Very, very disappointing.
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I will likely keep using THS myself, because the sits I look for tend not to be what would be considered popular.
But I’ve brought in a lot of new members — those recommendations stop now.
I’m a sitter — if I were an HO, I’d be really mad.
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@Ben-ProductManager @Angela-HeadOfCommunity, any idea when we can expect the rollout of the “improvements” as listed above in Ben’s announcement? I imagine that this could be a big factor in your customer’s decisions to stick around, going forward.
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@Ben-ProductManager as @anon1411559 says, direct communication to ALL MEMBERS through an email blast is the best (and most honest) way of communicating this change. As someone who has managed continual change in a large workforce over many years, successfully implementing change so that it is adopted quickly, starts with clear communication across a variety of communication channels, not by hiding it in a blog or newsletter. Yes, THS will get many replies to an email blast but THS also needs to manage that to positively drive the change. For change of this magnitude THS needs to be communicating via email, website announcements, website pop up windows, the newsletter/blog, this forum and any other comms channel you have access to.
PRO TIP: find and leverage off some “change agents”, people who can positively influence others to adopt this change.
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Very disappointed.
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Hi @Crookie thank you for the insights and feedback gained through your personal experience and that is exactly how the Pausing Applications functionality is being communicated across our global membership … all channels of communication are being utilized,
if you had asked the question we could have confirmed that this was the strategy.
Thank you
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It’s clear that the goal is to pull in more members, not to enhance quality or reward those who have been loyal for years.
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Perfectly expressed.
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Hi @Angela-HeadOfCommunity it would have been helpful if that was communicated up front rather than saying it is going to be in the newsletter as that sounds like all THS is doing to communicate the change. Members shouldn’t need to ask questions as we don’t know what we don’t know to ask the relevant questions. As has been mentioned many times on this forum, communication is the key to success.
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Hi Angela,
There seems to be a bit of an issue with syntax in your response.
You said “all channels of communication ARE being utilized”.
That does not appear to be correct.
While all channels may be utilized later, they certainly weren’t before or during the test and haven’t been yet.
No emails, no surveys, etc.
Hopefully THS will get something out to ALL members soon.
This is not the way to “improve”.
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Hi @Wetravel this discussion is focussed on the latest Pausing Applications announcement and communications, not past announcements.
@Angela-HeadOfCommunity … Food for thought on an approach for future significant changes … consider engaging the community proactively in problem solving and specifying new features ala “we are seeing this problem or opportunity and have these parameters that constrain us, community what do you see as approaches, benefits, challenges, etc” … many of the pause issues were possible to anticipate by thinking about the problems prior to implementing a test. To not include your user base in helping to define the solution you are:
- foregoing a range of greatly useful user input.
- Wasting time and money on a partial or poor implementation.
- Reducing rather than increasing goodwill.
If it’s too problematic to offer that proactive input opportunity to the entire user base, then consider a much smaller but reasonably large and diverse User Council.
You’d be amazed at how all the negative energy this thing has generated could have instead (and could in future be) positive excitement around improvements that both hit the mark and honor the smarts of the user base!
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@LizBCN I started a year ago and had no problem finding sits and getting started by applying to several sits and putting my heart into my application writing.
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Edited (removed). Reply in wrong thread
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Some? Why not all?
Only some? Some - “being an unknown, undetermined, or unspecified unit or thing”. Is “some” really enough for a decision of this magnitude?
I had no problem at all securing last November my first and following sit(s). In fact, my very first sit was in one of the most desirable locations, in NYC, right next to Central Park. Right now I am overwhelmed with problems securing sits. Yet, I exclusively look for sits in the location I am at.
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Ben said that popular sits “would receive up to 100 applications”.
I’ve never seen a sit get 100 applications
or over 90
or over 80
Has anyone here EVER seen a sit get over 80 applications? How about 90 or 100? If so, how many do you think you;ve seen get that many?
And last, it was the owner’s choice to keep getting them. THS might have put something in their system to pause them at 30 AND ask if they still wanted more.
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Hi @Wetravel …
Which isn’t surprising as you only joined in 2019 and we had nearly two years of COVID in between which only really leaves a couple of years, less than that, to look at and coming out of COVID was not a normal environment for the longest time, International travel has really only just begun to return to some normality since the end of 2021 with the highest activity in 2022 and there are some members reluctant to get their “toes wet” even now.
From my own experience of being an active sitter on the platform for 12 years, I have applied to sits with large numbers of applications … A New York sit received 144, a 6 month sit in Southern Spain received over 90, a 4 month in Brisbane 85, they are just three that I remember mainly because I was the successful sitter.
I have seen many others with exceptionally high applications and many with 30 -50 the owner’s ability to pause applications was not a functionality at the time.
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If this by your own admission has not been a problem for the last two years why is THS using this as justification for solving a problem that does not exist?
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This was intended for Angela not you Wetravel
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