# anyone use "ServiceMagic.com" ???



## MillerTreeMN (Nov 30, 2009)

i did the sign up process tonight, i should start getting leads ( " should " ) this friday or so. 

its 12 bucks for stump calls, 17 for trimming or removal calls. ive selected ONLY the cities i want to work in.

winter is coming up. ( heck its already december tomorrow ) 

so i figure i better find another way of advertising. i have my website, and a phone book ad ( i will never renew the phonebook ) 

but every call might be VERY important this winter. 

has anyone used this service ?


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## MNBobcat (Dec 1, 2009)

From a consumer standpoint, they really suck. Respond once and they will spam you forever.


BTW - do you ever have logs that you need hauled away? I have a dump trailer and am looking for tree services that need to get rid of wood from job sites.


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## Sparky8370 (Dec 1, 2009)

I was going to do it for my electrical contracting company, but then my buddy warned me. He said that even though they say there will only be 3 to 4 other people that they send leads to, he had customers who said they sent, at minimum, 17 to 26 other contractors. They also lead you to believe that if you get an "exact match", which costs more, that you will be the only one. This is not true, a potential customer can click on several names and they send them the leads and make more money off of them. 

And then there are the customers that don't want to commit to anything, but think they can get a free quote instantly. So they fill out bogus info to get the quote then SM sends out the leads to everybody and make $10 or more for every contractor they send them to.

He told me to google them and sure enough there were tons of complaints from contractors. There were even some that the contractor said that SM set it up so that when you googled the phone number to the contractor, the SM profile would pop up and say that the contractor is no longer performing work in the area. One guy was bs because he had a very good reputation and a good website that would pop up when you googled his number, but after the SM debacle, they were top on the list.


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## mckeetree (Dec 1, 2009)

Sparky8370 said:


> And then there are the customers that don't want to commit to anything, but think they can get a free quote instantly.



Oh yeah, plenty of them out there. I have never used SM but have used a similar service. That deal had me driving all the country to meet with a bunch of tire kicking assclowns. Never again.


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## MillerTreeMN (Dec 1, 2009)

MNBobcat said:


> From a consumer standpoint, they really suck. Respond once and they will spam you forever.
> 
> 
> BTW - do you ever have logs that you need hauled away? I have a dump trailer and am looking for tree services that need to get rid of wood from job sites.



i have a dump trailer, 
i have someone with a skid available cheap, and im looking to buy a loader soon. 

where are you located ??


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## MillerTreeMN (Dec 1, 2009)

great....

does anyone have anything good to say about the service? i appreciate the bad comments- its good to know. at the same time, now im worried. 

im already signed up, i just thought if it brought it a few more jobs this winter that would be nice. 


a friend of mine used them, and loved it- only problem is by the time he got the emails about the customers, it was too late. so i am going to have them send me text messages so i can respond right away. my friend highly recommends them....


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## MNBobcat (Dec 1, 2009)

MillerTreeMN said:


> i have a dump trailer,
> i have someone with a skid available cheap, and im looking to buy a loader soon.
> 
> where are you located ??




I'm near Andover in Anoka county. Do you do work in the area?


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## Sparky8370 (Dec 1, 2009)

MillerTreeMN said:


> great....
> 
> does anyone have anything good to say about the service? i appreciate the bad comments- its good to know. at the same time, now im worried.
> 
> ...


I had signed up for the free preview, and then heard all that. The SM guy told me that you have to respond immediately or you will def lose it. He told me not to even wait 5 minutes or the chances are very good that someone else will have it.

And as far as the tire kickers go, it gets even worse when they have one project, but they want to know how much it costs for each phase so they put in 4 or 5 quote requests and now it just cost you $75 to $100 for leads that will never get you a project. My Bud's first month he had the target set pretty high. So they charged him $855 in leads and not one contract was signed. He even brought his profit down to 5% because he thought it was a scam, and figured if it wasn't a scam someone would def bite when he was only making 5%, but still nothing.


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## treemandan (Dec 1, 2009)

MillerTreeMN said:


> great....
> 
> does anyone have anything good to say about the service? i appreciate the bad comments- its good to know. at the same time, now im worried.
> 
> ...



Sure, they keep your hopes up! How's that for something good? 

If you are gonna work with them you have to keep an eye on every lead to make sure they aren't banging you for leads out of your area. Everything else anybody said is about right.


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## MillerTreeMN (Dec 2, 2009)

you guys have mentioned a couple of times that you have to call the customers back ASAP or forget about them- someone else will have the job already



here is one thing that i hear ALL the time.... "wow, you responded so fast" i usually do my estimates the same day, or the next afternoon. i also hear all the time that i am the only tree service to respond. 



i appreciate all of your honest replies. with it being winter, i am going to take my chance and see if i cant bring in some extra jobs. 

i also have started ( last year ) to send out post cards to my previous customers, stating "thanks for the past business here is 10 % off your next job blah blah blah " 

im going to start sending some of those out again soon.


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## mckeetree (Dec 2, 2009)

Sparky8370 said:


> The SM guy told me that you have to respond immediately or you will def lose it. He told me not to even wait 5 minutes or the chances are very good that someone else will have it.



I heard that same line of crap. You know, they scared a local guy here into signing up with the threat that they would let me have an "exclusive" account for this area ( I am just east of Dallas, TX). I don't even think they do that but it worked on him because this guy can't stand me and thought he would be knocking me out of something. I think it has just about put that dumbass out of business running all over hell and half of Georgia in his late seventies Dodge pickup chasing those tire kicking morons those services send you.


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## MillerTreeMN (Dec 2, 2009)

well, its funny this all comes up now. 

this summer my buddy who has the servicemagic account sent me to go look at some stumps for him. 

i thought i bid them pretty fair- 


i just happened to drive past the house yesterday, 

the stumps are still there. 


again though... im giving it a shot. i can pull the plug at any time.


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## ponderosatree (Dec 6, 2009)

Pay-per-lead services always produce terrible results. I used ################ and treeservicedirect.com and both were awful and they were specific to our industry. ServiceMagic.com is too general to attract any real leads. Good customers will contact you directly and know enough to find local companies using Google.


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## Mikecutstrees (Dec 7, 2009)

I'm on angieslist and Iv'e had a good experience with that. It doesn't cost anything. Just ask a customer to write a review for your company. If you do nice work it will catch on..... Mike


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## MillerTreeMN (Dec 7, 2009)

Mikecutstrees said:


> I'm on angieslist and Iv'e had a good experience with that. It doesn't cost anything. Just ask a customer to write a review for your company. If you do nice work it will catch on..... Mike



ive got 2 good reviews on there. never had a call from there yet.

angieslist called me and asked if i wanted to advertise with them... i tried about 6 times to get a "ball park figure" from him on how much advertising would cost. he couldnt give me a simple reply of any kind. 

seriously, dont they have some sort of a package or something ?

how about-------- "well, for $XX a month we could put you on the website, and for another $XX a month we send out flyers with your company on them"


6 times i asked and didnt get a reply. that was all i needed to hear. i declined advertising with them.


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## coolbrze (Dec 8, 2009)

mckeetree said:


> Oh yeah, plenty of them out there. I have never used SM but have used a similar service. That deal had me driving all the country to meet with a bunch of tire kicking assclowns. Never again.



Tire kickers - I'd say that's what 90+% are here also. A buddy used it for his landscaping co. & sent us the tree "referrals". WHAT A JOKE!!!


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