Idea–as a house sitter, I would like to be able to sort, not just by Recommended (by who?) and Newest, but by start date/start range.
Frustration–I have saved sits that interest me, but I can’t find a way to list out just those sits. (If this feature does exist, how do I access it?)
Applications - amend current 5 limit, ensure that if a sitter starts an application that they can also refer to the listing without their place in the first five being lost due to a glitch. It happens.
Messages - option to delete, not archive. I see no point in archiving messages that are never going to be looked at again.
Listings - make certain criteria compulsory. Name of nearest station, bus route, are pets medicated, welcome guide to be completed at time of listing or it doesn’t go live, minimum of 12 photos like sitters have a maximum, the new amenities to be completed in full (see lots with just wifi info only), distance to amenities such as shops, responsibility section to include compulsory info such as length of walking, how they interact with other dogs, indoor/outdoor pets, known health issues, one day sits should not be able to go live.
Frustration: home owners who don’t reply in a timely way to applications. THS says all members have to reply within 72 hours, that frequently doesn’t happen. We apply to sits and 72 hours later, radio silence from many home owners. Not even an acknowledgement. So we withdraw our application as we are just not interested in dealing with poor communicators.
Idea: have a communication rating for all members like other platforms so we know what kind of person we’re dealing with. Have it so members lose ratings/stars for tardy responses and can earn them back for quick responses.
Frustration: the inability to ask questions of home owners about their sit listing without actually applying. Many times there is critical information missing or very little information. Home owners miss out on quality sitters because most of us bypass these type of listings.
Idea: allow private messaging without having to lodge an application and take up one of the precious 5 spaces just to ask a question. Let people communicate with each other like grown ups. Announcec a trial period then if it doesn’t work, scrap it. At least give it a go!
Frustration: owners not sending the welcome guide as soon as a sitter is confirmed because they haven’t completed it and they feel there is no urgency. Sometimes a sitter never gets the WG or often not until close to the sit time and it may include some responsibilites that were never descussed and agreed on.
Idea: make it so the home owner has to complete and upload the WG before their sit listing can go live and it MUST include the sit address and home owner contact details.
Frustration: owners sending sit invites for dates that a sitter is unavailable having already been confirmed for THS sit for the same dates.
Idea: don’t let the system do this! The home owner should receive a system message saying “sorry, this sitter is not available for your sit dates, please search for a different sitter”
@Ben-ProductManager thanks for asking for feedback. You are receiving many ideas here,. What would be nice (and polite) is to provide some feedback to your members on whether these ideas are viable or not. THS’s past radio silence in these matters is very disappointing, please don’t let this be a repeat performance.
Frustration: Private invitations that do not contain a personal message.
Improvement/Idea: Use the same format as shown in your screenshot @Ben-ProductManager for sitters in that owners need to write a message to the sitter to invite before they can click on the invitation dates. Believe it or not, this was the case when I joined but that personal touch disappeared with the click of a button!
Frustration: Listings going into “Reviewing Applications” before they have had 24 hour exposure.
Improvement/Idea: What members have been asking for as a compromise to the 5 application auto pause - that all listings remain open for at least 24 - 48 hours so international members have an equal opportunity to apply or receive international applications.
Frustration: Lack of response from members in the application process
Improvement/Idea: As others have suggested and what is used on other sitting sites - a reply rating system for both owners and sitters on their listing/profile.
Thank you for sharing your feedback on current Messaging and Application process, loads of new ideas, and great to get clarifications on some of the frustrations and improvements.
Please continue to share your feedback 
Will keep this thread updated once we have clarity on what area we will focus on first.
Thanks, Ben
This is not a personal attack on you, but I reject this thread. It feels so disingenuous.
It feels like,
“None of your previous complaints matter because were never listening… Maybe this will let us put you off a little longer while we keep saying we’re working on it’.”
Please explain how this is not simply a new way of trying to placate us.
As @Itchyfeet & @Saltrams & likely many others have stated, we’ve all asked for these things before. Several times.
(When I say “you” here, I mean TH in general)
You are asking us to repeat the same questions that we have been asking for months (and in some cases, years).
We’ve told you what we want, and in many cases, given detailed explanations of how to implement our suggested changes.
Please don’t ignore everything since the beginning of this forum.
I agree with @Crookie, allowing sitters to message owners.
@Ben-ProductManager perhaps you could do a separate thread asking which questions sitters regularly have to ask when applying for sits, then make these compulsory to be included in listings?
Hi @MissChef, over the years we have had a lot of great ideas and feedback on Messaging and Applications. This is across the forum and directly to membership services and to the product team (via surveys and interviews).
This thread is to encourage conversation on messaging and applications, to gather further feedback and to collate ideas across the forum. We have had some great feedback already on this thread, so thank you to everyone who has and continues to contribute.
What happened to all of the mod posts saying some variation on
we moderators do read the comments here and pass along ideas to the product team…
There’s over 400 messages here! Certainly some of them have to do with messaging!
I would be opposed to forcing the use of the THS Welcome Guide as it exists today. I have a very comprehensive guide, in Word, that I modify with my itinerary for each sitter. I send it to them immediately after confirmation for them to review and let me know if they have any questions/concerns. I then have a hard-copy of it printed at my home when I’m gone. I find the THS Guide clunky, difficult to use and impossible to print. I would HATE to be boxed into using it.
If it’s enforced, and enforced badly, there’s always a work-around.
You could just paste into each section, “This is covered in the welcome guide you will receive upon confirmation.”
And if it doesn’t take up enough space, plop in some lorem ipsum, or your favorite poem
Frustration: not being able to message home owners without ‘applying’ - hitting ‘apply’ suggests more commitment there may be at that stage, and withdrawing applications is never nice to do.
Improvement: a facility to message live sits with enquiries.
Hello @MissChef thanks for highlighting the THS suggestions thread.
This new thread was created to let our forum community know that we now have a dedicated team working on the messaging and applications.
We collect ideas and data from many channels across the business but reopened this conversation to announce the new team and let those forum members, who may not have seen the messaging ideas on other threads, have the opportunity to contribute their feedback and ideas.
It’s also a great opportunity to reassure everyone that we use other threads to gather data, like the existing data on the messaging and application system which has been very helpful.
Thank you to anyone who’s already contributed to the suggestions thread, we really appreciate it. There’s absolutely no obligation to comment here but if you would like to add any new ideas please do
Good to know @Ben-ProductManager
Are any of the team still dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on the revised review system roll out which was announced three weeks ago?
I fully agree with that. We live off the grid and off the fiber so it’s a pain to update a welcome guide online. Like @Cleeflang we have our own guide that is updated for every sit and available for sitters in print or as a pdf.
The problem with that is by the time they reply applications will have reached the ridiculous 5 limit and closed
Hello everyone 
, a Friday question for you all and trying out a forum poll.
To meet the homeowner, clarify any questions and logistics, and make sure we have working contact details.
Usually, because it’s quicker to ask and answer Qs that way. But I’ve also had sits where that didn’t happen, for logistical reasons, and the sits turned out well anyway. I’m on one now that’s terrific.
