Hello,
I’ve been a member now of THS since 2017 and in the past it was much easier to contact support. What happened?
I’m on a housesit currently and I have a question
- When I try to call the number of THS, during and after business hours: always same responds: “all our staff is currently busy” and the phone call ends after 15 secs.
- When I try to use Live Chat, I’m referred to a bot that isn’t helpfull at all, live chat not supported.
- I’ve send in a email through the bot last week, no responds at all yet. By the time I’m going to receive a responds my housesit will be probably over (upcoming Friday)
I’m dissappointed in the service. I seems that the prices of the platform are increasing but the service is not.
Thanks,
Ruben
2 Likes
Hi Ruben, Welcome to our community forum and thank you for being part of our TrustedHousesitters community since 2017.
We apologise for the delay in getting a response from the Membership Services Team and realise how frustrating it can be not being able to contact an agent. We have been working with a reduced team since the beginning of the pandemic and across reduced hours and currently experiencing a high level of incoming messages, we know how important it is to have a support system that our members can rely on to be there when needed.
The priority is to get the team back to pre-pandemic strength and service, we have three new agents currently in training, it will take time especially as the team are working remotely and training has to be done remotely also but we are working as hard as we can to build the team back up.
We are here to help so please ask your question either replying to this message in the thread or as a DM to @Angela-CommunityManager if you would prefer and if necessary I will connect you with a Membership Services Team member.
Once again we do apologise and thank you and all of our members for your patience. I hope you will stay with the forum, I’m sure you have some wonderful experiences to share which we look forward to being a part of.
Angela & The Team
1 Like
Just out of interest, why were the staff not furloughed?
Well that’s not really needed.
Better service is needed, that’s all, and as soon as possible, I noticed this issue already a long time.
2 Likes
Hi @JackieX some staff were furloughed but TrustedHousesitters like many, many companies during the pandemic dealing with an unprecedented situation with no guaranteed outcome, were forced to make difficult decisions to protect the viability of the company which sadly meant redundancies across the business, Membership Services included.
2 Likes
Angela, I hate that you are having to field these questions, but you are our contact. THS never had a guaranteed income, even pre-pandemic. Also, like many others, I kept paying my membership, even though I did not apply for any sit between December of 2019 and until recently. I know first-hand that training remotely can be inefficient, as I took a contract in a similar way this past winter. However, the company seems to have chosen to make reduction of possible losses a priority over customer service. That may come back to bite them, if more paid members are dissatisfied. Apologies can only go so far, when you have members needing quicker responses for at times serious issues.
7 Likes
@Snowbird, Thank you for your kind consideration and I’m happy to help explain. The reduction in staffing levels (redundancies) was only one of the measures we were forced to take in order to protect the viability of the company, without which we may not have survived and that is the stark reality.
Building back a first class team takes time, as I’m sure you can appreciate, the fact that we are recovering so quickly is to be celebrated however recovering staffing levels isn’t that easy, we need to recruit the right agents in order to provide a first class service.
Three new agents are in training, others in the interview stage, the priority is a full, purpose driven 24/7 service, which we had in place pre pandemic because as you say @anon36831737, we are a global organization.
We are moving in the right direction and we really do say thank you for your patience.
6 Likes
Hi Angela. Thank you for sharing the ‘stark reality’, as I doubt that was easy to share with us. I am somewhat disappointed that, as far as I know, the company did not post these job opportunities on the website, or in an email. After all, many of our members are tech/savvy, may work remotely, and/or be in the location you’d prefer, and would certainly have a head start on the THS 101 training 
Perhaps out of this conversation, you can take the idea of using your own network as an additional outlet to post future employment opportunities 
7 Likes
Hi @Snowbird we do publish vacancies on the website, Social and on LinkedIn
I would love to apply but am not in the UK…
1 Like
Oops, thanks for letting me know. Yet another thing I’ve learned on this forum. 
1 Like
Well said @Snowbird . I am amazed that the increase in membership fees was not postponed until there was a fully trained team ready to welcome new members.
We have already seen new members posting their comments in that they cannot contact MS and cannot actually go live
2 Likes
Hi Ruben, I have to agree, finding myself in exactly the same position at the moment. In fact I just posted on this topic today before seeing your message. 