Service Magic

[GG]

I tried service magic for 1 month and couldn't wait to cancel my membership. I signed up for 15 leads that were sent to me via my cell phone. There were some leads that as soon as I wrote the persons phone # down I was calling them up only to hear them say they had just scheduled an appointment with another electrician from service magic. This lead me to believe that other members were obviously getting the same lead sooner than I was. I think I barely broke even at the end of the month and 80% of the leads I got were people price shopping. Have any of you actually made money using service magic?

 

[mdshunk]

Re: Service Magic

I tried it out of folly, but I did cancel. Truthfully, I'm busy enough. If you had a sales department or a salesman, I would want this to be a tool in their toolbox. Nothing would stop a good salesman from making an appointment with a person who already scheduled an appointment with another electrician. That's what salesmanship is all about. Honestly, when I need something serviced, I reach for the yellow pages or my rolodex first.

 

[shelco]

Re: Service Magic

In my area I turn about 75 to 80% into jobs.
I don't think I have that much competition though. But as soon as i get my advertising up to speed on service work I to will probably canel.

 

[coppertreeelectric]

Re: Service Magic

We use service magic and have great results. The lead you get is sent to 2 other contractors besides yourself. This month we have done over $5000 in just service magic leads. You need to play with your setting for a while before you stop getting the petty leads.

Also when ever we get a lead we call them back in about 2 minutes and 80% of the time get the job. I tend to like quick jobs more then long construction jobs so for a service company its a great tool.

Steve

 

[blackrd]

Re: Service Magic

Ive been signed up for a few months now, and Im running about 30% on the leads I get. There are some problems with servicemagic, all is not rosy. You do get jagofffs that get online and say they want a job done, and you cannot contact them, try as you might. But servicemagic will bill you nonetheless. Ive argued with them twice about this, and after the second time of arguing, they gave me 5 free leads to make ammends( squeeky wheel). Servicmagic tells me that they expect you to close 1 in 10 leads, and I told them that is a horrendous ratio, especially when the jobs average 300-1800$. So 10 leads are costing you something over $100, you contact 6 or 7 of the leads, go spend the time and bid, dont get the job. What did this just cost me? If you wittle down your job descriptions, work you do, to eliminate the rinky dink jobs, you will do much better using this service. In alot of respects, its like most advertising, in that you will never eliminate all the crank yankers. When I get a wiff that somebody is screwing me around, I give them a skyhigh price to let them know that I dont need them as my customer. All in all, it has been O.K. using this service, and I think they are on the right track, as long as they are willing to give you credit for the bullshit calls and not charge you. All in all, of the online services for electricians, its about the best Ive seen. Has anybody else used a diffrent service and been more successful?

[ June 23, 2005, 10:34 PM: Message edited by: blackrd ]

 

[sfav8r]

An update on Service Magic

An update on Service Magic

I decide to give them a try. I like their model of lead distribution. The commitment I made to myself was 60 days.

At the end of 60 days, what I have is this. I recieved 33 leads during that time frame. about 20 of the leads, nobody ever returned a call. Essentially, my pager goes off telling me there is someone who would like me to give them a price on a job. I call them back within 15 minutes of getting the lead. They don't answer so I leave a message. I follow that up with an email and one more voice mail...no response from them.

Approximately one third of them return the call, or answer when you call them. You engage in a conversation, but it never results in an appointment for an estimate. I also put in this category the people who called because they want an estimate to have a thermostat installed. When you tell them you can do it for the cost of a service call plus the thermostat, they still want you to come by and "take a look at it". Why? I just told you the price?

The third category was people who setup an appointment then did not use us for the job. We followed up on those leads as we always do, and I was surprised to see that with the exception of one prospect, they had all decided not to do the job. It wasn't our price or the fact that I forgot my deoderant that day, they just didn't want to do the job because it was more money than they thought it would be, or they changed their mind or whatever. This of course happens with any advertising, but the ratio has been very high with service magic.

The third category is the worst. You set an appointment and don't get the job. Out of the 22 appointments we set (and confirmed the day of the appointment), 6 were not home for the appointment. Out of the remaining ones, we didn't get a single job. There could of course be reasons not related to service magic for this, but as a comparison, on other jobs we quote, we average between 70--75% of those jobs. Even our newspaper ads have a better closing rate that the service magic leads.

The most disturbing thing for me was just how poor the service at service magic is. They are AWFUL about returning calls. They admit that on a good week it takes them 2-3 days to return a call, so they suggest if you have a question you call their customer service line. You will almost always hold for 10-20 minutes and you will get a different person every time...you know the drill.

At the end of the day, we spent $533 in 60 days and about 20 hours of our time and yilded no work.

So, to summarize my opinion and experience, service magic is a legitiment company with a very interesting idea who needs to focus more on the quality of leads and less on the quantity. They estimate that their contractors should get an actual paying customer in 1 out of 10 of their leads (that is THEIR prediction). My average cost per lead with them was about $15. That means that I would be paying them about $150 per client they referred. The average job size was about $500. That doesn't work for me. Your milage may vary.

 

[satcom]

"The third category is the worst. You set an appointment and don't get the job. Out of the 22 appointments we set (and confirmed the day of the appointment), 6 were not home"

This can be avoided, by charging a dispatch fee on their credit card, in advance of making any trip, if they refuse, then they most likely are not a serious buyer.

 

[speedystevie]

we have great results with them. 25% of our work is through them and this year have had over 65k of invoices as a direct result of service magic.

Contractors also use the service to find contractors. We have had 4 large businesses contract us with the service.

 

[sfav8r]

we have great results with them. 25% of our work is through them and this year have had over 65k of invoices as a direct result of service magic.

Contractors also use the service to find contractors. We have had 4 large businesses contract us with the service.

Speedystevie - Any info on what your average lead cost is and what the average job size is? This is one of the areas that really didnt work for us. You mentioned that you get about 25% of your business from their leads. Do you know what percentage of their leads you are able to turn into jobs? For whatever reason, we found it difficult to get commitments out of their leads. I wonder if it varies a lot depending on the area?

 

[77401]

This can be avoided, by charging a dispatch fee on their credit card, in advance of making any trip, if they refuse, then they most likely are not a serious buyer.

Yout too funny! Even though you might be serious...