Want to know more about Price Assurance?

[SamF]

@drart  We want pros to succeed on Thumbtack so we offer multiple ways to get in touch with potential customers. It sounds like targeting may not be the best route for your ministry at this time. If you aren’t doing so already, we suggest using the Opportunities tab to reach out to potential customers in your area. It’s free to quote and you’re only charged if the customer responds with interest in your services.

[Jamco04072]

I recently bid on a small job just to see how it works I never heard anything I was expecting a phone number to talk to posible customer or for thumbtack to return payment but it was like giving money away I still never heard back so question is how do we know what the final outcome is after payment it says no response it’s free I never received any info at all

[Kameron]

Hey @Jamco04072, it sounds like you may be fairly new to Thumbtack. I just want to start by saying welcome and that we're happy to have you on the site and here in our pro Community. 

As you get started on the site you can visit the Opportunities section and choose to quote on jobs where the customer has already contacted another pro, but where you think you may also be a great fit. 

The best way to go about getting hired on Thumbtack is to put yourself in a competitive position in the search results and get contacted directly by customers that found and reached out to you specifically. The ways in which you can work to do this are listed in this help article HERE.

[Roberta]

You allow 4 hours to respond. There are days that I am in session back to back all day. That is not practical for my business. You also put me in a category with therapists (I'm a hypnotists), so I get leads that are outside of my scope of practice. For example, a lead might say help with an addiction. If it's smoking, that's my wheelhouse, if its meth, it isn't. I've also reached out to a client and they've already hired someone else, but I pay for the lead anyway.

I'm so over all your recent implementation and pricing. I miss the ability to quickly respond with templates (are they even on the site anymore?). All these new lead "categories" are confusing. I also don't publish fees because I don't know until they come in for a consult what it will be or if I will even accept them as a client. 

Perhaps Thumbtack isn't for me anymore.....

[WillC]

Hey @Roberta. We want Thumbtack to work for you. We appreciate that you’ve been with Thumbtack for a while and some of the recent changes can seem drastically different for your business. We know that the faster you respond to customers the more successful you are as a pro. We are hoping that responding within that time period will help to ensure a great experience for customers and pros while they use our platform. 

If you’re concerned about not being able to respond within that time, we do have some tools that can help you out. Within Thumbtack messenger, you can save your replies to use later. This is very similar to how the quote templates work within the opportunities tab. These “Saved Replies” are located beneath the messaging bar within each conversation.

If you have specific categories you’d like us to consider, we’re always open to your feedback. Just keep in mind that change can take time to see

[rciwbecker]

Oh my word - I am so happy to read this thread and see that it is not just me that is frustrated and spending way too much money for leads that don't pan out or are refused after learning more details. There must become a way, and if you are doing this maybe this is your goal, to help us all WIN. Thumbtack AND Pros ! I have had good success with one of my businesses, but huge failures with the other and the frustration is mounting. Find a way you guys to keep the ones that make you money happy - otherwise, everyone is a loser ! Frustrated in Oregon !!!

[Leehazel]

Not enough detailed information from leads to accept leads for $20 average just to answer a simple question. TT needs to convey or prequalify these leads better to justify charging such a high price for the initial contact. TT has become way too expensive in this format for the small amount of leads vs price. A lot of leads are just inquiry and not serious clients and pretty sure they have no idea that the pro has to pay such a high price just to respond to there inquiry. The old format was much more user friendly, at least you had an idea of what you were spending.  Please come up with a better system, ie show all relevant leads and let the pro purchase the ones they want to pursue:

[SantaFrog]

My question deals with distance. If the automatch system is matches me to a job 75 miles away in the next county I would raise my quite to cover time and fuel. If it's a four or five hour deal I may not charge as much pop er hour.
These issues should be addressed.

[WillC]

Thank you @SantaFrog! That’s very good insight. This is a suggestion we’ve heard before. We’d be happy to send this on to our product team on your behalf. Currently, we don’t have a way to edit your pricing based on the location of the job. If this is something you continue to see, we may want to add more in depth pricing information in your introduction or Q&A section of your profile.

[xdwalley]

Since rates are usually negotiable (in order to win jobs) it is a huge oversight not to be compensated for these variances. Just like you can't supply exact numbers on charges, at times it difficult to capture reasonable profits. Consider these points...

1.  I could lose a customer if the autoquote is to low, due to distance or whatever (fill in the balnk) because I have no way of informing them of the price difference upfront.

2. If I increase the cost in the preferences section to account for distant (outside of local area) contacts, I could lose local customers to those same rate increases (that can't be changed)

3. It's impossible to list the areas individually with separate prices on your profile page when you're referring to a 100-150 mile radius

4.  An exact match is not, "everything matches except the price" but for some reason Thumbtack thinks its ok to charge full price for this partially correct lead 

5.  A partially correct quote actually decreases your chances of being hired

Sir, I am a realist and these are all facts. Eventually something as simple as clicking inside the cost box and changing a few digits has to be implemented.

Alternatively the company should be willing to offer compensation to cover these loses in the form of credits.

A free lead now and then would be a great kicker for Top Pros as well...just throwing it out there lol.