“Get Quotes From Top 3 Pros” Button - Damaging Conversion and Lead Quality

“Get Quotes From Top 3 Pros” Button — Damaging Conversion and Lead Quality

I’ve been using Thumbtack for years and have invested a significant amount of money into building our presence on the platform - hundreds of reviews, a strong profile, quick response times, and thousands of dollars per month in advertising at different points.

Recently, however, I’ve become increasingly concerned about the “Get Quotes From Top 3 Pros” button that appears very prominently at the top of the customer experience.

In my experience, this feature significantly reduces customer pre-qualification before a Pro is charged for a lead.

Previously, customers were more likely to review individual profiles, compare reviews, pricing, qualifications, photos, business information, and then decide which Pros actually seemed like a good fit for what they were looking for.

Now, a customer can simply click one prominent button and have their request automatically sent to three Pros - potentially without meaningfully reviewing those businesses first.

And I don’t think this is just about price.

For example, our profile clearly states that our pricing starts at around $180. If a customer is primarily looking for the cheapest possible cleaning service and has a budget of $100, that is completely fine. Under the traditional process, that customer could review our profile, see our pricing, determine that we are probably not the right fit, and contact Pros whose pricing better matches their budget.

But there can also be a completely different kind of mismatch.

Some customers specifically want an individual cleaner and are not interested in hiring a cleaning company. Others may specifically need an established company that is fully insured, can provide a COI, employs W-2 staff, background-checks its professionals, and provides trained and experienced cleaners.

Those are meaningful differences that customers should be able to evaluate before deciding whom to contact.

And this issue works both ways.

If a customer specifically needs an insured cleaning company that can provide a COI and meet certain professional requirements, an individual cleaner who does not offer those things may still be included among the three Pros and charged for a lead they were never realistically positioned to win.

Likewise, if a customer specifically wants a low-cost individual cleaner, an established company with substantially higher published pricing may be charged for an inquiry from a customer who would never have intentionally selected that company after reviewing its profile.

That is why I see this primarily as a matching and pre-qualification problem, not simply a pricing issue.

With the “Get Quotes From Top 3 Pros” button, the customer may not closely review any of these differences first. They click one button, the request is distributed to three Pros, and those Pros can be charged even if one or more of them were clearly not what the customer was looking for in the first place.

The problem is not whether we can explain our pricing, qualifications, or business model after receiving the lead. We already do that.

The problem is that by the time we have that conversation, the lead has already been generated and we have already been charged.

A customer should have a meaningful opportunity to review a Pro’s profile and determine whether that business actually fits their budget, expectations, and service requirements before the Pro is charged for the inquiry.

I also think this feature weakens one of the biggest reasons Pros spend years building strong Thumbtack profiles. Reviews, reputation, experience, qualifications, pricing, and business structure should help customers decide whom they actually want to contact.

If customers increasingly bypass that process and simply click “Get Quotes From Top 3 Pros,” the interaction becomes much closer to a three-quote comparison. Naturally, price then becomes a much larger part of the decision, while the information contained in individual profiles becomes less influential.

Since this feature was introduced, we have seen a gradual decline in our conversion rate, despite continuing to maintain a strong profile and respond quickly to leads.

We are currently evaluating whether it still makes sense to continue allocating the same level of marketing budget to Thumbtack under the current lead model, or whether that budget would be better invested in other marketing channels.

I’m very interested to hear whether other Pros have noticed similar changes:

• More customers who clearly did not review your profile before contacting you?
• More leads that are obviously not a good match for your pricing, qualifications, or business model?
• Lower conversion rates?
• More customers treating the interaction primarily as a three-price comparison?

I think Thumbtack should seriously consider removing this button. Customers should be encouraged — not discouraged — to actually review the selected Pros, including their pricing, qualifications, reviews, and business model, before submitting an inquiry and before those Pros are charged.

I’d be very interested to hear what other Pros are experiencing.