Thumbtack Numbers: If Customers Aren't Responding, What Is Thumbtack Selling?

DreamClean · June 11

I hope Thumbtack leadership sees this. I also hope investors at Sequoia, Tiger Global, Founders Circle, and others are paying attention.

Please don't dismiss this as another Pro complaint. Pros complain about lead prices, ghost leads, window-shoppers, refund denials...or the weather that day...just about anything. Have for years. Still, Pros will continue to spend with Thumbtack (and continue to complain, of course) as long as Thumbtack has the one thing Pros need: customers.

And then came Thumbtack Numbers.

Our historic win-rate for Thumbtack leads is 30-40%, and we try to stick to the formula that works:
-respond on Thumbtack
-send text message with intro, info, and questions to initiate interaction
-refine the quote and text the link, many customers approve it online and are ready to book
-call if no response yet
-if they answer, we're likely to close
-if they don't answer, send the quote via email, and move on
It's all over in about 4 minutes. But more recently, our response rate has dropped below our old win rate.

Pros complaining is noise. Customers not engaging with Pros via Thumbtack Numbers is the signal that you should pay attention to. It means customers who used to hire us are not even responding through Thumbtack Numbers. It means even the high-quality customer leads are confused or weirded out by the random, non-local phone numbers contacting them.

Yes, ghost leads were a real problem. A significant portion of paid Thumbtack "leads" never respond. Refund requests are denied almost immediately. Thumbtack needed to fix that. And Thumbtack Numbers indeed fixes that. We don't have to pay for ghost leads anymore! But...we're also not winning new customers through Thumbtack anymore.

That is the issue. Not that Pros are unhappy. But that you're no longer bringing us customers.

The work still needs to get done. Houses will still get cleaned, painted, repaired, landscaped, remodeled, and maintained. The high-quality and high-interest leads, customers who really need services, will still find Pros to do that work through other channels.

Pros won't leave all at once. You won't see a mass exodus, and you might not notice the churn right away. We will just spend less on Thumbtack, especially with all the automatic refunds, and follow customers to the the platforms and channels where they actually engage. By the time this is apparent in your financials, the stubborn, hard-to-reverse shift away from Thumbtack has already occurred.

Because if customers aren't engaging through Thumbtack Numbers, what are you selling?

Dream Clean
Denver, CO

ArvinC · June 12

Thank you for taking the time to share such detailed feedback, @DreamClean . We appreciate you outlining the changes you've observed in customer engagement and how they are impacting your business.

I've shared this thread with the team so they can review your experience and the concerns you've raised around response rates and Thumbtack Numbers. Feedback like this helps provide important context as they continue evaluating and improving the experience for both pros and customers.

GundamSLK · June 14

Any chance you could design an option let pro choose which will work best of them. As a pro its super diffcult create an option let people choose. We design our workflow how to close an lead. With the new thumbtack number, we lose our privacy between our prospect discussion. Is there an option allow to opt out record our phone call or use phone number.

DreamClean · June 14

I appreciate the response, @ArvinC

I tried calling a lead today, and I was going to send a follow-up question about phone calls because it takes some getting used to. Another lead came in, and then I stumbled on a bigger problem: no one is opening our quotes. I mean zero.

Some stats might help, even with a small sample set. Of our last 9 leads:

5 had no response whatsoever
3 sent a single initial reply via Thumbtack
2 sent a text through the Thumbtack Phone Number
0 out of 9 opened our quote link via text message

All of these numbers are way outside the norm, but the final one really stands out. I would estimate that more than 90% of engaged, responding customers at least open the link to view our price, even if they do not hire us. Many nonresponsive customers still open the link too, and some even approve the quote despite not replying to prior messages.

To put real data behind that, out of our last 400 quotes sent by text message, 282 customers clicked the link and reviewed the quote online. That is a 70.5% open rate.

I think I found the core issue: our quote links are tied to the phone number they are sent to so customers can access their Online Hub without a login or password. With Thumbtack Numbers, that appears to be a proxy number in Kansas, not the customer’s actual phone number. The customer receives the forwarded text with a dead link, and that is not a great first impression. We can email, of course. But with more than 70% of quote links opened by text, in a process where minutes make the difference between winning the job and never hearing back, texting links to quotes was working.

We have already adapted and started emailing quotes to every customer, before even realizing the issue with texting links. Of those last 9 leads, 5 did open the email, click the link, and view their quote online. Only 1 out of 9 hired us.

So what is Thumbtack’s advice for this scenario?
-email quotes instead of texting and settle for a ~10% win rate? That would more than triple our customer acquisition cost, given that our win rate on the last 300 Thumbtack leads is about 38%.

-send quotes through Thumbtack Messenger? That would negate the process automation and workflow built into our current CRM, which has driven much of our success.

-change CRMs to one that is more compatible with Thumbtack’s platform changes? I would prefer a root canal over another CRM migration.

We cannot afford to pay for 10 leads for every hard-fought win via emailed quotes. Assuming these issues are not unique to Dream Clean, I sincerely hope Thumbtack executives realize the implications of dramatically reduced response, open, and win rates. I doubt many Pros have the capacity to absorb the increased cost.

As I mentioned previously, we are not leaving the platform in protest. We are still on. But to keep paying for leads, we need an answer on this.

I am asking for a concrete solution or even a workaround, not just confirmation that this was "shared with the team."

Unknown · June 15

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RuffTimes · June 16

Some people even have an auto-block feature on their phone for calls or texts identified as spam. My phone identifies thumbtack’s text messages as potential spam. I’m sure this has affected the response rate.

TCB247 · June 19

such a horrible idea. My spending has gone up and not enough hires let alone actual conversation with a lead.
wasting more time trying to contact listening to elevator music just to get a Ai response to leave my name and company to see if lead wants to answer the goes to voicemail sometime…. Calls drop a lot then you look like a stalker calling back multiple tile try to conect to justify spending money on these leads ….AI IS OVERrated . Talking to a human is tried and proven to produce jobs and generate money.

TCB247 · June 19

And to boot they don’t even look at lead. We get charge and get in house credits instead of a credit back to card. We shouldn’t pay until they open or contact us . No prepay and get a store credit

Unknown · June 19

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Unknown · June 19

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Thumbtack Numbers: If Customers Aren't Responding, What Is Thumbtack Selling?

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