Your feedback in action: We’re removing all Instant Bookings.
We’ve built this Community (along with you), because we understand the importance of connecting with other business owners — to share ideas, exchange best practices, get advice and celebrate wins, together. It’s also a space where you are able to offer real time feedback on how Thumbtack is working for you and your businesses, which provides us with insight on how we can improve the product.
We’re happy to share that based on the feedback you’ve shared, we’ll be removing instant bookings from Thumbtack on November 4th. We launched the Instant Book product to help pros get hired more quickly and more efficiently. While the experience worked well for customers, we heard that it wasn’t working as intended for pros like you.
Here are the changes coming November 4th:
- You’ll no longer get instant bookings from customers.
- Your max lead pricing tables will be updated to only display the cost of direct leads.
Our goal is to bring you new and better ways to connect with customers and help you do business. That’s why we’re currently testing a new booking experience inspired by your feedback — one that allows you to discuss job details, scheduling, and pricing with customers before they book, giving you the confidence to move forward.
We’re always looking for the best way to bring you high-intent customers with ready-to-hire projects. Your feedback continues to help us improve our product to best meet your business needs. So, please continue to share your experiences with us.
Thank you again for all of the thoughtful feedback that you’ve shared with us. We’ll have more updates to share in the coming months. Learn more here and if you have any questions, please drop them in the comments.
Be sure to join us for CommuniTEA (our bi-weekly virtual networking events) to meet other Thumbtack pros and share ideas and experiences.
Comments
-
It only took a year and hundreds of negative comments.
2 -
I support this decision 100%. I never book potential customers without a prelim. conversation or short site visit to determine if it is a good match for both parties. The Lead function is perfectly suitable, simplifying and restoring the human to human contact that is essential to a better business dynamic.
1 -
I think this might be worth a celebration. This is Huge!
2 -
This content has been removed.
-
so they got rid of instant book, but they also got rid of custom weekly budget. Did they really help us?
0 -
@KW_CleaningCo2024 Custom budgets aren't going away, there is now just a limitation on the number of custom budgets you can set once you exhaust your initial budget for the week. This article will tell you more. Hope this helps clear it up! I'd recommend just playing around with your budget to see what works for you — maybe look back at what you have typically spent and keep it in that range. You can make as many changes to your budget as you'd like until you max out your budget for the week, at that point you can only set one additional custom budget. Exhausting your budget multiple times a week puts you at risk of missing out on customers, since when your budget is exhausted you don't show up in search results. As always, appreciate feedback so let us know how it goes — you can always drop feedback here in the Community, but I also recommend sending to support@thumbtack.com to ensure it gets logged and tracked. Thank you!
You can also attend our bi-weekly CommuniTEA sessions if you'd like to chat with other pros and get their thoughts/insights/ideas, we would love to have you there.0 -
I understand what you mean but it’s s forcing pro’s to take on budgets that we otherwise would not take on. Half of our leads are not legitimate, so pro’s use custom weekly budget as a filter. Now we are forces to take the budget Thumbtack gives us or choose unlimited budget.
I definitely believe Thumbtack will see how negatively this will effect its relationship with pro’s.
0 -
This content has been removed.
-
This content has been removed.
-
This content has been removed.
-
I'm a bit lost with this as it has drastically impacted my business. As a travel agent, the instant bookings gave me loyalty leads. I no longer receive these meaning i get drastically less leeds and visibility unless I add a significant amount of money to my budget. I've been with thumbtack almost 7 years and this past 2 months have really impacted my business to the point of having to take on another job. This is really painful
0 -
Hi @KesXcent Instant Book was never available in the travel agent category, so this change would not have impacted you. However, if you're seeing less leads I would love to see if I can help! I am getting caught up on Community posts and comments this morning after being out for the holidays, but I will take a look and let you know if I can see anything that might be impacting your lead volume!
0 -
Thanks! However, this change happened with the end of Instant Bookings. Not sure what changed. I used to get over 100 leads, but now I can only afford 10. Instead of the Loyalty leads, I am not charged for every person who reaches out to me. And the majority of the leads I am paying of are not replying or answering.
0 -
@KesXcent hmmm…. I want to make sure I understand your concern super clearly:
- You should be charged for every person who reaches out to you via direct leads - are those the ones that you have seen a decline in?
- As far as lead cost, are you saying that you've had to raise your max lead price so in turn leads are too expensive? Have you tried adjusting it to a lower price and seeing how that impacts the amount of leads you get?
- For the leads that you are not charged for, those would only be Opportunities - where you reach out to the customer and are only charged if they answer. Have you been trying those? TBH those statistically have a very low response rate, since those are customers who have already reached out to another pro but haven't hired anyone or maybe the other pro(s) have not responded.
- How long has the lead volume decline been happening? I am wondering if it could also have something to do with the holidays + economic uncertainty due to an election year, etc? But, you have been doing this for a while, so likely would have seen this decline in past years too if that were the case.
I wasn't able to see anything that didn't look right when I poked around, but I am going to see if I can get another set of eyes on it to see if they can give us any more insight!
0 -
It's a bit odd, I suppose
Prior to this change, I would get "Loyalty Leads" for bookings over my budget who contacted me directly. I assumed it was a perk of being a Platinum Pro. But since the change in November, I have stopped getting loyalty leads. Instead, each additional lead over my budget is an additional $30 and I reject people who are now not getting help for their projects since I simply cannot afford it. The leads I pay for don't answer more than half of the time. I am losing money now with thumbtack every week instead of having a productive partnership like we used to.0 -
PS When I look at your Performance dashboard everything looks really good. You are showing up in the top 3 in search results 92% of the time, which is phenomenal. Does validate to me the idea that maybe demand is just low right now. I can see on that dashboard that there has been a decline of about 50-75 leads over the past couple of months.
And I see, that makes sense on the free leads over your budget vs leads you need to pay for. I would recommend sending this specific feedback to support@thumbtack.com too, to be sure that it is logged!
0 -
Also wonder if you could lower your Max Lead Price and see if that impacts the volume of leads you receive - maybe if you're paying less per lead you can squeeze more of them in? May be worth a try!
0 -
Ive tried playing with the budget to squeeze in as much as possible but there is a big difference in paying $120 for 35 leads vs $400 for 10
0 -
I'm not referring to your budget, but to your Max Lead Prices, which you currently have set at the highest amount — have you played around with that one too?
0 -
Yes. I set that lower when my budget is refreshed and jack it to the Max price when it runs out to be visible. I've been really successful with having Thumbtack be a really beneficial partner for my business, and I'm happy to work with them for so many years without issue. This change has, unfortunately, impacted me beyond belief.
0
Resources
Welcome! Check out our Community Code of Conduct. (review here)