As a HO, I have a sit posted and I’m reviewing applications. Out of the 5, my favorite, I started reviewing their reviews of homeowners. They have dozens and dozens of reviews all 5*, however they have left very few reviews of the homeowner. Now I’m torn as I liked their profile best. I work very hard to make my sits very appealing and bend over backwards to make the sitter feel at home and hope they have an amazing time while caring for my pet.
My question is for other HO’s, are reviews that important to you and would you have a sitter with all 5* reviews who may not leave you a review?
Given that some sitters won’t take a home with “skipped” reviews and many imagine the worst when a review is skipped, it would give me pause, but I would probably chat with the sitters if I got a good vibe about them and ask them why they didn’t leave reviews. Possibly they don’t understand why homes need/want them. It wouldn’t necessarily be a rule out but if there was another equally qualified sitter or couple who did review, it could be a deciding factor.
Definitely not good. Unlike sitters, hosts who do not receive a review by a sitter standout and not in a positive way.
I would still have a chat and, if that goes well, would ask about their lack of reviews for hosts. I’d also explain why that omission concerns you. Take things from there.
I am a sitter and homeowner. I once declined an otherwise good sitter applicant because her history showed that she had not left reviews for many of her sits. As a sitter, it really bothers me when sitters don’t leave reviews to help future sitters. I told her that this was why I was not considering her. I had other good applicants, so i had no problem ruling her out.
I can understand your concern @avidtraveler. As they are your favourite and you don’t want to keep sitters waiting too long now you’re in “reviewing “ mode, I would ask for a video chat and it would be one of the questions I raise with them. As they have numerous excellent reviews, they must be well aware that reviewing hosts is part of the system. After all, when they’re applying for desirable sits, they must read other sitters’ reviews!
If it were a handful, I would just ask them why. But if it was a lot, like half, then I would probably just decline them. They may have had good reasons and just don’t like writing negative things, but the platform is review driven so members either way that can’t comply aren’t helpful and I would take a pass.
That sounds a bit sketchy given that is the way THS works, we all work for & rely on reviews to either get sits or offer sits. If you really want to go with them, I would bring it up during the interview & ask them why they don’t do reviews. If they have dozens of reviews then they’ve been around the block here at THS, so it really does beg the question.
I wouldn’t worry about not receiving reviews as a HO. If sitters do not apply, that’s not the reason, but something in your listing that keeps them away. For great listings it has no impact whether all sitters left review or not and let’s be honest, the number of reviews a sitter leaves has 0 correlation to the quality of care they provide to your pets and home. Receiving positive and appreciative feedback as a HO, especially if you go out of your way to provide a great experience for sitters, is preferable, but many times not receiving any is not a reflection of you, could be simply due to a very busy sitter whose priority is to provide care with 0 compromise and perhaps not that good in writing reviews.
I’m a relatively new host with a desirable listing and I can confirm that we had no issues getting sitters for our first 2 sits, both of the sits were booked with no prior reviews (the 2nd sit dates were posted while we were away during our 1st sit).
We now have 2 5 star reviews which certainly can’t hurt but I agree it probably doesn’t matter, however if a host was to receive a negative review it might deter potential sitters, even if the listing is popular.
We’re sitters, I had no idea there were sitters out there that chose not to write reviews on a regular basis, I understand the odd one or two if there was a weird scenario.
Why don’t you ask them directly about why they don’t leave reviews for most HO’s and say it’s important to you? Because you’ve nothing to lose, because at the moment if I were you I’d be avoiding them.
Then, you can make up your mind off the back of what they say, or more importantly, the way in which they say it.
I emailed them and asked the question. They said in a nutshell they only wrote a review if the homeowner requested it. Just under 50% of the time they wrote a review. This is over many years. Anyway, we have a video call scheduled with them. They did say they would write a review if we asked. They have all 5* reviews and the reviews they wrote are all 5*.
Our next favorite sitter who applied, already accepted another sit that was about the same time as ours.
Thanks for getting back @avidtraveler. I hope you’ll let us know how the video call goes and whether you both agree to the sit. A very interesting attitude they have towards reviewing. I wonder if they ask all of their hosts to provide a review?
Good question. One thing I noticed when reading their reviews, was how many sitters did not write a review of the HO. Maybe it’s a little more prevalent than I thought.
Over the years we’ve developed our own after-the-sit message, for exactly this reason:
Hi [Homeowner’s Name]
Thanks so much for trusting us to care for your gorgeous [pet name/s] and beautiful home — it was such a joy! Everything went smoothly, and we’re so glad you could relax knowing [pet name/s] were in good hands.
It’s been such a lovely 5⭐️ experience, and we’ve shared that in our THS review. When you have a moment, we’d be so grateful if you would leave one for us too — oh, and we’d be delighted if you stayed in touch for future sits.
Sitters and hosts who don’t write reviews are at best a bit lazy and selfish, because anyone who’s used THS for a while knows they help hosts and sitters make decisions and matches.
Host profiles show every completed sit, who the sitter was and the review submitted by the sitter. If no review is left, it is obvious. Missing reviews by sitters are considered by subsequent sitters as a possible to probable red flag of a problem host. That interpretation of a missing review makes total sense because many sitters on this forum have been clear that they are loath to publicly write anything about a host that might be seen as mean or confrontational This sentiment has been expressed by sitters here even when a sit or the host was patently terrible. Rather than writing a dishonest positive review about a bad sit, sitters have been advised to leave no review or to use code phrases or euphemisms understood by other sitters as hinting at problems; either is a red flag. A host profile regularly missing reviews from past sitters would be seen as suspicious at best. So, yes, being reviewed is very important to us (even before we get into the value of honest feedback).
The situation on missing reviews of sitters is entirely different. Hosts can see how many reviews a sitter has received but has zero visibility on how many total sits they’ve done. 20 great reviews of a sitter could be from 20 total sits or 200. There’s no way to know. This lack of visibility diminishes the significance and importance of missing reviews for a sitter which might explain why some sitters (some being none in our experience) are lazy, cavalier or think they’re too busy to be bothered.
I would presume that a sitter who does not review a host by default is a sitter who has not fully grasped that reviews are the currency accrued by individual members and by THS as a whole. Lose (or diminish) that currency and the Trust part of TrustedHousesitters is diminished.
A sitter that defaults to not reviewing may be an excellent sitter but I’ll chose to look for a different excellent sitter.
We started as HO and now do Sits ourselves so we’ve seen both sides.
Our first Sitters were very slow to communicate on a long sit. And they left no review.
I then added the question in talking with Sitters: would you be willing to send a quick update every other day?
Now as Sitters we ask, “How often do you want updates, pictures?” Everyone is different.
With reviews it’s tougher… anything could be read into the question.
Suggestion’ simply ask this Sitter candidate something like, “You’ve had two dozen lovely reviews, so we are curious why you’ve only left 5 reviews for the Home Owners?”
