@MichelleT Thank you for posting this. I don't know how many Pros will comment because they haven't been HEARD in other threads. Hopefully they will comment. A couple of months ago, against my better judgment, and at the advice of your phone rep, and even with your on line reps, I tried Promote. It goes against the way that I do business. As a DJ in business for 29 years, I need to be personable with every customer reaching out to me. With the previous system, one that I'm still using with Promote off, I was and am able to send a quote with a personable message. All customers that have hired me last year said they chose me over others because of my being personable and was willing to work with their budgets. But I was told that I can be personable in my profile. Really? How can I be personable for EVERY customer and situation in my profile? Do customers take time to read a lengthy profile? What caused me to turn promote off are the following 1) I do NOT want to get charged for every generic replay/conversation starter! Who thought of that? I need to see the cost of a lead and customer profile first before I send a quote. This way I can see if a customer is a good fit for me. 2) I stopped using Promote because of the number of leads that I wouldn't have sent, were being sent on my behalf. Thumbtack didn't give me a chance to read the customer profiles and costs first. I was told that happened because they felt customers were a good fit or exact match. 3) Not being refunded for jobs that I would not have bid on and customer reached out to me. That's not fair at all. 4) Calendar bookings didn't work with Promote. Customers were asking about my availability and I was getting charged even though my calendar date was booked. 5) Cost of leads are too high, way too high. Other sites charge Pros much less, in fact half or more than half of what Thumbtack charges. 6) Travel areas are ridiculous. If I want to get a lead in one city, I'm receiving leads from a city 1-2 hours away from the first city. 7) Customers aren't providing emails/phone numbers. Improvements 1) Do not charge the pros until AFTER we reply to a customer, whether it be generic reply or message. This way we get to see the customer and lead cost. 2) If we reach out to a customer and get charged, and customer never replies to us in a timely manner, we should be refunded. 3) We set weekly budgets. Charge us by the week, not for every $50 usage. Thumbtack is setting the budget for us by charging us for every $50. So, Pros setting budgets is useless. 4) Travel areas need to be adjusted. Perhaps work with the Pros on that? 5) We need at least a customer's email and/or phone number. If Thumbtack uses my number 1 on improvements, then we need some kind of contact information to continue the correspondence. 6) Customers need to be charged a nominal fee for sending generic replies. Then Thumbtack will have very interested customers. 7) One Pro suggested a trial period for using Promote. How about a trial period for 7-14 days with a discount(not the 20%, but more) And if we don't like it, then we use manual system. But if trial period is to be used, don't charge our cards til end of trial period. This will show the Pros that you are on our side, and want Promote to work for us. Other Ideas/thoughts We need on line reps to understand us, and not get defensive when Pros are complaining. We have nobody to talk to when we have an issue. We get sent numerous links and get warnings when we voice our opinion and trying to help other Pros. Some get banned for 30 days. We need those reps to help our business succeed here, and answer questions in honesty. If I'm going to use Promote again, these changes need to be implemented. If no changes, I will continue to use manual system, and use Thumbtack less and less, and use other platforms over Thumbtack. I liked Thumbtack and I had alot of success before the changes. From reading all the threads on different levels, majority of the pros have had alot of success too with the previous system. You just have to read it. Some Pros may be banned from the forums so they may not see your post. Thank you for letting me voice my concerns/issues. Hopefully, Thumbtack will take some or all of my suggestions to improve Promote.
... View more
