ScottZ, @scottz wrote: " But before we get to those, I think it’s important to give some context on why we changed the way Thumbtack works. Before, customers came to Thumbtack searching for pros and would have to wait to hear back from a pro. Sometimes customers didn’t even make it through the initial request form. In fact, 80% of customers wouldn’t even get to the point of meeting any pros. Those were jobs that could’ve been yours." I think you are operating under a false premise. While it may be true that " 80% of customers wouldn’t even get to the point of meeting any pros." You seem to believe that maybe there were no pros available, but since the old system allowed every contractor the opportunity to view the request, within that area, and within that speciality, and only 5 could respond. It stands to reason that the requests were viewed, and rejected for any number of reasons. From being to far for too small a job, or not exactly what I am looking for, or maybe, I am just to busy at the moment to take on something else, and lastly I looked at it, and thought it was bogus, and would be more trouble than it was worth. A lot of the leads that came through, were just crap from the begining. Pro's get pretty good at "reading between the lines" as to who is serious and who is either window shopping, or just a window licker. Now I understand that you see this as lost revenue for you, and have devised this new system to try to get folks to pay for all the chaff that was falling through the cracks before. Now as for your "list", you do know that you are far behind the curve for building a search engine, Type out a request, say for a carpenter in Manchester, NH.....low and behold GOOGLE will give you a list...for nothing, Bing does it too, Yahoo, heck, the yellow pages. And just like you, if I pay to promote my business listing, I can get to the top of the list. So Please, how about some statistic's on how many folks, 1) Click on several contractors (window shoppers) 2) How many of those actually hire someone. Willing to bet those numbers will never see the light of day. 3) How many are just window lickers (not hiring anybody anyway. I mean there were tons under the old system. Every contractor has pages on pages of archived dead quotes. No response, and no indication that they hired someone else nor hired anyone at all.
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