So I just received an email response from Support regarding this subject and sorry, but this is beyond ridiculous! I just booked two jobs for September and November. You are telling me that those hires won't be reflected until at least the Fall and only if they leave a project status or review? Do you all understand that the client no longer communicates with me through Thumbtack? We only communicate via email or phone now. I doubt they are even reading anymore emails from Thumbtack. Why would they? We should be able to mark the job as "In Progress" as before and the client can verify, if that makes you feel better. Catering is not like a plumbing job. Clients often book caterers months in advance. Plumbers satisfy an immediate need so the hire and review rate are completely different animals. The hire rate also helps my profile and helps in the rankings/list the customers see when they are searching. This makes absolutely no sense and doesn't help me at all! I used to see an "in high demand" sticker on my profile but if I can't indicate my hires, how is that going to happen? Also, not all clients like to leave reviews. As a consumer myself, I don't often submit surveys or reviews.
This pandemic has already had a profound effect on my business. Now that customers are very slowly looking toward booking parties in the coming months, customer access to my profile is even more crucial. Please don't tell me to turn on targeting. I've never had it and never needed it because I was getting plenty of work, have been a Top Pro, and in high demand for quite some time without it. When I look at the customer search page now, I'm not even there anymore. Not because I didn't want or need work, but with the lock down, catering requests went down to almost nothing. Please fix this. Thanks.
