Hi everyone, thank you SO MUCH for all the great feedback you’ve given us about what leads cost. As you’ve probably noticed, this is a really important topic for most pros. And it’s really important for us too, because if you can’t succeed with our pricing model, then we can’t succeed either.
Believe me, we hear that you’re frustrated, and we’re trying hard to improve based on your feedback. There were tons of helpful posts, but we saw a few major topics that most of you feel strongly about. Here’s the most common feedback that I’ve brought back to my pricing team to address:
- We need to make our pricing more transparent and understandable
- It’s frustrating when customers respond to you but don’t follow through, and it should be easier to be refunded when you get a lead that isn’t meaningful
- It sometimes feels like our prices don’t reflect the true value of a job in your category
While I can’t promise that we’re going to fix all your concerns immediately, I can tell you that these are among our very top priorities. I’ll be back to announce product updates as we work through these issues, so stay tuned for updates in the Community. In the meantime, I wanted to share a few of the improvements we’ve made, and some things we’re working on in the coming months:
- Price transparency. We heard you when you said you needed to see prices upfront before deciding whether you wanted to pursue specific jobs. So we added prices to all jobs in your Jobs tab, as well as on all leads where customers proactively reach out to you and you get to decide whether you want to accept the lead. We’re continuing to work on ways to help you better understand what you’re paying for leads.
- Better prices. We’re constantly evaluating our prices to make sure they make sense. Recently, we lowered prices in over 100 categories (like Exterior Painting and Local Moving) because we realized those prices were too high. We also have a team dedicated to researching individual categories so that we can price leads appropriately. They’re hard at work evaluating our prices, and we’ll continue incorporating your feedback when you tell us prices seem off.
- Accounting for how serious customers are. We realize we need better ways of figuring out how serious customers are. You shouldn’t pay as much for customers who aren’t as serious. So we’re hard at work finding better ways to calibrate how serious a given customer is. In the meantime, we’ll continue investing in other ways to ensure the right customers are reaching out to you. We have new and improved ways for you to showcase your business and pricing ahead of time, so customers don’t have to contact you just to ask. We’re also continuing to invest in cost pages, so that customers can get a sense of pricing before they reach out to you. We hope this will reduce the number of customers who contact you just to ask about your prices.
- Easier way to get refunds. We’re working on giving you the ability to request refunds right in the app. This way you can quickly and easily tell us when you think you’ve been charged incorrectly, and we can investigate to make sure you’re only paying for quality leads.
We’re constantly trying to make Thumbtack better for both our customers and pros. Happy customers who keep coming back to Thumbtack means we have more jobs for pros. And lots of pros who find value using Thumbtack means we have the right pros to meet customers’ needs. It’s not easy and we’re constantly learning, so I hope you will stick with us through the journey. Thanks again for all the amazing feedback. I see that we have a lot of work to do to make our pricing system work for you, and I’m excited about all the great improvements to come!
-Vinamrata
