Service Magic Good Or Bad

Mansfield

I have heard alot about service majic, but I dont know what do you guys think? Is it a good place to find jobs or a waste of good money?

Teetorbilt

I say bad and some guys say not.

Personally, they sent me leads in counties where I was not licensed and it seemed to be a lowballers market. Some of their leads were outside of my license, the HO's barely had a clue as to what things cost.....never mind, I could rant for a while without mentioning Ms. Fernandez who will call you everyday, for months, wondering why you don't want their services, after all their so good and striving to get better.............Hack a hairball!

BTW, the run-on sentence was intentional. If you deal with them, get used to it.

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Jethroe

I just got into a huge fight with them this year.
Let me tell you about it.

I joined Service magic after trying reliable remodeler which is also a joke( different story ). I was on for about a week and started getting leads. They give you an option to turn your leads off after joining them if you are getting to many or want to shut it off temporarily (WRONG!).

I had been a member of ther service years ago when they first started out I thought this was cool and before they kept me in ok jobs in my roofing and remodeling business(They also remembered me still had me in their data base and gave me all of my old referralls as if I had never left the service).
When I first Started with them in 2000 they were starting out and wanted a percentage of jobs you actually won the bids on but the contractors didnt like to pay the lead fees because the percentages were way high, like 7 to 10% and they had a real hard time collecting them. They went to lead generation fees for each job you actually accepted and won you payed them the lead fee.
Then they got greedy and charge today for every single lead whether you get it or not and they keep sending them to you of course you can set a limit as to how many they send but they charge for every single one of them and they set the price! It's freakin stupid.

Stupid people started calling me right off the bat.3 of them off the bat did not return my calls and one guy wanted an estimate over the phone (which I do not do). I then called them after shutting off my leads for the time being. They actually argued with me and said I was probably going to complain about the leads all of them time. I said you bet your @$$ I will if this keeps up. While I was on the phone with them in front of my computer ( remember my leads are off) I get a lead!
I tell the guy look my leads are off and you just sent me a lead! Am I going to get charged for it? He says yes. OMG did I fly off the handle.

And Yes Teetorbuilt They kept calling me after that for weeks. I finally told them we should talk about it in court, they got the message quit calling me.
Others I have found out since have taken them to court for bogus leads and all kinds of stuff and they settled out just to keep it hush hush. One guy was a contractor in Denver he got quite a sum out of them too. SERVICE MAGIC IS A HUGE RIP OFF.

I am seriously thinking of starting a website dedicated to peoples bad experiences with them just like the anti-paypal sites that I have seen. I seriously hate them, and it takes alot for me to hate........

If you want to go through it go ahead your just waisting time and money. Its a scam built by scam artist. Build a decent website and advertise your business online locally. Find another avenue than service magic for your leads. If I were a plumber I would have it made. My dad works for Locke Supply driving a truck for them delivering plumbing parts and supplies. I got him the job because I was a customer there and knew the manager. If I were a licenced plumber I would be there all the time finding out where to get jobs.

POOLMANinCT

I've never used those services, I just assume they are unqualified catfish leads

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......Less with the jaw & More with the paw.....

Richard

mansfield...if you do a search in here, you will find many, many posts on servicemagic

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Rich

SuperiorBuilt

I used Service Magic back in 2005. I only lasted for 3 months before I pulled the plug. I had gotten to a point were I was owed about the same amount of replacement leads as my monthly committment. I was always told their policy at the time was not to credit your account the price of the lead . I had to wait for the same coded lead for the credit to be applied which some times was another "bad" lead .
My advice : FIND A MORE PRODUCTIVE WAY TO GENERATE MORE QUALIFIED LEADS.

Mansfield

Thank you all for giving me good adivce. I did some other looking around, and all the people that I have spoken to said the same thing. I will stay away. Far far away.

Jethroe

Well ther ya have it~

Another thinker who actually thought things thru........

good thinkin!

gchomeowner

First of all i'm a homeowner in gwinnett county. I contacted Service Magic to do hardwood floors in my home. Within one day a man by the name of juan showed up. At first he seemed very friendly and seemed to know what he was talking about. To cut a long story short, After six months my floors are cracking and coming apart because their are some areas he didn't use wood flooring glue and some areas he did. One area if u step on the floor u can feel it give and then snap when u pick ur foot up. I would not recommend this company to anyone who wants quality workmanship done to their home. If i could sue i would..........very unhappy homeowner

Jason Whipple

You can, and you should! The only good thing about that service is they have his insurance on file. Get it, call a real flooring specialist to check the floors and if it was install wrong, file with the insurance company to have it install properly. No one here likes a hack. I think I can speak for most everyone here when I say........Go getem' The fewer hacks out there the better!

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Jason E Whipple, General Manager
Historic House Restoration, Cincinnati, Ohio
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Celtic

You do realize you can sue anyone for anything at anytime.
Winning the case is another matter


If you feel confident in winning ~ go for it!
When you win, what do you feel would be a satisfactory remedy here?

