We need your insights!

DustiO
DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 2,631 admin
in PAB & PPC corner

Hi PAB and PPC members! 👋

We’ve welcomed a lot of new Pros to the Community recently (a record number, in fact!), and one thing we’re hearing consistently is that they want to learn what actually works from Pros who have been there and done that.

A few months ago, we sent some of you a similar set of questions, and your answers helped us create posts like this one about what new Pros often overlook in their profiles.

Now that we have the PAB & PPC Corner and even more of you here, we’d love to do it again! 😊

The questions below come directly from things newer Pros have been asking in their introductions. We’d love for you to share your real experiences, advice, and expertise. Some responses may be featured in future Pro-Led Expertise & Insights posts in the Community, with credit to you and your business.

These posts are public, so it’s also a chance to highlight your expertise and establish yourself as a Top Voice in the Community. If your insight is featured, you’re welcome to share the finished post with your own network and showcase your expertise and contributions to the Thumbtack Pro Community. We’ll also keep contributors in mind when looking for Pros for future Community spotlights and features.

A few things to keep in mind

  • Only answer the questions you genuinely have experience with or an opinion on. You definitely don’t need to answer everything. Three specific answers are much more helpful than ten general ones.
  • The more specific, the better. Share the wording you use, the steps you take, something you changed, or a lesson you learned. Those are the details newer Pros can actually put into practice.
  • You can reply directly in the comments or send your answers to us privately if you’d prefer.
  • If you’d like to participate, please share your answers by Friday, September 18, 2026.

Thank you all for continuing to share what you’ve learned. This is exactly the kind of Pro-to-Pro knowledge that can make this space really valuable. 😊

1. Walk us through your exact first response to a new lead. What do you send, how fast, and do you call or message first?
 (This might be the most-asked question in the Community right now. Pros understand that speed matters, but many are still unsure what to actually say in that first message.)

2. How do you turn a one-time customer into a repeat or recurring client?
 (Many newer pros are focused on landing the next job. The ones asking this have started thinking about how to stop starting from scratch each time, and would love to hear how you've approached it.)

3. How do you protect your response time when you are on a job and  unreachable?
 (This comes up across a lot of trades. When you're spending hours in a crawl space, on a roof, or somewhere without signal, a lead can go cold before you ever see it. Any approach that's worked for you would be helpful here.)

4. How do you get clients to leave reviews, especially when they praise you privately but never post it?
 (A really common frustration. Happy customers often say wonderful things in a message and then never leave a review, while unhappy ones tend to post right away. We'd love to hear how you handle this.)

5. As your business grew through Thumbtack, how did you scale your team to keep up with demand while keeping your service quality consistent?
 (Quite a few pros have reached the point where they can't take on more work alone, and aren't sure what the next step looks like. If you've made that jump, how did you know it was time, and how do you hand off a job without losing the personal touch that won it?)

6. How do you plan your Thumbtack budget across the month or your busy season, and how do you adjust as things change?
 (Newer pros often set a budget once and never revisit it. Pros who have been at this a while seem to manage it more actively around their season, capacity, and goals. Your approach would be really useful to share.)

7. When you're booked out mid-month, what do you do? Hide your business, keep quoting and book out further, or something else?
 (There's no obvious right answer here, which is exactly why it would be great to hear from several of you. How do you handle being full without losing momentum?)

8. Are you using AI anywhere in your business, and where has it actually helped?
 (This is coming up more and more. Some pros are experimenting, some are skeptical, and a few have found real uses. Honest experiences, including the things that didn't work out, would be genuinely valuable.)

9. How do you use your Thumbtack profile, photos, and quotes to show your value so the right customers choose you?
 (Plenty of pros want to win work without being the cheapest option. Anything you include in your profile or your quotes that helps a customer understand your pricing would be great to hear about.)

10. What other tools do you use to run your business, and do you use an agency for paid ads or social media?
 (Think QuickBooks, Jobber, Housecall Pro, a website builder, Google Business Profile, or whatever your setup happens to be. Newer pros are trying to work out what they actually need versus what can wait. And if there's anything missing from your stack that you wish existed, we'd love to hear that too.)

11. Why would you recommend Thumbtack over another lead generation tool?
 (Or put another way: what do you prefer about using Thumbtack compared to the other marketing tools you use? Honest answers are welcome, tradeoffs included.)


