Home advisor

[The Singing Arborist]

I've been resisting joining up with home advisor for this, the first year of my business. Now that it's winter, and slower here in Utah, they are becoming more inticing.

Who out there has experience, positive or negative, with home advisor? Did they help to bring in more leads? Are you able to find good customers? Does the high cost per lead pay for itself with your work? Are you getting enough leads in winter?

Right now I use a mixture of thumback, flyers, referrals, and networking. For the most part, I work alone as most of my work is trimming, although I have a guy to help me every now and again to run ropes on complicated removals.

Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[Hoodiegadoo]

May God help you. They will NEVER stop calling. I looked into it once and decided the cost per referral that went to more folks than just myself wasn’t worth it. Because you were paying for essentially a name and phone number each time on top of their annual fee. However, they won’t give up on you. Even tried to sell multiple people drugs to get them to leave me alone. Took about 5 years to get rid of them.

 

[Bwoell14]

I have t used HomeAdvisor but it was tempting a few times. I do use Thumbtack though. I’ve heard HomeAdvisor markets your name on the internet, directs customers searching for your company to the HomeAdvisor site and then bills you for it.

I’m a small solo business like you. Problem I found is HA doesn’t categorize like Thumbtack does. With Thumbtack, I can see it’s a 40 foot tree and more than I am capable of doing. With HomeAdvisor, I don’t see that until after I have been billed $40 for the useless lead.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[The Singing Arborist]

Thanks for the feedback. I had the same thoughts about their blind and expensive leads...not a fan. I guess what's interested me is their claims of winter season leads. It seems possible that the HA was lying about that or exagerating.

 

[Bwoell14]

Thanks for the feedback. I had the same thoughts about their blind and expensive leads...not a fan. I guess what's interested me is their claims of winter season leads. It seems possible that the HA was lying about that or exagerating.

I still get the calls all of the time too. I’m in Florida and it’s funny because I get them during hurricane season. They’ll say they have more customers than tree companies. Duh, because work is everywhere during a storm.

They seem eager to sell which is a red flag for me. If there was as much work as they claim, we’d pay double for their services.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ATH]

I've used it for a couple of years. I got fed up with the referrals that I was being charged for, but the homeowner wouldn't return a call, text, email, etc...

I told them to cancel. They said that since I had paid my annual fee, I could keep the account open, but suspend referrals. That keeps my business on their website, but not for referrals. I have gotten a couple jobs a month from that. I'll probably renew and do that same thing next year. I will NOT play their pay for referral game again.