I’d like to start off by saying I appreciate every improvement made to the search, profiles and the app in the past 6 months , but the application and review process need a big rehaul.
I can’t escape the feeling that home owners are in a more privileged position.
I was recently leaving a testimonial for a home/pet owner who just joined TH, and at the same time was leaving a review for a sit I completed.
Why do sitters get to be rated on different criteria to the home owners?
To leave a review for a sitter you need to rate them on 5 different criteria + text comment.
For a home owner, it’s just a single 1-5 stars rating + text comment!
This year, so far, I had: dirty homes, untrained dogs, disorganised owners who expected me to leave a day early because they had an Airbnb guest coming, owners in the countryside who got too busy to pick me up from the station, HO who demanded I stay another night for a better ‘handover’, and a neurotic, micro-managing owner with pages and pages long instructions on the cat and house care that they only sent a week before the sit, but by then it was too late to cancel.
But I couldn’t rate them on that criteria.
For my previous sit, home owner didn’t leave a review until I left mine and sent them a review request few days later. And because I need more reviews, I decided to leave the review first and not mention the slightly unpleasant stuff.
I didn’t mention any problems because a sit has to be really bad for me to leave a clearly negative comment.
I still have under 10 reviews on here and wanted to make sure I get a good review.
As if the members are not already worried about ‘revenge’ reviews if they leave less than stellar, but honest, review, because the review system currently shows reviews of the person who left it first.
Inevitably, the parties will start playing the ‘let’s see what they say first’ game, and you won’t get 100% honest reviews.
You could say ‘You definitely SHOULD leave an honest comment!’ but you can’t deny the ‘revenge review’ possibility and that HOs would judge you if you had less than 5 star reviews. (I’ve seen plenty of discussion online whereby HO won’t accept anyone with less than 10 five-star reviews and a DBS check)
How about making the process more fair?
My suggestions:
-
Add the same/role-appropriate rating system for both parties
(criteria suggestions for HOs: pre-sit communication and information; home, pets & duties as described; supportive and available during the sit; condition of the home as described; comfort* during the stay etc). -
Reviews are hidden until both parties leave them.
-
If one party doesn’t leave a review for another, it will automatically give the other party a 5 star/positive review on their profile
(it’s not one party’s fault the other didn’t care or forgot, and we all know how much reviews mean to sitters, as often owners won’t give newbies a chance) -
Remove the star rating from the profile and anonymise reviews: simply calculate the rating in percentages.
(“85% of members would recommend this sit(ter)” or every individual criteria “80% rated X’s communication as positive”, "90% rated (their home) as tidy and clean etc.). You can show text reviews anonymised or keywords as a word cloud).
From my experience, it seems like HOs need to be nagged to leave a review?
If home owners are getting a free pet and home sitter, and sometimes even a gardener and a maintenence person, least they could do is leave a review.
After having to write a cover letter to apply, doing a video interview, providing identity verification and references, doing a sit…and then not to even get a review?
Also, I have so many owners who don’t bother to even press the button go decline my application, let alone send a message.
- Can we please add responsiveness percentage, too? (on both ends to be fair)
If you’re advertising for a sitter, and at the moment you can only get up to 5 applications, is it that hard to click ‘Decline’ button?
You might argue that Sitters get free accommodation in exchange, and HOs leave their home/pet in Sitters hands so it requires more trust, and that there are more sitters than homes so sitters need HOs more. But HO could easily pay for a professional local sitter/boarding house but they don’t.
So why don’t we expect the same standard from them, too?
Most of the homes I’ve sat weren’t some high tech, luxury homes with valuables but I treated them that way anyway and provided as many reassurances as possible.
Home owner has never provided me with a copy of their passport or a DBS check.
I’d also like to know if the owners have clear criminal record, have they had satisfied sitters, if their homes are clean, how supported I’ll feel while there?
This is HS profile
Vs
HO profile
Maybe I missed it, but I can’t see where I can find the same information?
I had to start recording the state of the homes as soon as I arrive because
a) I want to know where things were to make sure the place is left as I found it
b) to prove to owners what the ‘found’ state was in case they have a complaint.
However, if I leave the place as dirty as I found it, and owner thinks I left it thar way and leaves a negative rating, would TH intervene?
Another thing I had to start doing is asking for all the information in the written form, in advance. Whether it’s a Welcome Guide or my own form that I send out to them, it doesn’t matter, I need to know as much as possible in advance, preferably before I accept the sit and unfortunately, not all information gets mentioned during a video call or in the messages.
I’ve had ‘occasionally watering the plants’ meaning tending to the garden and the greenhouse, too, or ‘pet has a tracker so you’ll know where it is at all times’ actually mean the owners will watch the tracker from another country and send you messages at midnight to go and investigate why is their pet spending so much time in that X area?
And a dog who ‘loves being around people’ meaning the dog is not socialised or trained and can’t be left alone at all.
All of the examples above clearly show power imbalance, require more honest communication and feedback, and that can’t be achieved if people don’t feel comfortable leaving an honest review and get treated equally. This website is supposed to serve mutual benefit.
*by comfort, it can mean how relaxed, ‘at home’ they felt, or available amenities, or literal comfort. I spent 2 months on a house sit where I slept on some kind of camping bed, when there was a real bed in other room that was off limits
mwan, what aboyt 
