What Features Would You Like to See on THS?

Aloha! I would really appreciate more information on the bed situation when homeowners post their listing.

  1. What is the bed size? (actual size as a US king is different from a UK king)
  2. Is there more than one bed available (hubby and I can share a bed but prefer to sleep sepertely)

Thanks

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Yes! Why isnā€™t this happening? Whatā€™s the point of having a favorite when itā€™s not a push notification?

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Hi @DarkAloha! I wanted to let you know that both of your requests for more info are now available on the pet parents profile. There is a drop down box for listing sizes of beds available (more than one can be listed)


and

All the pet parent has to do is update their profile with these new amenity features available to include. There is also a section to update info on public transportation available in the area.

I hope this helps!

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Thank you! This is great!

ā€œMay your choices reflect your hopes. Not your fears.ā€- Nelson Mandela.

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As homeowners/pet parents, we receive an email whenever a sitter ā€œfavoritesā€ us, and we can then click on a button which brings up ALL the sitters who have marked us as favorites. The problem is, the list isnā€™t chronological, and so the new ones are buried somewhere in with all the others. Iā€™d like to be able to see the sitters who just marked us as favorites first so I can review their profiles and maybe find a new favorite myself! Itā€™s very time consuming to try to look through all the sitters to see if I can recognize the new ones. So, as often as not, I donā€™t do it, which totally defeats the purpose. Our sit is apparently pretty popular, and I just donā€™t have the time to scroll through some 500 sitters every day. The handful that have newly marked us would be easily do-able, though, if they were right at the top of a chronological list. Thanks for considering!

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As home-owners/pet parents, we would welcome this! Fair is fair, and if homeowners use the ā€˜golden ruleā€™ when anticipating a sitter, there should be no problem. Thanks for the suggestion edoraseowyn.

I feel a label could be added for special needs pets. Or special needs care. Some animals need injections or help going to the bathroom and this should be noted a special needs pet. Also pets that can only be left for short amounts of time special needs pet. All pets are different but some need a lot of care and time. Some are even not trained so special needs would be helpful as a label. Is your pet special needs yes or no
State special needs so itā€™s clear etc.

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I just had a sitter cancel my late July sit. I appreciate that itā€™s not last minute and I still have time.

I do have an issue as she told me that she will be ā€œout of the areaā€ during my sit. I donā€™t even know what that means. She isnā€™t a traveling nurse, works for the military, or working in entertainment.

She didnā€™t say she had an emergency. So I take it that another opportunity came along and she went with it.

The thing is I donā€™t like how I have to unconfirm the sit, even though she is the one canceling. I know that TH says they are tracking this internally, but that only works for the owners/sitters who complain.

I wish that sitters could unconfirm/cancel sits. Also, there should be a way that owners/sitters can see that members are canceling sits on the profile. That can show how reliable a sitter/owner is. They have this on AirBnb and this has deterred me from engaging with unreliable homeowners.

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There seems to be an increase in sitters cancelling sits at short notice, some with very flimsy excuses. This should be able to be seen by HOā€™s on their profile. Also they should not be allowed to apply for other sits (better ones) on the same dates they have cancelled.

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There are couple features that I would find very helpful. These may already be mentioned in this very long thread somewhere.

  1. Calendar - as it is now the calendar is basically useless since I can put dates Iā€™m available but not location. It would be great if I could add where I am available to sit on those dates. It would be helpful to add specific cities or regions or even countries. If we could add location along with dates that would make it much easier for HOs to search for and invite sitters.

  2. The ability to search by size of dog (or possibly breed). I primarily sit for cats, but can also sit for small dogs. I donā€™t have experience with large dogs so would not feel comfortable sitting for them. Since itā€™s not possible to search by dog size, I just filter out dogs entirely since it takes too long to click on each listing and see the dog.

These are my suggestions and I donā€™t think they would be too difficult to implement. My only other suggestion would be to abolish the limit of 5 applications so sitters have access to all sits rather than the ā€˜limited membershipā€™ we currently have.