Comments

  • DustiO
    DustiO Administrator, Moderator Posts: 2,631 admin

    Tagging the group in! @Bkhomeservice @Cliff @TechExpert @SheilaHarris @Frederick_Haywood @JWC @Jonathan_Stickland @kdiddy01 @DreamClean @MarlonC @Shanez_Padgett @amccarthy @busyb @Bretdouglas @MaidThis_SLC @Chuva @ClayRiser @CodyRisner @AntilleanRestoration @callargo @Jack_Marquardt @Juliano_50 @Nick_Bennett @PhilZDPDX @ShaquealThomas @DustiO @Jake_C_77

  • kdiddy01
    kdiddy01 PPC Member Posts: 5 ✭
    1. So as soon as I get a lead, I immediately respond through text through the app directly, by only asking when would they like to have this done, then click send. Then immediately I call the client, and proceed from there. If they don't answer the first time I call, I then call again after about 5 seconds. If there's no answer after the second phone call, that I go back to the message, and I send them another message letting the client know that I just tried calling and received no answer. Now what that does is it gives them four notifications from you trying to contact them. I've been doing this since the first month that I signed up on here lol.
    2. The best way to turn a client into a recurring client, or repeat customer, is to first of all do the job that you are there for originally and the best, fast, and cleanest way possible, then as you're doing the job you can glance around and see other things that you may be qualified to do, and either give advice, or offer your services to do those other jobs.
    3. So I answer and respond to my phone, even while I'm at a client's house. All I do is I just step outside and do my normal steps and responding and contacting a new client. But if I'm in an area, or I have a jam-packed day, I'm not able to be reached, I just go into the app and turn myself off until the next day, that way I'm not charged, and my response times don't get afflicted either.

    11. Other generation lead websites and apps have a cap on them. I currently have someone who just recently went through that exact same problem. If let's say you have your cap be set at $300 for 30 leads, you will get 30 phone calls, but that is not 30 guaranteed jobs. And as soon as those 30 leads are up, they will charge you $300, and then start you over again. This person that I'm speaking of has spent $700 within 2 weeks, and had about 10 guaranteed jobs that actually went through. He definitely dropped them.

  • PhilZDPDX
    PhilZDPDX PAB Member Posts: 2 ✭
    1. We always send a message right away first saying "This is ____ from Zoom Drain, I'm going to give you a call." If we get them on the phone, we will say something like, "I'm ______ from Zoom Drain and I just received your inquiry on Thumbtack. It sounds like you're experiencing (limited summary of the request), so what's going on?" We find that that gets folks talking and asking the questions they need answered before they decide to hire.
    2. Getting a repeat customer is easy if you do a good job on the first visit. It's all about the experience. Basic things like showing up on time, communicating well, walking folks through the pricing and scope of work before doing anything etc. The biggest thing is to try and get to know the person a little bit. We always leave a business card or some marketing material after we've asked if they're satisfied with our work and tell them can call us directly for service next time.
    3. I always delegate to one of my folks to watch the phone if I'm unreachable. If I'm unable to do that, I will pause my leads. If you can't respond quickly, the likelihood of getting hired is pretty small.
    4. We always send a review request for a week after (Thumbtack auto prompts) and we let the customer know they'll be seeing the request come through. Each person does it a little bit differently, but basically we say something like "For small local businesses like ours, these reviews really help us out and if you're satisfied with our work, we'd love it if you can take a minute and share your experience on the platform"
    5. This is a really tough thing to gauge. We have a "next man up" approach. We are always trying to have an apprentice who is training so that we can capture some easier overflow jobs to give them some practice and then have them ready to jump into their own truck when the business picks up.
    6. I put my budget on unlimited. I'll pause if things get too crazy for a short time until I can catch up, but I like to have the steady lead flow. The ROI is really good for a paid lead service so I don't mind paying for leads as long as we close a good amount of them and it's keeping us busy.
    7. We are an emergency service so it really doesn't work for a lot of jobs to push out multiple days/weeks. When we get booked up, I'll pause for a day or two until we catch up.
    8. I am not using AI for anything customer facing. This may be a controversial statement, but I don't think any customer would prefer to talk to a computer in any capacity than a human especially when they're dealing with an emergency. I believe that a tool like AI, is a good way to lose a customer. I personally hate them when I call for things in my personal life and I imagine many others feel the same.
    9. Not as well as I should. I should update much more often
    10. We use Quickbooks, Service Titan and have a company that manages our google profile and ads. To me, the other programs are extras. Having your financial information in one place (QBO) and a place to handle your intake, invoices, bids, schedule (Service Titan) and presence where people can find you online are the big 3. Everything else I see as optional.
    11. We tried maybe 5-6 lead aggregators. Thumbtack is the only one to refund non responsive customers which is absolutely huge for us. There's less price shopping as well. Many other ones, the majority of conversations I'll have are "How much does it cost" and me either trying to get around answering or answering and not hearing from them again. I'm not sure how thumbtack did it, but they seem to get a higher number of high intent customers. The close rate with thumbtack is better by a wide margin than others that I've tried.
  • busyb
    busyb PAB Member Posts: 80 ✭✭✭

