There are people who favorited my listing, and I favorited some of them. I’m happy to invite them to sit, but I’d still like to chat with them beforehand to be sure. If I “invite” someone to sit, and they say yes, is that it? Or can I still go with someone else? Or is that a really jerk move?
You can invite them @Lisfnord and add a personalised message (which is always welcome) saying I really like the look of your profile, would you be available for my dates and a video call? And then it’s all on the table. It’s highly unlikely someone will just click confirm if you write that (& they need to be free and keen too). #giveitawhirl
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Hi @Lisfnord. Whenever sitters favourite a listing, it usually means they are unable to sit for your advertised dates but like what they see and they’ll be notified when you advertise again.
When an owner invites a sitter, sitters are asked to “apply” if they are interested. There is no commitment at that stage from either party. However, in your message accompanying your invitation, I would mention you would like to have a chat beforehand and, if it was me receiving your invitation, I would want that too.
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@Lisfnord
The terminology used when you invite a sitter that hasn’t applied yet is confusing- you are not inviting them to sit - you are inviting them to apply to sit …
Then if they apply - you can have a conversation with them ( via inbox messages , phone call or video call ) .
When you have found a sitter that you want to sit for you - you click “confirm “ and then they also have to click “accept “
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It’s not a done deal, if you invite to private dates which you would have to do if inviting a specific sitter then it still works the same way as if you had posted ‘open’ to all dates except in theory at least only that sitter should see and get the invite. (I say in theory as I tried it once and ended up posting open dates!)
Once you have done the invite with the ‘private dates’ then the sitter can accept or decline. If they accept it’s only in theory until you both confirm the dates which would be after further contact between you.
Strangely it’s also easy to forget to actually confirm the dates once your sitter has agreed as you can assume that’s it. They too have to confirm before it all is set as an agreed sit.
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When a sitter receives an invitation to a sit, it will look one of two ways depending on if they are looking at the message on the app or the computer.
On the computer, there is a section to the right of the message that offers two buttons: ‘Apply for dates’ or ‘no thank you’
If on the app, they will see the invitation dates and either a button to ‘decline’ or ‘apply.’
So the invitation is really an invitation to apply not an invitation to confirm and I think the wording makes it pretty clear.
I think most sitters understand that if they were to express interest in doing the sit, it doesn’t mean you are going to automatically confirm them based simply on that.
You can still request a chat just as you would if they had applied directly and you liked their application .
Though one thing I would say is that in this scenario in particular, if you end up getting interest from more than one invited sitter and you are going to talk to multiple people, it could be a good idea to let applicants know this upfront.
In the private invites scenario especially, a sitter may be more likely to think they are the only ones you are talking to, and if all goes well, an offer to sit would be made at the end of the conversation. Some sitters–not all of course-- get very put off by not knowing until the end of the call that hosts are talking with more than one applicant and it could end up affecting whether they will remain available.
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