Home Advisor

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Greg1707

Senior Member
Location
Alexandria, VA
Occupation
Business owner Electrical contractor
I have been receiving telephone calls everyday from Home Adviser. I finally gave up and listened to their pitch: $350 annual membership fee and leads provided at $19-$60. Anyone have an opinion?
 
They're annoying. They called me for weeks and every time I let it go to voicemail and blocked their number. A few days later they called from a different number. Then they dug up an old email address and said that they left me many messages but I still haven't returned their calls. I took them a month to get the hint.
 
I've been staying away from them because I heard that once you sign up you give up rights to your web address and phone number. If you quit Home Advisor you lose them. Not sure if this is true but it has me wary. I would read all of the fine print before signing up.

I'm on Porch and Google lead services. I can't really recommend either because I get a lot of BS calls they charge me for and I have to jump thru a lot of hoops to get my money back. I only accept big jobs from them, since the fees make accepting small jobs unprofitable.

I'm also a member of Better Business Bureau. They send me leads at no extra charge over my membership. I can recommend them.
 
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I have no idea about the business side of home advisor or the return but I often have to search out new sub contractors for estimates and I am instantly turned off once I figure out home advisor is answering the phone. They get me so frustrated with all of their questions that I usually hang up and keep looking for the REAL phone number to the business. If I cannot find it in a few quick searches, that contractor just does not end up getting my call. Sorry to say as a consumer, I despise home advisor. They are wasting my time playing phone bouncer.

IMO your money is better spent on a well designed but simple web presence, and active Facebook account and a few hundred dollars a year thrown at SEO effort.
 
I get at least one call a week from them. It stopped for a while then started up again. What made me mad was they somehow got my personal email address that I don't use for business at all. They had the same pitch that they use all the time except it was for roofers. I told them to stop sending me emails as I wasn't a roofer. I think they were fishing to see if it was me and if I would reply. I just said I wasn't a roofer but didn't mention being an electrician.

From people that have signed up with them none would recommend them. They make you give them your CC info and bill you for each lead. They are supposed to credit you if the call was just "tire kickers" or complete junk call. Most say it took forever to get credited and then only some of the charges were credited.

My advice.......
Run, Forest, Run!!!
 
Greg1707 said:
I have been receiving telephone calls everyday from Home Adviser. I finally gave up and listened to their pitch: $350 annual membership fee and leads provided at $19-$60. Anyone have an opinion?
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Hope you didn't fall for it. Google them and read the horror stories, they are a total scam. I believe they bought Angie's List. Angie should be in jail!

-Hal
 
Iirc, Home Adviser was Service Magic before they were sued out of biz.

The HA incarnation is no better> rip off report

Further, i think we've been witness to the rise/fall of enough 'national maintenance companies' prostituting the 'net to claim their proliferation has assumed the 'race to bottom' status

I've worked for enough in my time , which sugared off a 'no thanks' policy across the board.

If you'd like to bid against 900 other sparks, or ride an hour for an unknown problem under a NTE (not to exceed) , can't create your own internet presence (or even need one), think some nefarious entity sanctions your validity, or otherwise can't pound bricks locally in what is the best economy in a decades , you may as well hang it up now


~RJ~
 
I stay away from them myself, they start calling every few months and I keep blocking the numbers.

Home Depot has a Pro Referral program that is free and easy to sign up for.

I get a fair amount of work through it. Mostly service work, ceiling fans etc.
 
infinity said:
They're annoying. They called me for weeks and every time I let it go to voicemail and blocked their number. A few days later they called from a different number. Then they dug up an old email address and said that they left me many messages but I still haven't returned their calls. I took them a month to get the hint.
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If it wouldn't take the expense of a lawyer to get anywhere with it, and even then maybe nowhere worthwhile, would be nice to turn the table and collect from them for their interruptions of your day - especially if you already informed them you are not interested in their services, but same would apply to any others that solicit you in similar manner.

Out here in the rural areas and even in the smaller cities in this region I just don't think there is as much use of such nationwide organizations for these types of home services. Everyone knows who (or at very least who the bigger players are) in their area providing those services, and will contact them in a more direct manner. I know most the contractors (all trades) in the area want nothing to do with such organizations, so if a client wants to use one of those services to book someone, they are likely to get someone from out of the area.

Metro areas I can see being a completely different ballgame.
 
whoever

whoever

don't know about you guys but I would never pay for the opportunity to bid work I may not get...free estimates cost gas money and my time..no way I'm paying for a customers contact info.
But that's just me it may work for some of you.
 
