So Angie’s list is moving to a freemium model. This could be really really good for companies with A ratings. According to this article they get 100 million hits to their site per month but 90% bounce because of having to pay for the membership. Just like this article states, I also agree that there are too many free choices to find reliable contractors. Paying for membership doesn’t really make sense anymore. So this could open a flood of new revenue to service providers like us. I’m looking forward to this because we are just now starting to make money on Angie’s list and it seems to be increasing.
Well we will pay the freight I’m not a fan of that
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Angies is dying a slow and painful death.
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Thats because they are starting the free membership crap.
People who pay to belong to a “club” expect to get higher quality services.
People joining for free get what they pay for and they expect the lowest prices, NOT the highest quality services
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Angie’s List has completely changed from what it once was, and what I believe made it great for us.
Our ROI has tanked the last two years, close rate has tanked and I should get my final bill from them today or tomorrow.
For us it once worked well but is now our worst ROI
It was a service that provides customers who weren’t cost centric they wanted quality.
It has and seems to have become just another thumbtack, home advisor a referral service that’s a race to the bottom have at it bottom scrapers
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This is what happens when you start selling based on price. Not value.
The Angies List USP was value. They must be under new leadership, or have shareholders to appease. Are they public?
Doing this makes them lose value even though they may see an increase in margins
I bet if you took a 10, 000 ft view of them, “Big Deal” offers did them in. Rather than actually being a resource for the best reviewd, most recommended contractor, they attracted the lowest common denominator contractor. One who would cut corners to get business.
Now their offer of giving you the best was no longer the actual product they are selling to members. Clients stopped using them for quality and just to jump from one cheap guy to the next. But that type of cheap client also doesn’t want to pay for a subscription service over the long term.
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I am not 100% sure of this but it seems like they lowered the annual fee for consumers. Correct or not, I have been told the memberships in my area have doubled each year.
We ran a bid deal once in Feb. It did not go well. Clients did not read the fine print and naturally the fall back came to us not AL.
Getting reviews and winning the award are key. When we won the award we did well the years after. Since they call, close, quality of client has dropped that we’ve dealt with.
Also, I get it they need to make money, but I must get 3 additional offers to give them our money monthly. Storefront, magazine, bid deals, now they are like home advisor trying to give us leads. We don’t pay for this but so far all the emails about it are services we don’t offer.
Back in 2010 our close rate was insane. It was like we had been referred by a close friend and the clients wanted quality. Now all they seem to care about is getting the AL discount and still beat you up on price. Many more tire kickers.
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And so is my Angie’s List stock.
Problem with Angie’s List is it apparently doesn’t work in smaller markets where “word of mouth” is the go to method for service providers. There is a significant lack of reviews to be meaningful to a consumer for virtually every line of work. One of my competitors and I have the most well known businesses and we don’t have one review.
