Drawbacks of Using Angie’s List
Another thing to consider is that consumers cannot try out Angie’s List before purchasing a membership. Garrett Coulter joined Angie’s List Health & Wellness to find a new dentist, but he discovered that only 2 out of 40 dentist listings in his district had actual user reviews.
"It would be better if users could search reviews to see who has been reviewed without seeing the review itself before ... paying for the service when there is no value for that user," Coulter wrote in an Angie’s List message board thread.
(To be fair, an Angie’s List moderator responded directly to Coulter’s complaint in the forum, and explained that consumers can call customer service to inquire about the amount of listings for a given area before purchasing a membership.)
Other customers are skeptical when it comes to the validity of the reviews on the site. It is an Angie's List policy, however, to issue at minimum a one-year suspension if a company is found to be providing the site with fraudulent information.
Competition From Free Service Listings
Angie’s List has a bevy of competitors, but two seem to offer a similar product without the cost.
The company says that each professional on the site has gone through a background check, in which Service Magic searches for criminal records, bankruptcy issues, bad reviews, sex offenses, and cases of malpractice. If the contractor fails in one of those categories, then it will not be featured on the Service Magic site. More than 7000 service companies were turned down in 2010 due to their failure to pass the general background check, according to Brooke Gabbert, director of public relations and social media for Service Magic.
Unlike Angie’s List, Yelp is completely free. Users must create a profile before posting a review, but at no cost. Reading reviews is also free, and consumers do not have to set up a profile to read reviews. Customers rank businesses, and assign the companies a star rating from 1 (the worst) to 5 (the best). Currently Yelp boasts more than 20 million user reviews.
For business owners, offering their Yelp clients a special deal or discount is a popular tactic--so popular that business owners are now doing the same on Angie’s List. You'll frequently see the same professionals listed on Yelp and on Angie’s List, offering deals in both places.
Because using Yelp is free, business owners and employees can easily create fake profiles to boost their reviews. Yelp tries to prevent such behavior through the site's review filter, which is designed to spot fake or suspicious reviews. Nevertheless, you should use your own "filter" in deciding whether to trust a Yelp reviewer's stated opinion.
Which Is Better: Paid or Free?
Wondering which of the three sites might be best for you? Here's how they boil down.
Service Magic requires no membership fee, but users are limited to the three or four matches that the site supplies. Customers can then compare quotes among the provided matches and choose the one that’s best for the job at hand. Service Magic is ideal for anyone with a single specific project in mind; you avoid paying for a membership that you'll use only once.
Yelp allows you to read and post reviews for free--but since the site is entirely run by consumers, the listed companies don't pass through any sort of investigative background check. The arrangement also makes it easy for companies to create multiple accounts and boost their own ratings. Still, businesses listed on the site frequently offer coupons and discounts for their Yelp customers, and you can often get a whole community's opinion on a service provider if the listing has enough comments.
The Final Answer
These services--fee-based and free--appeal to different customers and needs. Although none of them have the perfect system for finding service professionals, the quality of customer service from Angie's List justifies the cost if you're looking to complete a big project or multiple projects, or if you just want the extra protections the site provides.
Of course, no matter which listing site you end up choosing, thoroughly conducting your own research on a business you expect to use will save you a lot of trouble in the long run.
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