    #2…I am so diligent about maintaining contact with each and every Thumbtack lead that converts to a client for us for as long as they remain subscribed to our monthly newsletter. But I also create other follow up opportunities and check in at various points well after the job is done. It's all about remaining present in their minds so that the next time they need services like ours they will immediately think of us.

    3…Responding to a lead while on a job has always been stressful because we all know that the first pro to reach a potential customer usually gets the job. I've been using Thumbtack's Front Desk though since it first launched and it helps take some of the pressure off. And I actually have in my client contract that I may need to break away to respond to certain messages and hope they understand the same way another client had to understand when I broke away to respond to their inquiry right away.

    4…My CRM is automated to send out a request to write a Google review right after the project is closed out and they will get two more reminders over the course of a few weeks but I also make sure to tell them on site how important reviews are and will sometimes get them to do a video testimonial right there and then. In addition, my monthly newsletter always mentions how much we would appreciate a review on Google or Thumbtack an include links to both.

    7…When booked out a week or two in advance I make sure to block the dates on our Thumbtack calendar but never hide our profile. I just don't think that is a good practice for our categories…home organizing and move management. Most of the leads we get indicate they need help within a few days to a week but they may, in fact, be flexible, so I am happy to compete for a job whether we have immediate availability or not.

    11…I have been a huge supporter of Thumbtack since I first joined in 2020 and have never found success with other lead generators. No platform is perfect but I do believe that Thumbtack overall does care about making sure Pros are set up for success and truly listen to our concerns. That said, nothing will generate leads unless you are willing to put in the effort and hustle. Just throwing a profile up on the internet will never be enough so you do have to pay to play. In other words, don't be afraid to at least test having an unlimited budget for a few months. I think you need to do it to build momentum.

  • brayelectrical
    brayelectrical PPC Member Posts: 1 ✭

    7. When you're booked out mid-month, what do you do? Hide your business, keep quoting and book out further, or something else?

    We generally lever down the budget if we are booked out more than 2-3 days.

    8. Are you using AI anywhere in your business, and where has it actually helped?

    We use speed to lead and AI voice

    10. What other tools do you use to run your business, and do you use an agency for paid ads or social media?

    We have an agency for social media and SEO, we use ServiceTitan and Quo, we run paid ads in house

    11. Why would you recommend Thumbtack over another lead generation tool?

    We like that you can choose the job type, this is not as granular with other lead gen platforms. The one improvement that would make Thumbtack even better would be the ability to have an ad schedule that can be turned off on certain days. 

  • Nick_Bennett
    Nick_Bennett PAB Member Posts: 4 ✭

    1. Walk us through your exact first response to a new lead. What do you send, how fast, and do you call or message first?

    We have templated responses for the first message based on the job category. Our team always has at least two people monitoring for Thumbtack Leads. We typically send within the first minute and call within the first 5 minutes.

    3. How do you protect your response time when you are on a job and unreachable?

    We make sure there are at least two people in our office watching for incoming leads. The only time we have trouble is when leads come in overnight at a late hour.

    4. How do you get clients to leave reviews, especially when they praise you privately but never post one?

    We make it part of our close out process. Our team will see if the client is open to leaving a review and if confirmed we will send the request. If they client doesn't leave a review within 3-5 days we will send an automated follow up and the team member who worked with them will make the request again by phone.

Resources

Welcome! Check out our Community Code of Conduct. (review here)