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dfa d.

Contributor Level

Total Points
87

1 Review by dfa

  • TaskRabbit

4/18/19

Taskrabbit relies on two systems - one set called business metrics, which is how often you respond/accept/show up and complete tasks. Another set is "customer reviews" where customers can give you thumbs up or down and write a paragraph about their experience.

All it takes is one bad review, left by an unreasonable customer, to permanently damage the customer review of you. TaskRabbit thinks "a difference in opinion is not grounds for removing bad reviews", even when the client is rude and unreasonable.
Every contractor runs into these customer. You know that one unreasonable client who tasks you to assemble one piece of furniture, but when you get there they want to assemble 3 for the price of 1? I ran into one of these. The client left a bad review when I refused to be paid for 1 job when I'm doing 3. And taskrabbit wouldn't do anything to remove the tasks as it's "matters of opinion, our clients are entitled to their opinions." which leaves a huge dent on my ratings that drastically reduced my earning by more than 50%! All it takes is one delusional and self centred client and your business goes down the drain.

The other thing is, if you do this full time like I do, you have to constantly answer and respond to tasks. On a typical workday I'm out from 8 am to about 8 pm. 12 hours of my day where I'm occupied by work, drive a work vehicle, dressed in work clothing and can't do much with the downtime in between. The jobs on the platform are small and don't tend to let you use the client's microwave for your own food. Sometimes on a busy day I would drive to 4 different places to do 1-2 hours at each place. On average, for the 12 hours I spent out of my day to focus on working for TaskRabbit, only half of them, around 6 hours, is actually billable.

Taskrabbit does not want you to be late for jobs and want you to build time buffers in between. Which is fine. But realistic jobs are not math equations. Each house and each client is different so there's no way to time things accurately every time. But when you are late even for legitimate reasons, such as going to a 2 person job to have the other guy not show up, and you end up doing the 2 man job on your own, the bad review and metrics from the client are still permanent and would greatly harm your business.

So you when you factor in all the driving, wear and tear cost to replace tire/brakes/earlier oil changes on the car, depreciation from all the miles you rack up, fuel costs, and lunch cost, you are not making much more than minimum wage, and spend a lot more time doing it. At least minimum wage jobs only require 8 hours of your day. TaskRabbit requires at least 10 hours you take out of your day to schedule enough tasks to break even with your costs.

Taskrabbit charges 30% on top of your rate to clients, which is a contributing reason why client feel they should get more than what you are doing. This is simply too much to take from each and every job.

dfa Has Earned 7 Votes

Dfa D.'s review of TaskRabbit earned 7 Very Helpful votes

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