Got questions about getting hired through uknowa.com? We've got answers!
Why use uknowa?
uknowa.com exists to fulfill two goals: 1) to bring service providers more business and 2) to save them time. After you sign up, uknowa will start sending targeted leads directly to your e-mail inbox - no more searching for work. If you're interested in a lead, use our website to interact with the potential customer completely online - no more phone tag! Finally, when you're satisfied that a customer fits YOUR business, place a bid online and schedule a time to meet if necessary. uknowa makes hunting for jobs and dealing with non-serious customers a thing of the past. Save your time and money! Sign up with uknowa today!
Adding your business to uknowa is completely free - there are NO membership fees.
uknowa believes charging for leads is unfair - no website can ever guarantee a lead will turn into actual work! Instead, we've arranged our policy such that we only make money when YOU make money. So when a customer hires you for a job, we'll charge a small Success Fee to your credit card. This Success Fee is the ONLY fee uknowa will ever charge you. And remember: Success Fees ultimately feed back into marketing, which brings more jobs in for our service providers!
The Success Fee is calculated as 5% of your bid price up to a maximum of $500. If a job doesn't go through, uknowa offers a 100% moneyback guarantee on the Success Fee.
When you're hired for a job, we'll send you an invoice for the Success Fee. Payment is due 14 days after the customer selects you as winner of the job.
Imagine trying to track jobs that could occur months or even a year after hiring, or the infinite possibilities for payment schedules. As you can see, the timing of our Success Fee is simply a practical matter! And while it's common practice to place down payments on many service jobs, uknowa appreciates that this timing can create cash flow problems, so we've capped our Success Fee at $500 for ANY job.
Currently we accept major credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Amex). A cheque option is planned for the future.
To add your business, we require a legal business name, business description, a personal contact, phone number, and address. This will help us identify your business in case we need to contact you and also allow us to verify your information. When you decide to accept a job, uknowa will require your credit card information to process the transaction.
Click 'Sign Up' at the top right or bottom left corner of the screen. Signing up will only take a few minutes.
No! uknowa will e-mail your leads straight to your inbox. You can always see your current leads by clicking on ‘Dashboard’ at the top right corner of the screen.
After you sign up, targeted leads will be sent as soon as they are posted by the customer. If you'd prefer, you can receive all leads at once in a Daily Summary by changing your 'Settings' at the top right of the screen.
When viewing a job, simply enter your question into the text box beneath the ‘Public Q&A’ headline. You can ask as many public questions as you like to get more details about a job’s requirements. Public Questions save you time as they are visible to all service providers – chances are, your question has already been asked by our automated questionnaire or by another service provider! Note that it is against our Terms of Service to post your contact details within Public Questions.
You can send the customer private messages after you enter your first bid by clicking 'Send Private Message' beneath the ‘Your Bid” section.
We understand that many services require a meeting before a final price can be given. That's why uknowa allows bids to be changed at any time before the customer hires a service provider. Enter your best figure as your initial bid and, after you bid, use the 'Send Private Message' link to request a meeting with the customer to determine your final price.
If the customer selects your bid their contact details will be e-mailed to you. You can also ask for the customer's contact details after you bid by clicking 'Send Private Message'.
Absolutely! Go to the page of the job you're interested in and click 'Watch in My Jobs'. We'll then send you updates whenever your 'watched' jobs have new activity. Click 'Stop Watching' to cancel updates.
Agreed! And from our research, the customer knows it too! Bids include your best price plus the opportunity to breakdown the work between materials, time, and anything else you want to get across to the customer. So put in your best bid and let your profile and communication through Private Messages make you stand out from the rest. Remember, one great part about uknowa is that it lets YOU evaluate and choose your customers.
Go to the job that you’d like to bid on, click on the ‘Enter Bid” button, and fill in your proposal to the customer in the ‘Enter a Bid’ section. You’ll get to review your bid as well as view the calculated Success Fee before the bid is sent to the customer.
No! uknowa does not charge any fee to bid on jobs. If your bid is selected by the customer, you will be invoiced for a Success Fee.
You can change the value of your bid as many times as you like before the customer selects a service provider. When you change your bid, your Success Fee will recalculated accordingly.
Congratulations! Once a job is won you will be e-mailed the contact information of the customer, and they will be given yours. We recommend meeting the customer and signing a contract outlining the job's timeline, a detailed description of the expected work to be done, and a full price breakdown.
Since uknowa only facilitates the connection between you and the customer, we cannot help here. If the customer does not pay, having a formal contract between you and the customer is the only legal way to protect yourself.
When you're hired we will e-mail you a link to an electronic copy of your Success Fee invoice. Simply follow the link to review your invoice and pay via our secure partner server.
You will have 14 business days to pay your Success Fee invoice.
We offer a 100% money back guarantee upon confirmation from the customer that a job was not completed. In this event, please contact us at billing@uknowa.com so that we can investigate further and get you your refund as soon as possible.
The customer can review your work via the job page. After your job is done, we recommend that you send your customer a reminder note to leave you a review!
Our research has shown that reviews from previous customers are the single most powerful way of building trust with potential customers. That’s why we suggested reminding your customers to leave you a review (but don’t worry, we’ll remind them too! :) )
Customer reviews have overall headings of Positive, Neutral, or Negative. They include a text description as well as a rating out of five stars for four service categories: Communication, Timeliness, Budget, and Quality. Your customer reviews will be shown directly on your profile.
After a customer leaves you a review, you can leave a response. Your response will show up alongside the review itself, which allows both parties to have their say, and ensures fairness.
uknowa does not filter negative customer reviews. However, if you believe a review to be libelous, slanderous, or non-factual in its content, please use the 'Contact Us' link below to get in touch. We will investigate your case immediately.
Unfortunately not for the purposes of reviews. Uknowa keeps its feedback system strong by only allowing jobs that are done through uknowa to be reviewed. You can however enter previously completed projects in the Marketing section of your Dashboard.
All feedback is for public viewing and cannot be hidden. However, if you believe a review is libelous, slanderous, or non-factual in its content, please get in touch via the 'Contact Us' link, and we will investigate your case immediately.
We understand that sometimes job requirements change after service providers have been hired through our site. If it is determined that a customer decided to not use your services after hiring you through our website, a refund is available. Determination of refunds will be made on a case-by-case basis.
uknowa offers a 100% money-back guarantee for Success Fees collected.
Refunds will only be considered after confirmation from the customer that they knowingly and willfully chose to break their agreement to hire you.
Please have the customer contract handy and any other documentation that you think we will need to see to process your refund (i.e. any proof that the contract was not completed or that the customer canceled the job).
For our bottom line, probably. But so is being unfair to the businesses that help build our communities. uknowa strives to uphold our philosophy of making money only when our providers make money.
We sure do, and we'd love to hear about your experience with our service! Testimonials from service providers will be prominently featured.
Of course! This is a tool for service providers like you. Tell us how we can make it work better for you by clicking on the ‘feedback’ button on the right hand side of every uknowa page.
