The official blog of Redbeacon, the only Website that allows you to find, compare, and schedule local businesses and professionals for your service needs.
Redbeacon is taking over the world one city at a time!
First and foremost, Redbeacon is now officially launched in seven major metros: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and our newest launched metro… (drum roll)… HOUSTON!
We’re excited to clear out the tumbleweeds and flood the Houston area with awesome providers from its own backyard. If you have a household need and you’re looking for some quality providers in Houston (or any of our other launched cities) don’t hesitate to submit a request. We’re waiting to hook you up with a great provider that will be able to fulfill your job at hand!
In other news, Redbeacon has partnered with eBay classifieds to create a mutual beneficial relationship. Our widget is now embedded in the eBay classifieds section for our launched cities and we think if eBay trusts us, you should too!
As usual, Redbeacon is constantly tweaking and improving our product based on YOUR feedback! In our 2 years of being live, we’ve introduced our widget, our provider mobile application, completely redesigned our provider quoting pages, added several cities, and partnered with some great companies. Oh yeah, we’ve also moved offices and grown in size. And we’re not finished yet! Stay tuned to this blog for more exciting product changes, features, and Redbeacon news!
As one of our Redbeacon providers, are you frustrated with having to go home and log in to your Redbeacon account to quote on a job request you received via text earlier in the day? Great news! Now you don’t have to wait until you get home to quote. Redbeacon has unleashed its provider mobile website. Now you can quote whether you’re in the field, on your break, or caught in the middle of nowhere. Anywhere, anytime. It’s simple too. You’ll receive a text notifying you of a new job request and all you need to do is click on the link and you’re automatically logged in and brought to the mobile job page. From there you can view the job details and submit a quote. You can also log in directly at m.redbeacon.com, enter your username and password and get a dashboard view of your new, quoted, and scheduled jobs. You can follow up on those jobs that way as well. Below, please see a video demonstration:
We found that quoting on a job quickly gives providers the best chance to actually schedule a job. 10% of Redbeacon jobs are scheduled within the first 2 hours a job is active and 40% (!) are scheduled within 24 hours of the job going live. As always our goal at Redbeacon is to give both our providers and our customers the best experience possible. By offering mobile quoting, we feel that we give the customer a great experience by allowing providers to quote their job faster.
In addition to the mobile website, we have made a big change in our quoting process. Redbeacon jobs will now end after the customer receives 4 quotes, so make sure you quote quickly. Again, this is beneficial to both parties. Customers tell us 4 quotes is enough for them to make a decision. This is great for providers because now you have a 25% or higher chance of winning.
We hope you enjoy these new features and hope it makes your quoting (and scheduling) easier!
Ben and Jackie Mears of Mears Roofing, a superstar Redbeacon roofing company, were kind enough to share some tips based on over a decade of experience.
Read below to hear advice from Jackie related to your roofing needs. If you need some work done, don’t forget that you can always request roofing service or anything else on Redbeacon!
What should I be looking for to know when to call a roofer?
A roofer should be called anytime you suspect a leak. Evidence of a leak can be water stains on the ceiling & walls, shingles found in the yard, cracking paint on ceilings, or a dripping sound. A roofer can also help you with the annual maintenance of your roof such as debris and/or moss removal, gutter cleaning, moss prevention, skylight cleaning and re-caulking of chimney and skylight flashings. If you notice debris or moss on your roof or gutters, give a roofer a call as this can cause further issues such as water in your basement and could shorten the lifetime of your roof.
How often should I have my roof inspected and/or cleaned?
Every 5 years for a full cleaning and inspection, and then at least annually for gutter cleaning and debris removal. An initial inspection should give you an idea of the remaining lifespan of your roof. Wood shingle roofs require more maintenance and should have a full inspection every 3 years.
Is there a particular time of the year that’s best for getting roofing work done?
For repairs, you want to get it taken care of ASAP even if it’s raining outside. Roof cleaning can be done most anytime of the year unless it is snowing. Moss treatment is best applied in the spring, summer or early fall when there are a few dry days and a full roof replacement needs to be done in dry weather, but normal recovers can be done in the winter months. Your roofer should be able to tell you what your best options are.
What should I look for to know that a roofer is qualified? Is there anything I should watch out for?
Make sure they are Licensed in the state your home is in, with proper Bonding and Insurance. A roof contractor should supply this information before any work is performed.
Search for them online to find customer reviews.
Ask them if they require a down payment and what that payment will be used for. Get it in writing! You’ll want to be sure they pay their supplier and have a date set for the work to begin.
