Instant Booking
Comments
-
Can I ask why did TT completely change my posting? It doesn't even come close to what I said? I read the code of conduct. And just wanted to express my experience since I have been a loyal customer for a few years now.
0 -
0
-
@here - I just want to call out that while I am finding this overall thread useful, I feel some folks in this group are taking out their frustration on @DustiO , which seems totally misplaced in my humble opinion. She is certainly the face of Pros within TT, but she is only one of many stakeholders within TT business who can affect change. Our input is weighed against a lot of other internal criteria, whether we like it or note. Take it from me, who has worked in similar product-led technical software firms in their product and engineering divisions.
I have a few suggestions, not everyone is going to like them:
- Show grace and patience and let TT work thru this. Seems like their CEO was in favor of fixing it. I sure would love to get an update on what's next on this.
- Be ready to spend more - Increase your spend and see if that gets you somewhere. Inflation is everywhere. You probably raised your prices, no reason why TT cannot raise their prices.
- Don't put all eggs in one basket - I spend a lot on Google ads and am contemplating spending on FB, Insta and others if TT becomes ineffective.
- At the end of the day, each of us have options. We are not obliged to TT, and vice-versa. Vote with your feet if all else fails.
Disclaimer - I am NOT a TT employee :), am just a pro like you who wants to keep the discourse alive without alienating anyone and at the same time share some insights that some may not have about internal workings of a tech company.
cc - @ShaquealThomas @DustiO
<picks up shield for any incoming barbs :>
2 -
@Ashish_Architect, I think we all understand @DustiO is not in charge. Unfortunately TT has limited our ability to communicate/vent to anyone. So our choice is to sit on our hands, or to make as much noise as possible in the hope of enacting change. So far that has accomplished nothing.
I think we all understand that TT is going to raise the rates, they have steadily for the 7+ years I have been a using it. The difference this time is the huge price increase, coupled with forcing us to give up control.
TT was a great platform for all involved. They were providing a needed service at fair pricing. Until someone got greedy. Its unfortunate. I, like most other people on these 14 pages, will simply continue to hide my business and hope that common sense and decency finally make a return.
3 -
The reason for me not saying anything cause I know dusti does not take it personal and really takes the feedback to give to TT but to branch off to what you said don’t lose the message please express your experience and any suggestion you may have to change instant book. I can say that the comments are being heard and from what I see is taken very serious again I am hoping for changes just like everyone is my point for this thread wasn’t to start arguments we all run businesses and found thumbtack useful one day to build our brand and it will be ups and downs and changes we do not like I been on every platform and I can be wrong I am yet to see a community where you are all able to express yourself and work on making changes to a feature we do not agree with.
let’s continue to stick together leaving feedback and ways to make it better for our businesses.
3 -
@Diana I am confused about your question as I am the only administrator and I haven't changed or even seen your post? Was it in this thread? The community platform provider (Vanilla) has certain character limitations to automatically weed out spam, so sometimes it will recognize a longer post as "spam" and will remove it. I will check and see if that has happened, but I haven't changed anything. Sorry about the confusion!
Thanks for the great insight, @Ashish_Architect and @ShaquealThomas — I really do understand all of the passionate comments, having once been a small business owner myself. But, will echo Shaq's suggestion to keep sharing the feedback around what would make Instant Book work better for you, or any data around ROI and/or hire rate, as that type of feedback is extremely helpful.
Thank you!!
0 -
I have been with Thumbtack since their beginning. I also understand that we (pros) and Thumbtack are in business of making money. But there should be a better process. The forcing of Instant Booking, when I saw the memo, felt like an instant money grab. No legitimate business should ever be ok with the forcing of anything, let alone the forcing of controlling one's budget. Overall, Thumbtack is starting to feel like Angie's List, Home Advisor, and Angi all in one.
1 -
Grace could be shown if they allowed for the Pro’s to enable or disable this new “feature” of instant book. It simply doesn’t work for so many industries, yet we are expected to ride out the bugs. They should label it as “beta” and allowed for people to experiment with it, and learn from it and move on. They based the feature after testing it on television mounting, and then SENT IT.
6 -
This is true as far as the tv mount. I’m an Electrician and I use to provide that service. I turned the service off when they began that feature because it was a “first come, first serve” situation. It would say “this job is no longer available” after 30 seconds of getting a notification.
Didn’t realize that’s where it came from until reading your comment. Crazy to see that the entire platform has changed for the worse.
