Porch

Helping homeowners avoid the money pit

Maintaining and improving a home can be a nightmare. Ask any homeowner and they will tell you at least one, if not multiple horror stories of home projects gone wrong. From unreliable contractors to unexpected complications, many homeowners find themselves living in a money pit of botched and abandoned projects.

Porch was no more than a directory

When I first arrived at Porch, my objective was to update the pro profile pages in order to (1) help pros better showcase their work and (2) make it easier for homeowners to request a quote, with a an increase in requested quotes being our measure of success. I redesigned the page and two things happened: requests for quotes greatly increased…but so did complaints. Homeowners rarely got responses from pros and pros who attempted to respond had trouble getting ahold of homeowners. We’d uncovered that the product of our product was missing. How embarrassing.

Communication is critical to a successful project

If we were going to help homeowners and professionals get projects done, we needed to help them talk to one another. Over the course of a project, a homeowner had multiple touch points with pros to get a job complete. Homeowners preferred email, with a timeline of correspondence, expectations, and agreements. Pros preferred talking on the phone as they are often on site or driving between jobs. Information was commonly misplaced or misunderstood while delays in response often resulted in cost overruns and unmet expectations. Both homeowners and pros needed a tool to not only begin a project, but help them communicate throughout it.

Goals

• Increase average responses per project from 0.4 to 3

Understanding the problem

In partnership with research agency 15four, we interviewed homeowners and pros to better understand the needs, obstacles and expectations of each participant in the home improvement process. We learned that project planning begins before a quote can be requested. We learned that choosing a pro has as much to do with their reputation as it does their availability. We learned that most homeowners - especially those who have learned from past experiences - prefer to be apart of the process, with transparent communication as complications effect scope and decisions must be made. And for pros, we learned that if we could provide higher quality leads (proximity, relevance, and detailed information about the job) without interrupting their current jobs or adding additional methods of communication, they’d be ecstatic.

It starts with a project, not a pro

Providing a directory of pros missed a crucial step in the process: helping customers identify their problem or need. The truth is, most homeowners don’t know which professional(s) to hire for any given project. And even those that do don’t know what information would be helpful to provide when describing their project. I proposed a fundamental change: what if instead of "Find professionals,” the search bar on the homepage asked a simple question. “What’s your project?”

Project requests, in essence, are a conversation. Each answer informs the next question. And so I invented the Guided Lead Form. Using friendly, simple language, homeowners would be guided through a series of questions aimed to define the scope of their project. The results would then be sent to pros that best match the requirements of the project.

A new, project-focused homepage

The proposed transition from a directory to a project-centric homepage forever changed the product. Porch would no longer be a directory – it would be a service. Tell us about your project and we’ll connect you with the right pro.

Project Page

Every project, regardless of its perceived size and complexity, has infinite variability. This is exasperated by the process of receiving quotes from multiple pros - and projects that require multiple pros. Therefore, the best solution would be the most flexible.

End-to-end experience

Results

48 hours after launch

• 4,000 projects submitted

• 5,500 calls

• 1,700 text messages

• 1,000 chats

• 450 photos added to 160 projects

• 380 budget and timeline set 

• 41 pros marked “hired” by homeowners

Responses

NPS Score by Number of Responses