Taskrabbit - Handyman & more 4+

Shocked at the negative reviews

Just used TR to move shelving units from my friend’s apartment to mine. The whole experience was great and the app was easy to use (and I work at a tech company!). The notifications work properly (important!) and you can leave/read reviews for potential suggestions. I read almost every review before deciding on a TR and I had a really easy and efficient time with my task. So I’m shocked at all the negative reviews on here - take a minute to do your research and you won’t be disappointed.

That said, because this is the App Store, one feature/UX suggestion I have would be to move the search to the header rather than at the bottom on Home as I actually had no idea it existed for most of the time I’ve had this app downloaded. Also, I wish you could set your TR results to sort the same way every time (I wanted price from low to high instead of recommended - it was annoying having to toggle that each time I searched a new time or date). Lastly, it would be more convenient to enter any promo codes in settings vs. after you’ve booked a task and are ready to checkout - especially since other sharing economy apps have conditioned us to do it this way.

Other than those three things, can’t really complain and would use again!

I can no longer pick taskers of my choice

I was trying to book an assembly request in SF a few days in advance, but I was unable to select a tasker that I’ve used before. I thought they may be unavailable, but then I remembered they sent me a direct link to their profile. Once I clicked on the link it showed me that they were actually available for that timeframe I initially selected, which was contrary to what was displayed in the app. So needless to say I booked my preferred tasker for the assembly project. Once they had completed the project, I asked them why I was unable to select them in the app. They informed me that Taskrabbit change their algorithm to prioritize taskers based on the location of the cities where they reside, instead of all the taskers that service the area. They also mention that they have been getting less work as a result of this update. I noticed during the checkout process that Taskrabbit was willing to recommend less experienced taskers with lower ratings, instead of my preferred tasker of choice. This seems unfair to both customers and taskers alike. It forces mediocrity on the customers while taking work away from quality taskers. Taskrabbit should really provide customers with a better selection of taskers that provide a higher standard of service and not penalize taskers just because of their proximity to the service location. I hope that they will take my feedback seriously and not continue to peddle such mediocrity.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for the feedback! We recommend adding your preferred Tasker as a "Favorite" Tasker in your app so that you can easily rehire them in the future. Learn how to add a Tasker as a Favorite here: support.taskrabbit.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035493892

Long-term bugs. iOS app development cycle needs to be reviewed

I would be giving this app a higher review if it were brand new and still experiencing first year growing pains. However: the Taskrabbit app is 10 years old! I have been using the app for several years, and have seen bugs persist for months if not years on end, even being passed on from one head of development to the next. One of the most frustrating ones is sorting Taskers by positive reviews. What gets returned is something barely resembling any kind of sort. Taskers with both numerically lower ratings and fewer completed tasks routinely appear above Taskers with higher ratings and more completed tasks. If a user asks for a sort by positive reviews, that is what should be listed. Either the development team hasn’t been able to fix this very basic and core app function for several years, or they are using some incredibly obscure and un-asked for secret sauce to rank Taskers by parameters other than average rating + completed tasks (ie substituting what the user wants with taskrabbit’s own ranking preferences). An app that has been around this long should have 100 % of its long-term bugs ironed out. If the development team has too much on its plate to work on existing app issues, then that is a sign that Taskrabbit HQ should invest in its own product and expand the iOS/app development team so that it can properly handle all aspects of app development, including UX and quality control.

Developer Response ,

We truly appreciate you sharing this feedback and have passed this info on to our teams to take a look. We continually work to improve the community experience and your sharing lets us know how we can do exactly that. Please let us know if we can help with anything else.