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One more suggestion I forgot in my other post. Some measure of response time for homeowners. Iā€™ve seen this on other platforms. Iā€™ve applied to many sits where my application goes unread for weeks. I have one on my dashboard now that I applied a month ago and it is still unread. I have another one that was unread for a week, then it was read, now itā€™s been a month. Both of these sits show as reviewing. These are just two examples, but Iā€™m finding it very common lately that sits go unread or are just never responded to. I used to withdraw my app after a week or so, but now Iā€™m leaving them just to see how long before they either contact people or remove the listing. Itā€™s extremely disrespectful to sitters who spent time on their applications. Even if these people contact me after a month I wouldnā€™t even consider doing the sit. HOs should not post until they are actually ready to select and confirm a sitter. So, I think there should be some type of response time rating or measure.

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My wife and I are full time travelers for the past 5+ years. Weā€™re traveling through all of Central America in 2023-2024. Weā€™d like to be able to show where we will be and our availability on a calendar so owners can invite us to sit for them. Is this possible?

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What an interesting idea @worldjason. Thanks for suggesting it!

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So recently I as HO have had to look for sitters- usually they approach us so that has been unusualā€¦ So I have been doing searches for people, marking them as favourites and then writing to them. However, I have had to approach so many its really hard to keep track of who you have written to- without going to inbox- and its hard to cross reference. it would be so good if when you clicked on someone who you have favourited in the ā€˜find a sitterā€™ page, it showed you if you had invited them already or brought up your communication with them/ or took you straight to your messaging with them in the inbox. it is embossing as I have accidentally re-invited people who have already declined me because there is nothing next to them on the ā€˜favouriteā€™ to indicate that I have contacted them. ā€¦ (also another strange thing is that favourites never show up under favourites on my PC- only on the app) . Itā€™s not usually a problem except at the moment when I have had to approach so many sittersā€¦ (such a new experience in the last 9 years)

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I never really thought of it this way! I thought it meant that you canā€™t get around their area without a car - and they are offering theirs as a solution! Have I been reading it wrong this whole time!? lol

  • Sitters being able to have some kind of wishlist of trips that owners can see and plan their own trips around.
    ie I want to go to Grenada in Nov so Iā€™d love to be able to list that so that owners in Grenada who are planning to travel around the same time can see it, reach out and line their dates up with mine!! vs. them booking their trip and then me having to decline because itā€™s a day or 2 off of my availability!

  • Estimated start/end times of sit - Will help to organize back to back sits

  • Whether the listed sit dates are flexible/not flexible! - and by how much
    Owners typically have a neighbour or friend that can cover until you arrive so it would be nice to see whether the dates are flexible right off the bat instead of having to message them about it

  • Being able to see my list of favourited sits so I can edit them (My ā€œfavouritesā€ tab just takes me to my inbox!? Is this just a me problem?)

  • Whether sit location is walkable

  • Sitters being able to completely block unavailable dates to elimate requests for those dates

  • Max amount of time pets can be left alone

  • Maintenance youā€™re expected to perform in list form - Such as mail, snow removal, gardening, pool etc

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This is the #1 feature Iā€™ve been hoping for!!
As a rotational worker my work schedule isnā€™t flexible so Iā€™d love to be able to list for example that Iā€™m available June 1-20th in this, this or this country/area - and have owners be able to plan their trip around that! I have half the year off but constantly have to decline sits that are off by mere days of my availability :frowning:

I would like to have an option to select EUROPE for saved searches on both the app and the website. It was possible on the website up till about a month ago but it has been removed. Please bring it back and you may as well put it on the app as well :slight_smile:

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-Ability to search by specific regions (or states, in the USA), instead of just map area
-Ability to add multiple ā€œpetsā€ filters to a search - for example, so someone who wants to avoid dogs can select ā€œcats,ā€ ā€œno pets,ā€ ā€œfarm animalsā€ etc. without having to search each manually
-Ability to leave a review without the other party seeing it when they have not reviewed you yet to avoid retaliation and make reviews more honest

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Weā€™ve been almost an year in the platform, and those are a few sugestions that we would really appreciate if it had on the platform:

showing at the inbox messages, the dates of which sitting we applied, instead of having to go through the message to discover, one by one.

the possibility to hide profiles from search that I donā€™t want to apply

delete notseen messages from the chat

a confirmation message to the owners, when they confirm a schedule a sitting, that they will have the house set for the sitters, and a message a few days earlier from the sitting to start saying something like ā€œhey, remember that your sit will start in a X days, get everything ready, and enjoy your trip!ā€

Since that we have already the tag ā€œpublic transportationā€, to add a filter ā€œcar neededā€

some sort of report button, or asking for new pictures from the Owners, since some profiles donā€™t have many pictures, or showing everything from their houses

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