Angieslist.com, Has anyone tried it?

Hello,

I was thinking about putting a profile on Angieslist to get more clients. Has anyone tried it?

we use it at work and its generated about 45K in revenue this year i know you can pay more money as a business to get your name at the top of the list. I think its a great tool and we have done well with it just our biggest form of marketing is referrals probably 75% of our new clients come from that.

IMO .... it could be a blessing or it could easily turn into a curse.

The concept that it was built on is customer reviews and opinions.

I was talking with a roofer a few weeks back. He's a stand up guy and when i have roofing jobs come in that are out of my range he's the first one that i refer my customers to. I'm staking my reputation on his work ... that's how much i trust him. He's doing everything right and his customer service is excellent. Over the years, he's become the local " go to " guy for roofing so much so that he was actually prospering all through the recession.

Anyhow .... we were talking and he was saying that he's had enough. He's leaving the trade and shutting down the business. When i asked him why he said .... These people are crazy ! (the customers ) I'm gonna have a heart attack and be dead by the time i'm 50. They're driving me nuts.

I said: Ohh .... you're just now figuring that out ?

In my experience at the local level the vast majority of customers have no idea what they're doing. Seen it time and again .... a guy with a good line of bull and a clean appearance can easily pull the wool over their eyes. Their opinions aren't based on quality of workmanship, value, or excellence of service. It's all based on how they "feel" about the transaction and there's no rhyme or reason to it.

You could easily end up as the "flavor of the month" because they're fickle. Today you're Joe cool and everything is going along at full speed. Tomorrow, there's one bad review from somebody that's completely unreasonable and you're out.

I think some of our members have similar experiences with the rating system at Ebay ?

Just my two cents but i think there are better ways of building a solid customer base. It just takes time and patience.

Bingo! We have two computer shops in our town. I'm one of them. The other one will probably be run out of town. They've tried Angie's List, Yelp, Google +, Facebook Marketing, Adwords, .....

It hasn't done anything for them. People will find out about your reputation anyways.

As Bob Dylan would say, "You don't need a weatherman to know where the wind's blowing!"

Just do well, and people will spread the word through other means (Google is what matters, it seems).

matador: "I was going to put the video for 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' here, but I can't find it!"

Yeah .... i was transferring my business checking account to another bank a few years ago. It took a few minutes for their computer to transfer everything over so the bank manager & i had some time to chat. Something she said really struck me as being true.

She said: One satisfied customer will tell three. One dissatisfied customer will tell ten !