If you have been using Homegauge for a decent amount of time, how are you personally feeling and reacting to the big changes with Homegauge over the last few months and more to come in the near future?
I was OK with the price increase since overall I still feel that once I get my business running smoothly, the flat monthly fee and all forms included would be a cost-saving value.
I am however very upset with the data harvesting they are going to implement starting around April 1st. Asking my customers to re-input their personal info and then making them wade through Home Insurance and other partner offers to get to the Home Inspection that they already paid for is not acceptable. I realize that every day many companies harvest data and sell it, but it doesn’t mean we should just shrug our shoulders and accept it. We especially shouldn’t accept it from paid services.
If the Homegauge changes don’t sit well with you, what options, workarounds etc, are you considering. I’d rather vet a new software vs. using Homegauge for a year and have to start all over next April.
I’ve been using HG for about 15 yrs now after switching away from 2 previous HI software choices. I’ve had a number of discussions with Russell many years ago about his insistent HG Branding /advertising all over my software and attempts of marketing extra services to my client base. His attitude was the clients or realtors were basically using me because of HG and my argument was HG is strictly a support service company to help me deliver a comprehensive report.
Turned out since I’m in Canada, his extra service stuff didn’t apply up here so we were able to opt out from all HG mailouts. I’m not sure how this will play out going forward but I will stop using their services immediately if they cross that line. I really enjoy and would hate to loose the web upload /report management and support services but that’s all I’ve ever used from HG. I don’t really want to manually transfer reports back & forth to my hand-held or email pdf’s to clients, but I guess I’ll adjust to it if my clients are required to enter all their personal contact history and sign up for stuff just to view their report, or if HG insists on sending crap to my clients.
I’ve been using HomeGauge for over 12 years. This latest huge change requiring the client, (at minimum) to enter their name, phone number and email address is obviously for data collection to allow HG/American Family to use to their advantage and make more money.
HomeGauge management disguising this new data collection tactic as the home buyers “New Experience” is comical.
It’s will not take very long for clients and agents to either start complaining or accept it. I believe it will be the former.
Bought the software, don’t use the cloud or any of their services and don’t intend to. With them or any one else. Cloud services are designed to exploit the client base. This happens even when you are unaware of it.
I quit using their cloud services for a few years and sent the reports out in PDF form. But their PDF’s suck and most people didn’t like them. I’ve also become accustomed to their repair-request list, as well as many agents that refer me. I’d really hate to go back to sending out PDF reports.
I do not use any of their other services, for payments, scheduling, etc. Only for companion and cloud and sending out reports in HTML
I’m really glad to see some push back on this. There is also quite a bit of negative chatter on Facebook about this topic. Hopefully all of the software companies get the drift that this is not acceptable.
The only complaints I’ve ever seen about this is on the internet. Nary complaint one from a client or agent. What is the complaint? Any publishing class, including html, will tell you, “white space is your friend.” …and yet that’s the only complaint I read. Picture size and layout can be easily controlled by the software. If your going to print the report it will go to pdf anyway. Portable Document Format is just that. There is a lot of overhead space needed for an html page. Wasted space for the use it will get for a Home Inspection Report that will be read once, if that, and discarded.
Home Gauge PDF’s are truly absurd when the software’s output doesn’t match what the creator wants it to look like, in terms of pagination, spacing, layout, etc.
Not to the home inspectors that’s for sure. It looks like they’re going to wait it out and see how many complaints they get from buyers and agents when the new changes take effect. They’re the ones they are most concerned with, that’s where the money’s at.
Like Joe Klampfer I am in Canada as well and most of what HG was offering was either not available here or my clients were just not interested. I have a paid in full subscription from before all this started and I am keeping it. However that does not mean that I have to fund their shenanigans by paying their annual fee. I dropped it before for a few years and my clients never complained and I never had an issue sending out my reports by email in PDF. I paid for a renewal last year to see what was coming up and because they were supposedly offering a good deal on some things I was interested in. Long and short, I was out another $399 us for nothing gained. When it comes up this summer I will be dropping it for good and just use the program as I have it. They have sucked the life out of what could have been a great piece of software.
12 years and cancelled services this month, I felt it fair to support them for the promised upgrades to their Desktop software that never happened. As such and with their policy changes and cost increases, it was well past time for me to part ways. HG was a dominant competitor in the HI software market for a long time, would seem I don’t even see them mentioned when topic of software comes up. Looking farther back from outside from the entire situation it should have been easier to part ways long ago.
“NachiGauge” was the first professional report software I used, (back in 2007). It was total crap. Used for about three months and RAN away from it. Reading all the garbage over the years regarding Russell and HG, I absolutely made the right decision way back then!
I am not paying you to advertise or collect my client data I am paying for software to host my reports. All we need is software that doesn’t meddle with my clients. Several agents I have talked to said that is means for finding a new inspector. What my clients will be going through and seeing when all they want to do is view the report. My clients want their inspection; they don’t want to answer a bunch of data collection questions. Keep your insurance business separate from your home inspection software. They have already been through the wringer in their purchase process. Does HG not see or care about the position they are placing us inspectors into come April? I think HG underestimated how pissed we would be and how many would really leave. If the main goal for your March Month of Momentum was to push every inspector out your door, all I can say is good luck. I am not going to be renewing my HG subscription when it comes due.
Below are some contacts from HomeGauge that you can email. Feel free to send a message to any other contacts at HomeGuage you think are appropriate.
I’m currently adopting a wait and see attitude. I do not wish to go back to the pdf format. The discussions I’ve had with realtors is the repair request list generator is a huge tool for them. I include several videos and 360° photos that obviously don’t work on a pdf.
When I started we had to drag a printer with us. I don’t want to go back to that.
When the shoe drops in April I’ll create a faux client and see for myself what the buyer experience is like and we will adapt to what is there. Be it allow the buyers to decide for themselves how far down the rabbit hole they wish to travel or perhaps develop some canned bogus info for them to provide.
