@JimLewis curious to know what you don't like about the lead gen services? A lot of folks I talk to really like Angi's, but they are based on the east coast so I'm not sure if its a regional thing?
Oh man. So many things. I'll try to summarize as best I can. Because there's not enough time for me to go over all the reasons.
Overall, the thing I hate about almost all of them is the customers who use those services are almost always price-shoppers and less experienced homeowners - who haven't hired many contractors in the past. Which is why they're attracted to a service like those, where contractors are rated and they can read feedback from other real homeowners. The problem is: that level of homeowner is usually on a stricter budget - which means price is always their most important factor. And they lack the experience in dealing with contractors to realize that often times you end up regretting choosing the cheaper contractor. They end up choosing a contractor who is less experienced and is so hungry for a big job that they'll often say they can do what the homeowner is asking for but then get in over their head and then things don't go as smoothly as the homeowner hoped. Projects end up going over-budget, needing repairs, quality issues, taking much longer than quoted, not getting great service and not having the best experience. Furthermore, they end up with a project that doesn't look as professional as they were hoping it should have.
These sites provide consumers with so many options of different contractors that they can get quotes from several of them, thinking they're doing their due diligence by getting quotes from several different companies. Which, inherently isn't a bad thing - to get a few different quotes. But what they don't realize is that all of the best companies in that category (roofing, landscaping, plumbing, whatever)
aren't even on that platform. Those better companies are so established and doing well enough that they don't need to pay for leads. So the homeowner really just ends up getting quotes from the lower end of the spectrum in that category. They're not getting any quotes from the best companies.
A good well-established experienced company who has plenty of business and a great reputation doesn't need to use services like that and don't want to. So when one of us who is more experienced and in that upper category goes into that kind of forum and puts ourselves out there, we just end up spinning our wheels, paying for leads, giving lots of quotes but barely landing any of those jobs. Because we are doing a much higher level of quality of work, we have the better installers (who cost more) and are set up to provide a much better customer experience. We've already learned all of the lessons those smaller companies have yet to learn so we're pricing things properly. But all those people end up seeing is a company who seems "too expensive". And since they're on a budget, they almost always end up choosing one of those smaller less expensive companies.
So we just end up wasting our time going on quotes with those kind of leads. When people are price-shopping, that's not our game. That's the #1 reason I don't like those lead gen places. And trust me, I've spent a fortune with all of them in the past. But haven't for many years.
Our clientele are mostly higher end customers who have already learned that hiring the cheap guys often leads to regrets and they're looking for quality, experience, great customer service and having a great overall experience from start to finish. They value reputation and experience much higher than just the overall price. They realize you usually get what you pay for and they're not into "cheap" with anything that they buy. And you don't get that kind of customer from those places.
Two other reasons I don't like those kind of services:
1) Those customers sometimes hold their "review" over your head. They'll start making demands for things you didn't agree to do and say things like, "Now I want to be able to leave you a good review when we're done, so work with me here." I hate that attitude and hate being taken advantage of. And I hate threats like that.
2) These sites often allow the customer to leave big long reviews with as many photos as they want to upload. But in our reply - when we're trying to refute an unfair review - they limit the amount of text we are allowed to respond with and we aren't allowed to respond with any of OUR photos, which might tell a different story. Unfair to the contractor.
We just land a much higher % of our jobs if they came from previous customers, referrals from previous customers, people who found our website, people who saw us doing a job nearby or people who just know our company because they have seen our trucks all over town for 29 years and have heard good things about us from the community. So I don't like wasting time and money with penny-pinchers who haven't been around the block yet. I focus my efforts on getting leads from those sources.
