If there's anyone here who doesn't have a fastlane plan yet or if thier looking to do something else , here's something for ya!
Build a website to compete with ServiceMagic! They pretty much have a stronghold on the market right now but their service is terrible. I know this from experience. Someone can build a site to compete with them and take them down.
As some of you know, I am a Painting Contracter (but not for long). Times are tough right now for me for two reasons.
1) The economy is pretty bad right now and most people fear spending money unless it's neccessary. I guess they figure they can hold off on a paint job.
2) So many people in my area lost their jobs and I guess one of the easiest jobs for them to start is a painting business. Everyone thinks they can paint but i always end up fixing bad paint jobs. This not only means more competiton for me but these people are also charging unbelievably low prices that I can not compete with
So I my partner and I decided to try Servicemagic. It's been one month so far and we have just about broke even. It is not worth the trouble at all but I feel it can easily be fixed and here are my complaints and what I think can be dont to fix them:
1) More than half of their leads are Bogus. I recieve the lead then try to contact the customer by phone and email. I get no response from the customer but I am still charged between $30-$50 for each lead depending on what it's for. Then I have to fight with them to get my money back for a bogus lead and they are very reluctant to credit me.
What I think probably happens is that someone decides maybe they should get some work done on their house, so they go on the computer, punch some stuff into servicemagics website not realizing that the 3 contracters get the leads and get charged for it. They then decide a few minutes later that they dont want any work or can't afford it now so they dont answer.
Another reason can be that a scumbag contractor who is signed up for the service, has family members or friend fill out an estimate request in order to screw the competition.
2) When you first sign up, they sweet talk you and don't tell you about hidden charges. They told us that a free website for our company is included but "forgot" to inform us that there are monthly fees for both our main website and our mobile website
3) When we signed up we had told them that we did not want small jobs (which is a seperate category) and that we only wanted larger jobs or commercial jobs. We got hit with about 10 small jobs in the first 2 weeks and are currently fighting to get credits for those leads. They also told us that if we happen to get a lead for a small job it would be no problem getting a credit for it.
4) We were getting sick of all these small jobs getting sent to us so we shut off our residential leads. Within a few hours of shutting it off we got a commercial lead and another one the next day. How is it that we didn't get any in over 2 weeks but all of a sudden we get 2 when we shut off the residential. By the way, they were both bogus.
I'm not sure if I'm missing anything else but here's my idea to improve this concept:
-To prevent bogus leads you can have customers sign up to your site free of charge. Get full information from them such as full name, address, phone #'s, etc...
-In order for them to get a free estimate, have them give their credit card info. Make it a point that if 1 contractor goes on the estimate then they will not got charged. They will only get charged if they don't answer their phone or email and make an attempt to schedule an appointment with the contractors. This will prevent people from just filling out the form for the fun of it. It will also prevent J O cotractors from having friends and family screwing with people.
-Don't have any hidden fee's! That really bothers me.
-Have helpful customer service. Remember that the contractors are your customers, not the home owner
-Advertise it to contractor's as a site without the bogus leads. I swear that out of 30 leads, more than half of them were B S!!
-Make sure every contractor is legit. Licensed, Insured, the whole 9 yards. I actually gave a quote to a customer on a job that required lots of labor for $3500. They loved us but told us that a husband and wife team (yes you read that right) gave them an estimate of $1500!!!! That's absolutely insane. They probably had no insurance, no overhead and had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
-Have some kind of customer rep program so contractors know which customer's are really legit.
I'm sure there are other improvements too but that's what I can think of right now.
They are the leaders of the industry right now in a very large market. They have thousands of contractor's across the country signed up. If a % of their contractor's can be taken away then you might have a nice little business!
Hope someone can do something with this!
Build a website to compete with ServiceMagic! They pretty much have a stronghold on the market right now but their service is terrible. I know this from experience. Someone can build a site to compete with them and take them down.
As some of you know, I am a Painting Contracter (but not for long). Times are tough right now for me for two reasons.
1) The economy is pretty bad right now and most people fear spending money unless it's neccessary. I guess they figure they can hold off on a paint job.
2) So many people in my area lost their jobs and I guess one of the easiest jobs for them to start is a painting business. Everyone thinks they can paint but i always end up fixing bad paint jobs. This not only means more competiton for me but these people are also charging unbelievably low prices that I can not compete with
So I my partner and I decided to try Servicemagic. It's been one month so far and we have just about broke even. It is not worth the trouble at all but I feel it can easily be fixed and here are my complaints and what I think can be dont to fix them:
1) More than half of their leads are Bogus. I recieve the lead then try to contact the customer by phone and email. I get no response from the customer but I am still charged between $30-$50 for each lead depending on what it's for. Then I have to fight with them to get my money back for a bogus lead and they are very reluctant to credit me.
What I think probably happens is that someone decides maybe they should get some work done on their house, so they go on the computer, punch some stuff into servicemagics website not realizing that the 3 contracters get the leads and get charged for it. They then decide a few minutes later that they dont want any work or can't afford it now so they dont answer.
Another reason can be that a scumbag contractor who is signed up for the service, has family members or friend fill out an estimate request in order to screw the competition.
2) When you first sign up, they sweet talk you and don't tell you about hidden charges. They told us that a free website for our company is included but "forgot" to inform us that there are monthly fees for both our main website and our mobile website
3) When we signed up we had told them that we did not want small jobs (which is a seperate category) and that we only wanted larger jobs or commercial jobs. We got hit with about 10 small jobs in the first 2 weeks and are currently fighting to get credits for those leads. They also told us that if we happen to get a lead for a small job it would be no problem getting a credit for it.
4) We were getting sick of all these small jobs getting sent to us so we shut off our residential leads. Within a few hours of shutting it off we got a commercial lead and another one the next day. How is it that we didn't get any in over 2 weeks but all of a sudden we get 2 when we shut off the residential. By the way, they were both bogus.
I'm not sure if I'm missing anything else but here's my idea to improve this concept:
-To prevent bogus leads you can have customers sign up to your site free of charge. Get full information from them such as full name, address, phone #'s, etc...
-In order for them to get a free estimate, have them give their credit card info. Make it a point that if 1 contractor goes on the estimate then they will not got charged. They will only get charged if they don't answer their phone or email and make an attempt to schedule an appointment with the contractors. This will prevent people from just filling out the form for the fun of it. It will also prevent J O cotractors from having friends and family screwing with people.
-Don't have any hidden fee's! That really bothers me.
-Have helpful customer service. Remember that the contractors are your customers, not the home owner
-Advertise it to contractor's as a site without the bogus leads. I swear that out of 30 leads, more than half of them were B S!!
-Make sure every contractor is legit. Licensed, Insured, the whole 9 yards. I actually gave a quote to a customer on a job that required lots of labor for $3500. They loved us but told us that a husband and wife team (yes you read that right) gave them an estimate of $1500!!!! That's absolutely insane. They probably had no insurance, no overhead and had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
-Have some kind of customer rep program so contractors know which customer's are really legit.
I'm sure there are other improvements too but that's what I can think of right now.
They are the leaders of the industry right now in a very large market. They have thousands of contractor's across the country signed up. If a % of their contractor's can be taken away then you might have a nice little business!
Hope someone can do something with this!
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