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Jason Whipple

Good info! In most cases, I can say "if it's free, it's for me" I'll check them out

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Jason E Whipple, General Manager
Historic House Restoration, Cincinnati, Ohio
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Any Season

I think I can answer this question with the same response I gave to the "why did you choose to leave?" question in their exit survey: Their leads can be described in one word as garbage. I feel that they attract price shopping homeowners who are among the laziest and unknowledgeable that I come across. Often, if not nearly always, lacking even the most basic home maintenance know-how. So I come in, waste my time, and give them all of the information home depot couldn't and voila they 'know' everything they need to do it themselves. As if that doesn't hinder accurate success rates for leads, they mass sell the leads to tens of contractors, to the point where people are pissed when you call them. Also, the other contractors on there are constantly testing the system, so you get fake leads that they hassle you about crediting you for. Over all, I may have broken even on there in almost two years of membership and thats only bc I have a high avg. price per job. Overall a terrible company, with horrible customer service, but unfortunately they rope you in with a good business idea.

Virginia Built

These leads are not qualified leads, no one at SM talks to these people, even when you get the Exact match leads which cost 50% more.

We ended up cancelling yesterday, they did not give us a hard time. It was just too much running around chasing unqualified leads, alot of the calls we made to contact the people never were returned after five times calling, we gave up. And then we had to make up a fabrication of how that client really needed another type of service to get lead replacement credit, which as Superior said above, you may never get another lead like that if you are a multi-category contractor.

We gave professional presentations for the clients, and explained the difference for them, and most all of them bought on price, we had no chance to make sell the job by getting them to see our work, they were all buying on price...

We are better off using direct mail, web pages, networking for leads and trying the real estate community for business for remodeling and additions.

BKFranks

There's a nother thread on this same exact topic. It must be a dozen pages long. Many of the people complained about Service Magic. Do a search to see if you can find it.

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WolfAtRest

It's a ripoff all right. You'll get tons of leads but most are completely worthless. If you go to their website as a customer not a contractor you'll see that the whole thing is set up to get you a "free" quote. Nice for the customer, but sucks for the contractor as many people are just looking for a general idea of what the cost will be but have no intention of doing anything now. Then they have the "Exact Match" lead. They tell you this is a lead specifically tailored for your company and no one else gets it. What actually happens is that you happen to be the only contractor in the area that wants that type of lead, so since they can't charge several contractors for the same lead, they charge YOU more for the lead, it has nothing to do with how qualified you are, it's just a way to make the most money from the lead. I just canceled my account with them and I'm sure I'll be getting multiple phone calls from them telling me how much money I'll be losing by doing so. So far I've lost far more money on bogus leads than I ever spent on advertising. Do a good job and go with word of mouth, it's still the best advertising method out there.

Focker

yo jethro, no need to build a website. I ve' already got one started and will be launching it soon.... I have had enough of them hijacking my business name all over the web. So fight fire with fire !

I'll post the name of the site as soon as im finished building it.

Matconstruction

I agree if you do good work word of mouth is the best !

Tinmanfab

I bailed out myself. They were extremely pushy to get my business.

I got leads which homeowners never called me back on yet I was billed for their crummy service.

When I cancelled, I got all kinds of harassing phone calls "Why are you leaving us?" blah, blah, blah!


They wouldn't even give me my own county.

Yes. people are kicking tires and price shopping. We can't give away free estimates anymore.


Quality Smith isn't too far behind. I'm ready to blow them off too!

CHASER66

We have been a Service Magic 5star contractor for more than a year. While we have had some decent prospects pan out into good leads, the sheer number of leads that you have to cycle through is frustrating. When we first started, we received a great deal of attention and some pretty decent (perhaps hand picked) leads. The longer we stayed with them and the more money we spent, the less attention we received and the quality of the leads tanked. Moreover, when you look at your ROI (return on investment) you end up paying several hundred dollars per qualified lead and perhaps as much as a thousand dollars to actually land a job. My major complaints:

• Changed number of contractors from 3 to 4 (and sometimes more) contractors per consumer request. I have often been one of "atleast 10 contractors" that have called a consumer. I later discovered that Service Magic sent a bathroom remodel to 4 remodeling contractors, 4 plumbers, and 4 electricians (all of whom bid or wanted to bid on the entire project). No credit was issued.
• Will not credit you for consumers that dont call back or that aren't even remotely serious about following through on their request (more than 50% according to our experience). Their response is "we dont guarentee contact with the consumer."
• The sold us on the fact that they attempt to quailify ever lead by speaking with the consumer directly. I have not spoke with one lead that actually spoke with Service Magic directly.
• Unlicensed and uninsured contractors competing for bids resulting in "lowball bids" from competitors (one bid we competed for on a basement was less than our material cost).
• Send and wont refund leads that are non-qualified or mis-quoted such as; small repair job on a fence that cost $35, repair a railing sent as "build a new deck" cost $50, Repair a counter-top sent as a kitchen remodel, etc.
• No ability to screen the leads they send.
• Screamed at and hung up on by representatives.
• Unable to reach customer service after 5pm or on weekends (durring my office time).

Ultimately, we cancelled our membership and continued to receive leads resulting in charges to our credit card. When I complained that we had cancelled our membership they sent replacement leads instead of crediting my card. Currently, we are going through a lengthy and time consuming dispute with the credit card company to recoup the resulting charges.

I have also considered starting a "Anti-Service Magic" website.