The Product Team at TrustedHousesitters are currently looking into sitter profiles and collating all the missing elements which have been requested by our members over the years and we would love your help with prioritising some of them.
Please vote on your top 3 things you’d find useful on sitter profiles from the options below.
Show the number of years of pet sitting experience a sitter had
Show past experience with your pet type and breed
Show which pets the sitter has owned in the past
Show whether the sitter has experience administering medication
Show whether the sitter has experience with young and/or senior pets
Show whether the sitter is capable of long walks with dogs
Show whether the sitter has experience with pets with behavioural problems
Show past experience with your dog size
0voters
If there are any other sitter profile improvements you’d like to see which would help you to decide whether sitters are right for you, feel free to suggest them in this thread.
Sitter has experience caring for horses
Sitter has experience caring for farm animals
Sitter has experience caring for birds
Sitter has pool maintenance experience
Sitter is able to operate a lawn mower to mow lawn
Sitter has a manual driver’s licence
I would be interested in the % of how many sits are actually confirmed by pet parents searching through sitter profiles. I would guess it is fairly low and therefore most sitters add the relevant info in their application.
I would say years of pet sitting experience on profile would be useful but are you including non THS experience too? Also as people have just mentioned on another thread if the search filter function doesn’t actually filter by years of experience etc it is not really useful.
Personally I am not sure I would find this helpful at all? I write a pretty extensive application geared to the listing itself.
Rather than a checklist for the SITTER, I think that a listing checklist for the OWNER to be sure of covering these items in the listing itself would be far more helpful in determining if we would indeed be a perfect fit.
We have been members for about 6 years now but the first couple of years we only did one or two sits a year. For the last three years we would probably be termed as full time pet sitters.
My point is someone could have been a member for ten years and done three or four sits in that time. Someone else has been on the site for 18 months and done 50. If this is going to be included in the profile there is going to have to be some sort of differential between full time and occasional sitters.
@ElsieDownie yes it would be but THS asked for ideas. Personally I don’t think it will be that helpful for home owners because, as you say, it would be all in the application. Plus the filters would want to work much better than they are now.
I’d rather see a check list for owners to ensure all relevant information is in their listing. So sick of seeing short responsibilities like " feed dog, walk dog". Yep! What else? Next…
Yes, @Crookie, I was hesitant to say it, but yes, HO listings really need improvements, especially their pictures. All listings, even old ones, should be required to have a picture of the bedroom where the sitter will be sleeping, the bathroom to include bath and shower if there is one, kitchen and possibly the lounge/living room. I would also really appreciate a picture of the litter box to see what is used and where in the home it is. And the listing should also include how long the pets can be left alone.
This posting truly hammers home how homeowners/pet parents (awful term) are prioritized over sitters. THS could not operate without sitters.
And they couldn’t operate without home owners. Each group is equally important.
The “improvements” have to start somewhere. Every single one of us have different priorities and hence think THS management should be concentrating on what our priorities are.
Personally, I wish they wouldn’t tinker with their model. So far none of the improvements has really helped anyone. But that is my personal opinion,
I am curious if this information is just going to be added to the profiles or will also be added to the search filters?I imagine the vast majority of sits will always be set up through sitters applying rather than owners making first contact (especially with the size of the membership and limited filters), but from reading the forum, it seems like a lot of owners do attempt to reach out to sitters; and right now, the limited options do not narrow down the choices in any meaningful way.
If these options will also be added as filters, one to select sitters who have been active within X amount of time could be helpful (just logging in, perhaps, not necessarily has booked a sit). I see so many listings on the first few pages of people who maybe have one or two reviews from years ago. Clearly their membership is active but unless they are all on multi year sits that haven’t ended yet, they aren’t active on the site. I imagine home owners wouldn’t contact someone like this anyway, but filtering out these inactive sitters would be helpful, especially since they appear to exist in very large numbers.
I take a point from @Cleeflang …
If a poll was presented on what features/improvements should be prioritized…I think it would be
Blind Reviews
Opt in / out features
(Uh oh…I feel like Claire…this post is going to end up somewhere else… mods…plz appreciate the attempt at chuckle for y’all:blush:
Hi @HelloOutThere we do appreciate your nod to humor, we are not devoid of it however your comment is veering off topic. The post was asking about sitter improvements, not what features should be prioritized that subject has been and is being discussed across the forum.
Please respond to Arjuna’s request only and if that is not of interest simply pass on by …
I appreciate the attempt to improve things, but personally don’t find most of these very useful. For example, as a sitter I have had experience with a lot of different pets of different sizes and behaviors, and giving medication, but just because I have this experience it does not mean that I am necessarily interested in sits with very large dogs, or dogs with behavioral issues, etc. I choose my sits based on location, timing and the many subjective factors all sitters screen by to meet their personal needs and interests. I personally find it very difficult to be invited to sits, even though slightly flattering. It has probably happened 50 times, but I’ve only had one that I was even remotely interested in ( it was a sit I had favorited but the dates did not line up) and then I’m left awkwardly trying to decline a kind invite and not offend a homeowner in the process. I imagine it’s probably very depressing for owners who invite lots of sitters and get a lot of ”sorry I am not available.” With the exception of people who have favorited a sit, I don’t think inviting sitters is particularly fruitful nor do I think adding certain kind of experience to a sitter profile is going to improve the process for the homeowner or the sitter. I think most sitters, who really want a sit, will carefully read about the pets and draft an application that responds to the pets needs.
I do underscore what @Freebird is discussing.
I like the few tags that appear on listings as it helps with efficient screening. That’s how I am understanding the purpose of these “new” suggested tags.
What would be far more useful is if a sitter could show, by date, where they will be/want to be and when, then have that as a searchable field for HOs:
If I want to search for and invite a sitter, I can then see a list of people who might be free and interested in my area. This would stop HOs from contacting sitters who, it turns out, are already on a sit in Cape Verde with no plans to be in the UK for at least a year. It would also help sitters struggling to apply for sits that meet their requirements (yes, for that reason) to be matched with suitable assignments.
mods…plz appreciate the attempt at chuckle for y’all:blush:
however your comment is veering off topic. The post was asking about sitter improvements, not what features should be prioritized that subject has been and is being discussed across the forum.