For $350 annual membership and 20 to $60 per lead, you could take that money get you a Yellow Pages ad print out thousands of business cards mail letters or put them in the door handles of people's doors and tons of neighborhoods. With the internet you would pretty much have to use Google's services to be listed on the front page in your area.

If the average lead cost $30, even if you got 50% of those jobs, which sounds like a really high number by most of you that have experience with Home Advisor, you'd come out ahead simply by dropping or simply printing $25 off coupons in your flyers or on select business cards
 
I use the following services:

Porch - no membership fee, $25 per lead, $2.50 refunded if you respond within an hour.
Google local - no membership fee, $18 per lead
Better Business Bureau - basic membership which gets you a basic listing on their site and a rating you can advertise $56/mo, no charge for leads, although leads are infrequent.

Home Advisor scares me for the reasons I detailed in post #3.
 
Please give us more information about your success with leads from Portch etc. How has this worked? Can you limit or target the number of leads to control spending?
 
Greg1707 said:
Please give us more information about your success with leads from Portch etc. How has this worked? Can you limit or target the number of leads to control spending?
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Well, first of all look at post #3.

With both Porch and Google Local you can set your "service area" by zip code. Supposedly you will only get calls from the zips you select. This is really a rough approximation but it's close enough.

Also with both services you can set the "job types" you want leads for. Both services make half-assed attempts to limit leads to those jobs types. My biggest problem with both is receiving calls outside the job type list. I have selected only bigger jobs from the list as I don't think it's profitable to get charged for a "change a light switch" lead. You can dispute leads outside the job types. With Porch this is fairly easy. With Google Local the calls are recorded (and they listen if you dispute) and if you indicate even a passing interest in the job, they will deny your dispute.

Both services allow you to set a spending limit after which you will stop receiving leads and charges.
 
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Just an FYI, the leads they're giving you are not qualified. What I mean is that you mat be getting a lead from someone that is price shopping and calling as many EC's as possible. The other thing I found is that they send you a text for the lead. If you don't call back immediately you lose the lead. Think about being up on a ladder, 20' in the air, connecting a service and your phone goes off. What are you supposed to do, drop everything, slide down the ladder to talk to someone who's price shopping ? IMHO, stay away from this type of referral service.
 
Most lead generation services were spawned via the '08 crash

A lot of us went about chasing our tails ,looking to stay afloat

FF, to '18. This is the best economy i've seen since the crash

allbeit another 'bubble', i can't ride downtown w/o seeing hiring signs

The temp agencies are having afield day, anyone with 2 arms/legs & 1/2 a brain can make good

Every trade i run into is turning work down, or scheduling a season ahead

This is a point in time to cultivate local business that has some allegiance that can come back to us when and if things go China again.

This is not the time to waste such opportunities on whoever is looking to prostitute us via this soul sucking device

thx

~RJ~
 
Greg1707 said:
Please give us more information about your success with leads ...
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I just realized I missed this part of your question.

Approximately 25% of the calls I receive are in the job types I'm interested in pursuing. Keep in mind I am severely limiting the job types and the services don't filter them very well. If you are willing to accept any job they send your way, this number would be closer to 90% after you take out the people just calling to ask questions or looking for a job.

Of the 25% I am able to close about 20% each of which are between a $1700 and $3500+ sell price. I have a much higher close rate on jobs referred to me by previous clients, and people with whom I network probably because they refer people who are close to their income level. (In the cases of businesses referring me, they refer people who can afford "their" services e.g. mechanical contractors.) Through the services, you get a lot of calls from people who could never afford your services, but have big dreams. I recently started culling zip codes from my service area where the median income is below a certain threshold to minimize these calls.

So overall I get about a 5% close rate on a good sized sale (for a small mostly residential shop). If I were accepting any job, the close rate would be much higher, but the average sale would be much lower. YMMV.

Bottom line: a lot of sorting wheat from chaff, but high value wheat so worth the effort (somewhat).
 
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We signed with home advisor in early 2017. At first, we had a couple bogus calls and people just fishing for prices. I will say that we have had GOOD LEADS that have lead to nice jobs. With the yearly $295 and our $100 monthly target for leads, we wind up in the green. I would say on average we get 50% of our leads we pay for. We actually turned our leads off for for the full 90 days, which requires a call, and our info is still up on home advisor so we get calls even without having our leads on. For our company, it makes sense. But I will not be paying for leads anymore. We have 9 5 star reviews so we are In the top 3 in our area. I am not sure about consequences of leaving home advisor but we DO NOT have a website so I would not be worried about home advisor having authority over it if we leave.
 
Home advisor & Its Services

Home advisor & Its Services

A home advisor and his services are still not as good as having a recommendation from a close friend or neighbor.
 
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