Thumbtack was the first platform I used when starting my business August of last year. Business was so good that I left the Electrical Union to pursue working for myself. Now I’m bringing in maybe half of what I use to from word of mouth and loyal customers.
I guess it’s my fault from putting all of my eggs in one basket but I thought I was on to something great and now sadly I rarely open the app. Fingers still crossed for changes in the near future!
3 -
I literally did the same thing 4.5 years ago. As I stated above, IB feels like a forced money grab by TT. The IB feature is not realistic, especially for trade work.
3 -
Instant booking does NOT work for all of your pros. I still hate that we are being forced into this. There is no way for thumbtack to know what jobs are eligible for an estimate vs. what jobs are considered troubleshooting. We run a property maintenance company, specializing in electrical work, but we do everything. Every instant booking we have had has been for a job that does NOT require an estimate, and for those jobs we require a deposit upon scheduling. Therefore, customers do not know this prior to booking the appt, and by the time they respond, it has been over 15 minutes, and I cannot get a refund for $112 that this 1 lead cost me. Our deposit is $135 and that covers the first hour of labor, and most of our troubleshooting jobs are solved within this hour. Therefore, we made $23 on this job, because thumbtack took the rest of our earnings. It makes this platform not with in these cases.
If there was another platform out there that actually worked in favor of the pros (since we're the ones who you make money off of, we are your true customer), we would leave thumbtack so fast. Thankfully we have a lot of repeat customers, so we are able to turn off thumbtack as much as possible. Because of instant bookings, we try not to use thumbtack as much as we used to.
Instant bookings should be OPTIONAL. Especially now that you've made it mandatory for so long, the pros that it works well for will continue using it, and the pros that it does not work for can turn it off and be happy. I promise you, you'd have a lot more happy pros.
4 -
Thank you for your Feedback, DustiO! In a consumerAffairs report study of 1000 Thumbtack pros dating back to the introduction of the instant book button in 2021 showed 85% of your pros, do not want the button in the first place for reasons such as routing, scheduling conflicts, lead costs. Yet, even against overwhelming backlash, Thumbtack is keeping it and sending emails to customers that they must use the button. Should we keep waiting on pro feedback?
1 -
of course!
here is a blog saying instant book is rolling out in 2021:
https://blog.thumbtack.com/introducing-instant-book-62d642611440
here is the consumer Affairs user comments about thumbtack. frustrations about the button are seen in the comments starting mid 2021.
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowners/thumbtack.html
also, for anyone that doesn't beleive me, note that DustiO is stating I have the timeline wrong but not that I have thumbtack's price gauging wrong. Here is another Thumbtack blog article for proof:
https://community.thumbtack.com/discussion/892/instant-bookings-update-hurting-my-business
0 -
This discussion was created from comments split from: Welcome to our new Community members! (December 2023).0
-
Instant book is absolutely awful. The leads are not quality as they think they can dictate how long a project will take. For the second time, someone inquired as a lead (I was charged), then instantly booked me (second charge). Thumbtack did not give a refund. Thumbtack is for the customer and not at all for the pros who actually keep the company going!
2 -
Exactly this!
0 -
Another example of instant book quote only request
2 -
There needs to be a project minimum/hourly minimum that we can set. I have clients booking 2 hour sessions and then when I follow up to take about the project they are shocked to learn it will take more.
2 -
More great updates for ya
0 -
Also, just have to make sure that fee isn't the one Thumbtack didn't charge you....
0 -
I had $168 in my account from a refund I got a couple of weeks ago. Decided to turn the app on today just to take a peak at how things are going. Got 2 instant bookings 1) $80 2) $73 no normal leads at all before I turned the app back off.
Maybe it’s just me but it’s sort of like watching what’s happening around the world and no matter how bad you want things to change you can only wait and hope for a miracle!
0 -
@Walters_Electric32 thanks for the update — can I ask if those 2 instant booked jobs stuck and if you were able to complete those jobs for those customers? Also just want to make sure you're hiding your business when you say "turn the app off" so that your ranking doesn't get affected when you do hop back in? You probably are, but just wanted to make sure. Thanks!
@Average_joe1 would love to hear how this feature could be improved — wasn't sure what your feedback is? Are you opposed to the on-site estimate/service call having a listed fee? Or to those options altogether? In your industry (sorry I can't remember what it is) do you typically do on-site estimates/service calls? And if so, how could this be improved. Thank you in advance.
