Angie’s List?
Posted by jen June 28th, 2010 in Jeneral. 3 CommentsAlright. I know you’ve all seens the ads on TV for them. Angieslist.com is a site you go to review services and professionals in your area that you recommend or to warn others away from. They say they don’t take ads, but there is no way to tell, as they will not let you experience the site at all even in a trial form in anyway shape or form.
You can’t even SEE if your location has any review coverage, or even other members, unless you cough up at least $2 a month to start. There is no free trial. There is no NOTHING but a video of Angie herself telling you how great it is and some walk throughs. None of which is actually letting you experience the site in anyway. To me it just smells of a scam.
So I’m wondering… who runs this site? How big of a sham is it? They make lots of money obviously to have that many ads on tv but it is by tricking millions of people $2 at a time who only want to see a peek if it’s useful for them?
Why can’t they have a two tier system. Let you sign up free and see what in your area is reviewed and so many reviews there are, maybe even a rating, but not see the reviews? Maybe even let you leave reviews, but not read them.This way they can build up the locations they do not have a lot of coverage in thus making it a bigger site, reaching more people, and make it more viable to more paying members.
But no. They close it. Lock it down, make it exclusive and elusive. They make it what most sites in this day and age of open information are leaving behind.
If there is one thing I know from my work on Artfire, you have to give people something for free. It might only be a a few things in order to get them to upgrade, but you have give them function and purpose for coming there to begin with and when they do you reward their loyalty for subscribing with even more function.
The fact Angie’s List has been running this long under this model makes me increasingly more suspicious of it since logically it should have shut down a couple years ago.
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3 Responses to “Angie’s List?”
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Hi, Jen!
My name is Cas and I work for Angie’s List. We’re sorry you have such a negative opinion of us right now. I’d like a chance to patch things up, and apologize for not having the information presented in a way that was easy for you to find. We’re always making changes to the site, and your feedback will certainly help us drive future changes.
You are able to see if your area has other members before you sign up. angieslist.com/companylist/cincinnati/ shows 11,000+ members in your area, with more than 7,000 contractors and doctors with reviews.
We also let non-members submit reviews. Visit angieslist.com/review to create an account (which we’ll verify before your reviews are posted on Angie’s List, since we take measures to protect against self-reporters or fake reports). We accept these reports for precisely the reasons you mentioned!
It’s been a great tool for reaching people.
On the topic of advertising: We do accept advertising, but only from companies that maintain an A or B rating on Angie’s List. Their advertisements come in the form of a discount exclusive to our members. If an advertiser’s overall rating falls below a B, they lose their advertising privileges.
Thank you for posting your concerns and ideas. Posts like these really help us determine what is/is not working on our site, so we can make constructive changes in future tests and designs.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. My e-mail is casandrar@angieslist.com.
One other link I should’ve shared (sorry!): http://www.angieslist.com/companylist/us/oh/cincinnati/
You can start there and work down to see the names of companies/professionals listed on Angie’s List. We don’t share the grade or number of reviews, but you can check to see if a specific company is there.
One of the biggest wastes of money I’ve ever spent was subscribing to Angie’s List five years ago and hiring through them. We were moving into an older house which needed work both inside and outside and I just knew this would be the answer to hiring quality companies.
Though the Ft Worth, TX Angie’s List, I hired four companies: garage door replacement, tree trimmer/removal, plumber, general construction. In the end, I could have hired vagrants off the street corner who could not have been Worse than these companies, all of which had glowing recommendations. Worse of the lot was the garage door company who sent non-English speaking workers who kept trying to push their way into my house. I finally called the company owner and told him to come control these men or I was calling the police.
Never again will I use Angie’s List and I have encouraged other not to waste their money on with them.