack placating me and telling me that if the customer cancels within 15 minutes I'll get a refund. No customer cancels in 15 minutes and Thumbtack knows that! The customer doesn't care when they cancel. They don't get charged anything, why would they??
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right here on that step they need to make sure just browsing stay in leads and not switch to Instant Bookings. See pictures below
If I’m just browsing why would I care about the pro having availability. They need to rework the app where if someone is just browsing they don’t get a whole new step showing them that the pro has availability which completely defeats the purposes of just browsing, looking for quotes finding the right pro blah blah blah.
see next images below
End here is another warning after being taking to the step showing the pro had availability. Must client get confused I have multiple client telling me they were just trying to get a quote and (((client quote))) (the stupid app) make them book an appointment for a set date instead. This is very confusing for older generation or anyone who use the app and websites for the first time.
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This is by design. By doing this, the clients will be forced to use instant booking. In an ideal world where the clients know exactly what they need done and completely understand how TT works, then this layout is great.
My guess is that this is the reason we're not getting as many leads, on top of lead costs eating up budgets.
Clients are being funneled into instant booking with one service provider and prevents them from contacting multiple pros at the same time.
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I have been monitoring this list in hopes that Thumbtack would reverse course , make the instant booking optional , and then I could rejoin - It does not appear that this will ever happen- reading everyones frustrations , is making me frustrated so i probably won't remain in this 'thread' , for sanity's sake , lol
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You are completly right cause i decide to went over and do my research on it because some clients been telling me the app been making them book pros when they were just looking for quote or speak with someone to get estimates about jobs they wanted to get done. yes that also eat our weekly budgets since it send the request straight to instant book whch is twice the price of regular leads. If this is a thing now where they redireck the clients to book a pro instead of just request a pro im pretty sure in the near future they going to take out regular leads and roll out instant book for every services.
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@DustiO i got a “booking” for a mural, called up and messaged, gave a quote over the phone, he said he is just reaching out to people to get a quote to give to his boss. He was confused that he had to book me for a time, but was ok with virtual estimate.
please let us opt out of instant booking , it’s more work for us to navigate, cost more, and it is exactly the same as a lead for what I do.
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I just checked this for myself and he is 100% right it’s pretty much steering the customer to direct book instead of sending a request like before. Amazing how greedy thumbtack has become. I havnt considered shutting down since the time they would send the lead to 10+ people at once. At a time when us pros really need work to keep supporting ourselves and the economy thumbtack has gotten greedy and probably uses more ai and work from home employees than they did cutting their cost and boosting profits
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Instant Booking was very active the other day and managed to schedule 2 appointments for me back-to-back. 1st one was at 8am in Seattle, 2nd was 10am on Mercer Island(about 20-30 mins away). Thankfully I had a cancellation and could service the 1st client yesterday. I had already pre-warned the 2nd client that the 10am timeslot might slide due to the auto-scheduling. Thankfully he was very flexible for his project. My workaround was to change my business hours to 9am start time. This should help alleviate this problem in the future, but it could still happen. As stated by numerous pros, auto-booking has no geographical awareness, just open time slots.
I don't charge for travel time because I try to schedule jobs together in the same area: north end, south end, Seattle and eastside. This was not an issue prior to auto-booking. Now I have no way to control the geographics except to cancel or request a reschedule for bookings that thumbtack makes for me that are too far apart for me to accommodate.
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For the first time in five year on thumbtack, I’ve never got a lead.
From Sunday to today, Thursday and I’ve had a few views, but nothing else.
I’ve have 200+ 5*star reviews, five years of top pro and the four services I offer I’m listed in the top five pros in all of my choose zip codes.
Last week my budget ran out mid week.
Sommit weird is a happening. 🤪.
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I have been charged more for instant bookings and have more cancellations because of it! Due to the nature of my organizing/packing and unpacking business I feel like customers book me on a whim or in a moment of panic and then cancel my services last minute. Customers are not aware, don't care and have no consequences to the affects that this has on my livelihood. Thumbtack needs to protect us as pros. I am paying more and working less due to this feature.
Not only that a fraudulent customer, that already tried to get a refund from Venmo and lost their case and didn't pay me for my last day of service, was more protected than I was! I'm the one paying Thumbtack and this scammer was allowed to file this ridiculous case. Thumbtack doesn't care about the Pros, it cares about making money. They are a pillar of what's wrong with our society! Can't wait to never pay them a dime again!!
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I’m sick of this. I received an instant booking… I reply quickly and they don’t open the message for 22 minutes. Then they open at 22min and cancel. No words no nothing. Honestly, the original submission that they sent in had no info on the job or anything either- ridiculous. I did however notice that TT is telling clients that our hourly rate is the rate for the total job!! Which is insane. I cannot declutter a house in an hour…it’s several sessions each with several hours…the exact time varies…but it seems like TT is just trying to get a sale….anyway… I tried contacting customer support phone line and after a few support specialists not able to help or care and a lot of useless back and forth…I changed my TT account so that I was no longer visible to customers until I made my min pay per lead higher. So essentially, I’m hidden from customers.
I have no plans on changing it back until/if things change.
Customer phone service here used to be pretty good, refunds used to be semi reasonable, and most importantly instant booked was never a forced thing. Things are terrible now.
I have been a consistent top pro for years without fail & with a budget set to “unlimited” because I found that this lead generator used to be worth it. Now TT will get 0$ a month from me and I will be spending my ad dollars elsewhere!
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