About Jon_Don_Myers

Jon_Don_Myers · ‎November 11, 2020

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?

Jon_Don_Myers · ‎November 11, 2020

Thumbtack tells customers that the average price of a 4-hour wedding DJ is $444. That is certainly not the case in southern California, especially in Los Angeles or San Diego. Any decent wedding DJ would never charge less than $700 for wedding DJ services. Is this average price the national average? The average price in a particular state? WHY IS IT SO LOW? I doubt someone in North Dakota would charge the same amount as someone in New York... so when will thumbtack raise their average prices to reflect the modern era of wedding prices in specific regions (especially in So Cal)?

Jon_Don_Myers · ‎November 11, 2020

Let's say I charge $100 an hour for DJ services (I charge more than that but for the sake of simple math) - so $300 for a 3-hour job and $900 for a 9-hour job - the instant targeting will automatically match me with a 9-hour job for $300. There is no way to stop this from occurring now because targeting doesn't work with hourly rates, and thumbtack customer service will not refund you if this happens... because this was happening so frequently I had to block out anything under $700 and anything under 4 hours because I didn’t want to be incorrectly matched and I was advised by customer service to just go after the big leads (even though I now miss out on 60% of leads that would match my criteria if thumbtack had a better system). I would love the opportunity to say yes to 4-hour gigs that are willing to pay the $400, and not be charged when someone wants 10 hours 300 bucks... when will Thumbtack improve this?

Jon_Don_Myers · ‎November 11, 2020

If the client doesn't have a budget picked I don't accept their lead. Thumbtack shouldn't even have the option "budget not sure," because that means the client isn't really ready to book a service. It's especially bad when you're the only vendor the client has picked, and thumbtack asks if you want to accept the lead and you say no because it's too dangerous to spend 30 bucks on a client that might not even be able to afford your services - which also makes thumbtack look bad - because now this client has been declined by their only choice and they're much more likely to never use thumbtack again.

Jon_Don_Myers · ‎September 24, 2019

Some customers want to talk on the phone for hours, and others have social anxiety about talking on the phone at all. Some people find it rude to text and others prefer it more... I evaluate a customer's style of communication mostly by emailing them my regular "intro email" and ending it with the sentence: "feel free to call or text me at any time." Which basically tells the customer: I prefer emails, but "texting and calling" is cool too. As I'm sure most vendors will agree: we like emails best, "texting" second best, and calling and meeting in-person the least. Why? It's not that we don't love meeting clients, at a random Starbucks so they can eyeball us quickly before signing the contracts. It's because the emails and texts give us a better receipt of all the client's requests, which can sometimes be lost during calls and meetings in person. Communication is everything, but it can be different for every one of your customers. Customer is always right, but don't be afraid to steer them in the right direction.

Jon_Don_Myers · ‎December 12, 2018

The only thing stopping me from creating fake thumbtack projects and bankrupting every DJ in my surrounding area is morality. THUMBTACK needs to find a way to stop this from happening - because not all vendors have the same code of ethics as me.

Jon_Don_Myers · ‎December 12, 2018

YES, Scott with a Z, PLEASE ANSWER THIS QUESTION ASAP

Jon_Don_Myers · ‎December 12, 2018

When I'm at a wedding gig and I'm eating with other DJs, photographers, videographers, and wedding coordinators I'm always asking the same question: how did they find you? How did you get hired? Was it TT? Wedding Wire? Instagram or Facebook? And I've talked with so many vendors over the past year and basically, the consensus is: TT use to be good and now it isn't. TT's newest changes have made it too expensive to make the app a viable booking solution. I use to spend $200+ of my monthly advertising budget on TT and IT WORKED! but the recent auto quote/ranking changes have caused me to see fewer quotes and fewer hires and it has ultimately lead me to spend less than $60 a month on advertising with TT. Which is a lose/lose for thumbtack and myself. And judging from the comments on this thread, my experience seems to be the norm. I recently tried to use TT to find a DJ to fulfill a DJ job that I couldn't do and I was shocked to find out what a TT customer experience is... I was shown a list of DJ's in no particular order, (literally) some had one review and others had hundreds. I coudn't figure out how Thumbtack was rationalizing these rankings. So I tried to look for a DJ on a date that I knew I was available, you know, to try and see where my DJ company would pop up on the search result - as a test - BUT my company didn't pop up at all - instead DJ's with only one hire and zero reviews were filling my results. I'm a top pro! Over 50 hires. Over 35 Reviews. AND I didn't even pop up! How does your algorithm work? Why would you showcase inexperienced DJs over your top pros? Why are you charging us more money for a worse product? Please explain your new ludicrous ranking systems and how it could possibly help us, the vendor, or the customers?

Posts	9	Kudos Given	18
Solutions	0	Kudos Received	24

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

When will Thumbtack raise "average price" to reflect local and not national statistics?

When will Thumbtack allow hourly rates for Targeting?

When will Thumbtack end "budget not sure"

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Re: Let’s talk about how you rank in search results

Re: Let’s talk about how you rank in search results

Re: Let’s talk about how you rank in search results