@JMusselman what industry are you in? I love the idea of being able to set a project/hourly minimum.
@rvgrand thank you for continuing to share feedback with screenshots, it's very helpful.
@gracecompletepm this is great feedback. If you have time, would you mind sending me a DM with a little more detail around the issues you are running into with various categories? I would love to take a deeper look into your profile/services since it seems somewhat complicated. Thank you!
0 -
This content has been removed.
-
I am in home organization. I have a three hour minimum. Every single instant book client I have gotten assumed it would be a 1-2 hour job. I sent an immediate e-mail to them letting them know that we will need to talk to determine hours, number of organizers etc. But by having a set minimum upfront I can weed out customers who do not have the budget for 3+ hours.
2 -
We do not provide estimates for irrigation we go to fix and we charge 125/hr 1 hr minimum plus parts.Customers who request an estimate are just price shopping and we will never be the cheapest due to the fact we are a licensed irrigation company and thumbtack allows non licensed people to advertise in this category. And even though it clearly shows we charge 125/hr people will still act surprised when i tell them that on the phone when trying to book the job.As for landscape installation yea we would provide a free estimate
1 -
The instant book might be worth it to big business who spend THOUSANDS a month on TT. But I am a sole, small business owner and the new instant book prices are making me work for free practically. The lead price should NOT be more than an hour of my charges. (i.e. I charge $60 an hour and I had an instant book of $75). This is killing small business owners.
1 -
@DustiO - sharing my 2 recent examples of Instant-booking fails, please take them as live use-cases to the team so they can see real-live examples of why its not working, for neither party (customers and pros). In both cases, the customers were unaware that they will be charged for the site-visit, regardless of if they hire me or not. And apparently, the steps to cancel are not clear to the customer either, so UI should be improved for this.
- First use-case, John did an instant-book without realizing that's what he did, and when I called him to let him know he will be charged for the site-visit, regardless of whether he hires me, he was surprised. And while he was willing to cancel within the 15min, he could not find the steps to do it. Result - I got charged :(
- Second use-case, Sydney also did an instant book, also without realizing and unaware of the charge. She however was able to cancel it within the 15 min, and I saved myself a few $ :)
1 -
I got a lead yesterday from a rival lead generation company trusted trades they got me and 3 other guys for $58 still waiting for my refund the number provided 727-555-1212 is a directory
0 -
I never received an email about this, posted by a user above. What is this? What does it mean? For example, I already post our hourly rate, but the forced site consultation, something we cannot provide a quote for due to a lack of discovery which can take weeks, will be around 3 hours of time. How do we change the “consultation fee” to reflect how much time they will need? They don’t know how long it will take so choosing 1 hour isn’t accurate.
So, can you break down what they are saying we need to do? Show our current hourly rate for work or show them what their consultation fee is?
0 -
Looking back in the past couple weeks, I have 6 customers who used the instant booking feature, which I was charged for, but ended up cancelling. I want my $$$ back. There is no way to dispute these.
I have also had customer who have double booked with instant booking. I want my money back for these charges, but there is no way to dispute them.
The only option available when an instant booking is received is Accept(Confirm) the booking and then send a message to the customer.
The pros are at the mercy of a pre-determined job criteria, with a pre-set rate. My question to Thumbtack is what Rate are you offering my services for?? I never set any rates for instant booking. So being as frustrated with this nonsensical approach to the platform, like EVERYONE else is, I set my availability notice 21 days out. This was a last resort, which enabled the ability to set up the appointments like I did before. But now Thumbtack has changed MY AVAILABILITY to only 7 days out. I didn’t make this Change. Thumbtack did.
And to pour fuel onto the fire, I was never Notified by Thumbtack that my schedule was updated to 7 days out. Now I’m getting notifications at 6am telling me that I have appointments scheduled for that day from an instant booking that I NEVER EVEN ACCEPTED OR KNEW ABOUT!
This instant booking is most ridiculous asinine change to the platform imaginable. The pros do NOT work for Thumbtack, despite what TT is trying to push on the pros. If you are requiring a Pro to do work based on YOUR terms, setting the payscale, by definition you are an employer. And Thumbtack should be paying the pros for the services they are requiring them to do. It’s amazing how some of these tactics are even legal. Because everyone knows how unethical they are.
4
Resources
Welcome! Check out our Community Code of Conduct. (review here)