Why start a premium function during a pandemic (asking vendors to pay more $ for higher rankings)?

[Jon_Don_Myers]

I was in the zoom earlier today when you revealed that you plan on rolling out a "premium" feature on Thumbtack - where basically vendors will pay more money to rank higher in the rankings... why have you increased the price of leads during a pandemic? Why are you developing more ways to have Thumbtack make more money during a pandemic, instead of developing more ways for vendors to be more successful?

[Mysterious]

I completely agree. I have been here for years. When I started here the fees were reasonable, they have sky rocketed. The cost per lead has gone up to as much as or more than 50% a lead. I have hung in here many years TT cannot do. I have to make a decision. I think I will need to leave when customers are completed. I spent years building here, helping when needed, went from about 50% to less than a percent of work here. I went from getting jobs to almost nothing and I have not booked anything in awhile. I was a Top Pro here for years. I am full-time self-employed and I cannot afford their fees anymore. Please TT reduce your fees! That would be part of a solution. TT 5 yrs ago your system and your fees were much better. I would hope that thumbtack would review their process and see that pros are going to look elsewhere for work.

[QDP]

I agree, most of the requests are brain pickers that TT has NOT qualified. They just want to see and then NOT CHOOSE. It has not been worth it for me to continue, higher fees, looky-loos, and too-cheap-to-work- for. BAD mgmnt. poor site selection, poor requests.

[Jla]

I did not even know they had a Zoom meeting. I have been using Thumbtack for over 10 years. I went from booking 50 percent of my work when it was vendor centered (about 4 years ago). We read the leads and quoted on the ones we wanted. A few years back they completely changed everything and when to client centered service (even though the client doesn't pay the fee). They then charged us for ranking and tried to get us to pay for every lead a customer sent us Then once again they doubled their rates right at the beginning of the pandemic in March. They said it was just a coincidence. They had already set the rate increase and were not going to change it. I knew then that it was the beginning of the end for me as a vendor here. I have used Thumbtack far less since they raised their rates last March. Rates for photographers doubled. It takes replying to about ten leads to get one hire. The quality and quantity are terrible. They no longer advertise on google to get Thumbtacked rank higher. They obviously are losing money and go with raising rates verses, lowering rates and push revenue through more of us bidding when offering leads at a lower price. It saddens me because this use to be such a good lead source and now it seems like they don't care about the vendors anymore. They certainly are not listening to us.

[mm]

So does this mean reviews, hires and top pro status are basically useless for rankings now?

[Mysterious]

I haven't seen any 2020 Top Pro awards! The reviews, hires and top pro status are not useful to me as I cannot afford targeting! You need targeting on to be seen, I think!

[DJStevie]

@Mysterious
Yes, you do need Targeting on to be seen.
When you have it on pause, they do notify you of "Opportunities" via email.
DJ Stevie 11-16-2020

[DaleFinkJrFMNP]

THE CLIENTS ARE & always will be the reason they FAIL. With 30 years of experience and over 10,000 clients I can see patterns that develop through decades of experience. As I read through some of the thumbtack referrals and comments, it looks very much like a script and not reality but THEN read a review that was horrible about a young nutritionist on thumbtack. The reviews described that the experience with the nutritionist was a total failure. I thought to myself FINALLY!!!!!!
You see even a “REAL Nutritionist” can only expect the normal results And I’m talking about physiologically H just impossible again from a physiological standpoint the body will never change well it can but 100% of the people would never be able to Indore what that takes . The problem is and always will be the client. The expectations that have been described buy is anecdotal evidence from television commercials, social media, and all the rest who advertise unrealistic and unattainable expectations that have led clients to believe all the madness. The expectations are unrealistic the timeframe is completely unrealistic and the clients themselves have an unrealistic expectation. And if they don’t see results within a month they generally give up. & complain. I have heard every excuse in the world. Some of the direction the new nutritionist apply was probably learned at a university. The University is teaching it wrong. If I applied what I learned in school I wouldn’t be in this business very long. This goes out to any nutritionist who has had a bad result and it was posted on a social media or thumbtack like APP. GOOD JOB!!!!! The client is the problem, they don’t have enough intestinal fortitude and expect a miracle that does not happen in one month.
If it were that easy everybody would be healthy. The fact is it’s very difficult you’re trying to change a very bad pattern that has taken years to install. You cannot and will not change this pattern of behavior within a month. Before, I work with any client I explain this is a process a specific results are never the same from one person to the next. If you’re not available for a six month process I will not work with you. The first month is very light range of motion exercises in a very small tweak in diet nothing too drastic but also very realistic. The second month is where we start to clean up and pay more attention to the protein carbohydrate, micro nutrients. The third month without explaining my personal methodologies is where the results start to show and very little. At the six-month mark is when we can start making larger adjustments and scheduling because number one they’ve made it this far so their work ethic will not be a problem and we’re pretty much in the groove we’re life has not dictated all the excuses that you generally hear. I don’t want to continue with my specific methodologies, it’s taken me years to figure out exactly what to expect. I THOUGHT THUMBTACK WAS TOTAL NONSENSE BUT I CHANGE MY MIND. As I mentioned early. Reading most of the comments sounded like a script. The comments I could tell were not true, I’ve been doing this so long and understand the body so well the comments physiologically don’t lineup with the expectation.
In this business the word nutritionist is being diluted with people who have lost weight on their own & call themselves a nutritionist, try to teach others, Most people whose are taking a course over a weekend or a few months and call them selves nutritionist. Any person who eats food is a nutritionist. I’m a Cellular Biologist and I applied Food Science to Cellular deficiency. & a Nutritionist
Thank you
DaleFinkJr.
Please forward to any one you think should hear this ie.. customer service

[traynorpiano]

All this....except from a piano teacher's perspective. I can only do so much. The rest is up to the student.

[DJStevie]

@Jon_Don_Myers I didn't participate in that Zoom, but I thank you for sharing your thoughts and what you got out of it.

So, does that mean, if we have Targeting on and want to rank higher, we pay a Premium, on top of Targeting fees when a "customer" reaches out to us?
2020 has been a lost year for majority of us, and still is for me.
I'm in agreement with you, Jon, that Thumbtack should develop more ways to help us be more successful. Providing links for us is one thing, and I get that from my local government, but if Thumbtack can develop one or more ways to help us be a success on their platform during this pandemic, instead of increasing the price of leads and now having a feature for pros to pay more money to rank higher. With the struggles in 2020, majority of Pros can't afford to pay a Preimium, they may be listed on the bottom of the list after working hard on getting reviews, hires, and maintaining Top Pro Status

DJ Stevie 11-12-2020