It’s Mother’s Day this Sunday. Although all moms love flowers and gifts and time spent with their children on their special day, perhaps Redbeacon can help with a present that will really allow mom to relax! Is your mother always the one to tidy up the home? Give her some help and hire a housekeeper for a one time deep cleaning as a special thank you for all the times she has picked up after you! Or is your mom the type that spends the day in the garden? Well, give her a day off, hire a gardener to come by and do some weeding or to mow the lawn while she sips iced tea and relaxes in the sun! Or maybe your mom has been wanting to get her bedroom painted for years and just has never found the time. Well, Redbeacon can help find you qualified painters to do just that!
Moms work 365 days a year. Chances are, they’re even going to be doing some work on Mother’s Day (cooking, tidying up, etc). So why not say “Thanks, mom” by relieving her of some of her duties and hiring a professional to give her a chance to relax? Shower your mom with Redbeacon love!!
In Redbeacon news, please stay tuned to this blog for some exciting announcements regarding changes to our product and new features to the site! We’re always striving to give you the best product possible and the best experience using Redbeacon whether you’re a customer or a professional! So keep checking back for the most up to date information on all the goings on here at REDBEACON!
In a constant effort to refine the way our customers can vet providers once they receive quotes, Redbeacon is pleased to announce two new features that have gone live on the site recently: Verification Badges and Redbeacon scores.
Verification badges are voluntary badges our providers can add to their profile page. There are three levels of the verification badge and on the profile, they look like this:
Basic Advanced Full
What are the differences you ask? A basic badge verifies the providers are who they say they are. It verifies their name and business. An advanced badge takes it a step further and verifies their social security number and provides an immediate electronic criminal background check. The full badge includes both the electronic criminal background check as well as a thorough physical criminal background check. Keep in mind, if the providers do NOT have these badges, it does not mean they failed any of these checks, it is that they simply haven’t elected to have themselves verified. However, if you DO see these badges on a provider’s profile, you can feel confident that you’re hiring a provider that’s been vetted thoroughly.
The other new feature we launched is the Redbeacon overall score. Redbeacon scores combine two 50 max point scores for an overall rating of 0-100. The two categories for scores are information and reputation. On the profile page, you see the score appear like this:
The information score demonstrates how much information a provider has in their profile. The score is based on whether or not the profile has a detailed description of the provider’s services, photos, website, company logo, and Facebook verification. The reputation score is based on review strength, testimonials, background checks, and licensing, bonding, and insurance information.
Redbeacon is always trying to make sure customers feel comfortable with our providers and we want our providers to have as many tools as possible to validate themselves as well. We hope you find these new features helpful!
If you’re familiar with Redbeacon, you may have seen some recent changes regarding provider profile pages. A lot of these changes have come at the suggestions of our customers, who want as much information as possible about a potential provider they’re going to hire.
One new feature added: Citysearch reviews.
Citysearch reviews have joined our current crop of Yelp, Yahoo, Google, and Redbeacon ratings to help our customers evaluate providers. Our hope is that the variety of these reviews will paint a well rounded picture of our providers and give the customer a comfort level in scheduling them. When you see a scoreboard like this, then you have to feel secure knowing this provider is a slam dunk, no?
Or that this provider will likely give you a good experience?
The other feature we added: Testimonials
A lot of feedback we got from both our providers and our customers was that they wanted to see some testimonials. Well, we’ve listened. As of last week, providers may now ask previous clients for testimonials and feature them on their revamped profile page.
Testimonials give providers a chance to get some positive feedback if they don’t have any reviews or they can help validate existing reviews. Customers will also feel more at ease with examples of a job well done. And if you’re a provider, we’ve made it easy to get testimonials from past clients. You just need to click on the “Get Testimonials” link in your “Manage Profile” tab and you’ll be prompted for email addresses. It’s that simple!
At Redbeacon, we’re constantly striving to make the site the most useful to our providers and customers. We hope you find these two new features beneficial!
As Charlie Sheen likes to say, it’s all about “winning”. And Redbeacon is at its best when customers and providers alike are “winning” by having great experiences. Customers win by finding a qualified professional that does excellent work on their job and providers win by putting some cash in their pocket and (hopefully) getting positive reviews that lead to winning more jobs in the future.
We’ve already covered two tips on how providers can win jobs. If you missed out on those tips, you can review them here:
However, sometimes our customers put in a request and don’t get the quotes they expected. Why is this? It might be more simple than you think.
What we found is that jobs are more likely to get scheduled (meaning the customer receives satisfactory quotes) if they use correct spelling and punctuation! It may seem to be a minor thing but job requests with proper grammar and a clear description of the job tend to have the best chance of working out for both parties. The provider is able to quote the job because it looks valid and has enough necessary information where they feel comfortable quoting and the customer receives viable quotes for their request.
Job requests with clear descriptions have a much better chance at receiving quotes and scheduling than those with brief descriptions.
And grammar helps! On both sides! A customer will feel more comfortable using a provider that responds to their request using proper punctuation and grammar while providers consider requests that are grammatically correct to be more viable.
