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I’ve read many posts here and other places regarding questionable or outright bad practices by ServiceMagic when selling leads to service providers.
Some of these complaints range from selling bogus leads that you must followup with SM to get credit for with to overselling leads (SM claims that for our industry they sell the lead to only 3 service providers, is there any way to verify or make them prove this, I guess you would have to submit a request as a consumer and see how many carpet cleaners call you….I would not want to do this because it would cost my competition money….not ethical!!!)
HOWEVER I recently discovered the mother of all disception.
It seems that Service Magic (who by the way has one of if not the largest presence for internet search results) uses our and many, many other company names as a an header as a search result.
Here’s atypical result that comes up VERY often when I search “Heaven’s Best Carpet Cleaning” in my or any other city in the USA.
Heaven’s Best
blah, blah blah about carpet cleaning
http://www.ServiceMagic.com
Now the problem I have with this is that we all spend a lot of time, money and effort branding our name and attempt to achieve the Holy Grail in business….Repeat & Referral business.
Some customer know our name, the want us specifically and go to Google, Yahoo or whatever and type in OUR name specifically.
They see a result with a title Heaven’s Best and whammo….we are paying for a customer that should come for free.
When I’ve clicked on the link with our name it leads me to a page with my name and a phone number that when I call it, guess who answers…ServiceMagic.
Servicemagic came up with lame excuses such as:
It’s Googles Fault – Yeah right..any sponsored or Pay Per Click link is not being posted free or in error by Google…we all know that.
What makes it even worse is that if you don’t have an account with them at all or have cancelled an account IT STILL HAPPENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you use the services of this company, I have 2 suggestions:
1) Ask for a written comfirmation the they sell the lead to only 2 other service providers besides yourself
2) Ask for a written confirmation that they will not use our/your name in this fashion.
I asked them to ask ServiceMagic Corporate if the can spell “Class Action Lawsuit”
It seems that some large and even very large corporations don’t get the message until their lawyers are presenting them with large bills for legal fees.
I think they should change their name to “Dis-ServiceMagic:
Nuff said
Your going to find that most all the big players in online PPC advertising are using competitor’s names to get traffic. ServiceMagic is gettings lots of complaints and most everyone I know that has tried them has stopped using them so I think over time they are going to become irrelevant.
There is nothing wrong with using other companies names as a keyword search terms, but when listing appears before the consumer, you can’t use somebody elses name as the title to the listing to lure them in.
That’s mis-representation or something along those lines.
Unless you don’t have a website or ANY web presence, most anybody comes up on the first page of Google/Yahoo when the consumer searches by your business name and city.
I’ve read MANY complaints about SM and I know nobody can please everybody but SM is th ONLY Company I’ve seen so far that uses these tactics.
Believe me if I saw anyone else doing it I’d be up their butt like a ripsaw as I am with SM right now.
Kurt contacted me about this problem, and I have been in contact with Service Magic. They say they have fixed the problem, but I need each of you to do a search on Heaven’s Best in your area and see if they are still doing the same thing in your area. Please let me know if your search for Heaven’s Best in your area brings up the name Heaven’s Best, but the web address at the bottom is for servicemagic.com or 1800Contractor.com.
I have had the same problems with dealing with this company. The leads are not that good either….the homes are bad and the pay is low geared towards price shoppers, not quality shoppers. Not my type of customers I like to deal with. The phone number they list for me is a disconnected number? I called them many times about this and they play dumb. I since then turned my leads OFF and now receive my internet leads for free through Google maps and website. Much better!
hi guys, let me jump into this discussion regarding Service Magic. Honestly, I do like Service Magic :). I have an account with them since 2008 and I had only couple small problems but I called them right away and they gave me next lead for free. Than about bad leads, yeah I do receive bad leads sometimes too, but not all the time and when I go do Estimate I know is not a lot of money but, sometimes something is better than nothing. One of my customer from SM is previous “big shot” from some fast food restaurant (gosh, I forgot which fast food restaurant is it) with locations all over the world. He was responsible for opening their branches all over the world, but because of his health and long lasting surgery he retired early.
Hes house is not huge but is not the smallest either, very clean inside, light colored carpet with no stains at all. He wanted me to just refresh his carpet, which it’s always nice to see those kind of people 🙂 , anyway, i gave him good price (good price for me $30.00/room, $15.00 for hallway, $35.00 for stairs) and when I was done he was extremely happy with results and ask me if I can clean his Upholstery. Absolutely, next day I went back and I cleaned his Couch, Sofa and Chair.
He gave me an excellent review on SM.
Also, when I go do Estimate for customer from SM I always ask customer if I’m the only one who responded to their carpet cleaning needs, about 80% customers tell me that, 2 carpet cleaning company called her/him. Than I do have a few good paying customers from SM since 2008 and I clean their houses 3x/year. I don’t know, for some reason SM works for me and I’m not planning to cancel my account with them yet.Adrian
Are you still using service magic at this time? I am thinking about giving them a shot again. They called me to let me know that there is only one other carpet cleaner in my area that i have to compete with. My issues i had with them before were mainly to do with the amount of leads they were sending out. So if it is only me and one other company I might have to give it a try.
I read the February newsletter and am thinking of giving them a shot. Does anyone have anything to say about them.
I’m still with a Home Advisor (Service Magic), I have a 19 reviews total, 18 of them are 5 star and 1 is 3 star. Anyway, when you get a phone call, or text on your cell you have to respond right away coze you are not the only one who is getting phone call/txt. Home Advisor will send a lead to 3 companies. Usually, first come first serve but not always if you have a lot of good reviews customer will choose you even if you are the last one who call them. If you don’t have any reviews and you just starting , that would be a different story.
Still, Google works the best for me.Adrian
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