Hi everybody -
We owe you an apology.
Three weeks ago we stopped asking customers to tell you their budget. We did it for a few reasons, which I’ll get to in a minute, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s been incredibly frustrating for a lot of you:
- This change makes it harder for you to quote on jobs and decide which ones you want.
- We didn’t give you enough notice.
- We didn’t explain why we did it.
Here’s what we’re doing about it:
- We’re testing four new budget questions. By the end of next week, we should know if they’re working and be able to tell you if you’ll start seeing some budget info again soon.
- We’re working on two new features: Packages and Price Ranges. They’ll be ready in a couple months and will hopefully make it a lot easier for pros and customers to meet on prices.
- If anything changes, we’ll let you know here.
In the meantime, let me try to explain what happened.
The budget problem.
Whether or not to ask customers for their budget is a huge debate at Thumbtack.
On one hand, we know seeing a budget can be really useful for you:
- If you’re looking through the Requests/Jobs tab, a budget helps you figure out which customers to contact.
- Customers with a higher budget sometimes seem more serious.
- You were able to tailor your quote to each customer, especially if you offer a variety of price points and services.
On the other hand, we saw a problem for customers:
- A lot of pros quoted higher prices for the same services if they saw a higher budget.
We know it’s an industry norm for some, but it didn’t seem fair. A waiter doesn’t ask you how much you’re willing to pay for dinner before he sets his prices. So we didn’t think it was right that some customers were getting charged more for the same service.
Also, customers aren’t stupid. On their side the budget question was tricky too:
- Many figured out what was going on and set their budgets lower as a negotiating tactic.
- People who weren’t sure just picked the lowest option by default.
Customers with lower budgets generally received fewer quotes and left Thumbtack unsatisfied. Other customers with high budgets got a lot of quotes but left feeling like they got ripped off. Needless to say, many of those customers did not return.
Where we messed up and what we’re doing next.
We took the budget question away. But we didn’t give you fair warning – we didn’t explain ourselves and we didn’t help you figure out how to use Thumbtack now that that question is gone.
A lot of you have told us that Thumbtack just doesn’t work for you if you don’t know people’s budgets.
So we’re testing new budget questions. One version is an optional open-text budget question. The other is a variation on the original multiple choice, with the ability for customers to indicate more than one budget range they are open to. We’re also working on building Packages and Price Ranges. And we’re hyper-focused on getting this right.
If you have ideas for what we should be doing, we want to hear them. Post them here or email events@thumbtack.com. We’ll be working on this all weekend. Needless to say, we’re paying attention.
And please know that we hear everything you’ve told us and appreciate you taking the time to post your thoughts in the Community. We’re still a startup and we rely on your voices to make Thumbtack better. So keep them coming. We’re working to fix this for you and the best way to do that is for you to tell us where we let you down and what you want to see us do next.
Sincerely,
Michelle, Category Manager for Events