Finally, uploading photos can greatly enhance your chances of receiving the best quotes because providers will have a real sense of what the job entails.
So if you’re serious about finding a provider and getting quotes
BE DESCRIPTIVE
USE PROPER GRAMMAR
UPLOAD PHOTOS
Use these tips and you’ll have a “winning” experience using Redbeacon!
The stars and starlets were out in force last night for the 83rd Academy Awards. But unless you have some pull in Hollywood, you likely watched the Oscars from the comfort of your own home. Maybe you even had an Oscar party. If so, you’re probably staring at a mess of dirty dishes, leftover appetizers, and stained (red) carpets.
Well, time to light up the Redbeacon! Not only kings need help tidying up their castle! Feel free to request a maid or a carpet cleaner to help you tidy up the disaster that is your home! Our qualified housekeepers will have your apartment, condo, or house sparkling clean in no time.
Isn’t it nice to come home from a long day of work and see a flawless kitchen? We think so.
We hope you had a good Oscar night and with our help, we hope you have a great week after the Oscars!
Did you forget to celebrate Valentine’s Day? Were you too busy with work to take out that special person in your life? Or did you have an evening full of romance only to be left with the mess that is the Valentine’s Day hangover?
Well, that’s what Redbeacon is here for. Do you have flower petals strewn about? Empty champagne bottles and chocolate boxes littering the floor?
If so, feel free to use Redbeacon to find a housekeeper that can can come by and tidy up your place so you can bask in the glow of love!
Or perhaps you forgot to get your partner a gift! No worries, order up a massage therapist and have your significant other’s stressed muscles melt away! Or request a personal chef and have a nice gourmet meal together this weekend to make up for those long hours you were working last night!
Blow the gasket in the hot tub? Request an electrician!
Or maybe you had the worst Valentine’s Day EVER and decided to call it quits! No problem, we have movers at the ready to get your stuff out of the house!!
In any case, remember Redbeacon is your source for local service providers that can help you when YOU need them. We hope you had a great Valentine’s Day (and hopefully, you don’t really need those movers unless it’s to move in together!)
Every now and then, this blog will feature a “Meet the Team” segment to give you an inside look at the people behind Redbeacon and give you an idea of what it is that we do here! We’re a friendly bunch, so don’t be scared!
Our first foray into the brilliant minds that call Redbeacon home (er, work) are our Wizards.
What is a Wizard you ask? Well, yes, obviously it’s someone that has a wand.
Redbeacon wizards are the people behind the Redbeacon curtain that do a lot of things that aid the user experience! When a customer puts in a job request, it’s our wizards that help determine if a job has enough description to send to our provider base. Once the request goes out, the wizards monitor the job activity to make sure our customers have a good experience and get solid quotes from ethical professionals. Once a job is scheduled, our wizards confirm the scheduling with the provider to ensure an effortless and smooth transaction. So without further ado, let us meet Redbeacon’s two primary Wizards!
Garrett S.
Garrett has been with Redbeacon since October 2010. He is a former University of Arizona business major and he is now the primary wizard of new accounts for Redbeacon. Garrett was instrumental in the launch of Washington DC as he served as the “face” of Redbeacon in terms of acquiring new providers and educating them on how the site works. He is the person new providers speak with when they sign up and he has established relationships with providers from SF, Seattle, and DC. Garrett’s primary responsibility is to make sure new providers are comfortable and understand how to use Redbeacon. He is there as a guide to help coordinate quotes with customers and make sure jobs get scheduled correctly. If you use the new chat box help feature, you have a 50% chance of speaking with Garrett. When he’s not signing up providers and educating people about Redbeacon, Garrett is a “professional” gamer. He loves gaming! And eating great food.
When you’re not chatting with Garrett, you’ll find yourself chatting with…
Joe M.
Joe has been working at Redbeacon since July 2010. A graduate of Arizona State University, Joe is now the primary wizard of Redbeacon’s customer care and accounts department. Joe has deepened relationships with many of the Bay Area’s provider base and has helped keep providers happy and active. Any time customers or providers have questions about how to use the site or have problems with their accounts, Joe is there to save the day. Every month, Redbeacon has an all-hands meeting where customer and provider complaints and suggestions are presented by Joe and reviewed by Redbeacon’s decision makers. He is the primary link between Redbeacon’s user base and the powers that be. He also aids Garrett in new user development when needed and is a key contributor to this blog! He is also a die hard Giants fan and is still basking in the glow of their first World Series Championship!
So there you have it, our first behind the scenes look at Redbeacon. Whenever you have questions or comments about your Redbeacon experience, these two are the ones you will primarily be dealing with.
Have a great weekend and don’t forget, if your air conditioner goes on the fritz or your washing machine blows up or your DVD player conks out, head to Redbeacon for help!
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