THS has recently announced forthcoming functionality that, after submitting a review, asks both pet parents and housesitters ‘Would you recommend them?’. Seemingly permitted responses are yes, no and maybe.
Question for both pet parents and housesitters - if you were presented with this questions for past completed housesits then what approximate percentage of responses would you have made?
Bonus question - of those that you would answer ‘no’ then what was the primary cause(s)?
For context, we’ve completed 70+ housesits of which ~50 have been on THS platform. We’ve estimate that, for our completed THS housesits, we’d have responded 85-90% Yes, 10-15% No, 0% Maybe. For us, the primary causes of a ‘no’ response would be on-arrival surprises, poor cleanliness or pet behaviour. We have not reflected any post-sit changes in geographic preferences (e.g. US) in our responses.
I would probably recommend on every occasion, even the ones I would not return to.
I leave a full and honest review and it is up to future sitters to make up their own mind. All the categories are subjective and what is acceptable to one person isn’t to the next.
There are those I would definitely not return to but they have had repeat sitters who have had wonderful experiences (if you believe their reviews). Why wouldn’t you believe them if they are willing to return?
There’s been only one out of 28 that I wouldn’t recommend. It had a dirty kitchen and dining area.
That early sit (my third) taught me to look for reviews from previous sitters that include written references to cleanliness. (Don’t go just on star ratings or mentions of everything else, except for cleanliness. Because some people might gloss over or misrepresent things, but it’s unlikely that they will outright lie in writing about a place being clean.)
Screening sits that way, I’ve not had any dirty sit again.
I’ve also done non-THS sits, all of which I’d recommend. Since those come via my personal network, including referrals and repeat sits off THS’s books, I have greater visibility into those hosts and sits beforehand.
We think the usefulness of this feature will depend on how members interpret the question.
For us, “Would you recommend?” is different from “Would you sit there again?” There are sits we wouldn’t repeat simply because they weren’t a good fit for our preferences, yet we’d still recommend them because the listing was accurate, the hosts were fair, and another sitter might have a great experience.
The big unknown is how THS intends to use this information. Unless we’re certain how recommendation responses will be interpreted or applied, it’s probably better not to speculate. Hopefully THS will provide some guidance on what they’re actually trying to measure, because without a common understanding, members could be answering completely different questions.
Ones I would not recommend, woman who marked me down for allowing the squirrel feeders to reach empty, when I was there to care for her dog. I had filled them with hazelnuts 3 times in the 7 days.
One whose bathroom was so disgustingly filthy I had to deep clean it before I could step into shower. she was very much in denial about her poor standards.
and one whose 3 dogs I absolutely loved, my favourite breed, but she twice marked me down for cleanliness and each time I asked her why, she blanked me. I actually had applied for a 3rd sit there recently, then remembered this , and Withdrew my offer, stating why, that I was not prepared to be marked down again with no explanation.
One with a seriously ill dog, who I did a 2 day taster sit for, with no problems, but owner wanted to break the THS rules by having her surly rude daughter there at the weekends of a planned 3 week sit, and for me to travel 40 miles home on the Fridays, come back on the Mondays!!! No way Jose.
This is such a tricky question, because each sitter and host is unique. I might hate dust and clutter, but another sitter doesn’t care. If I would not recommend the sit because I felt gross staying in the house, then I woud “not recommend” for that reason. But it simply can’t take into account every other sitter’s preferences and needs. In short, I don’t like the star ratings or “yes/no” answers related to sits, because literally every person using the site can respond differently to the exact same situation. The written details about a sit are the only useful part of a review. I understand the desire for easily quantifiable data, but in the end, it’s pretty meaningless.
Would you recommend?
Of 25 sits, five would be “maybe.” Zero would be “no.”
Would you sit again?
Two would be “maybe.” Three would be “no.”
My factors for consideration would be:
— communication
— organization/reliability
— cleanliness (lack of; extreme cases only)
— considerate/hospitality
It’s a tricky question as there is one sit I wouldn’t have recommended at the time but reading subsequent reviews they sorted themselves out to be far better hosts. Another one left the site after I recommended that they join Rover as the dogs were at times dangerously reactive….they needed professional help.
So this question is hard on new HOs IMHO as they need time to learn the ropes as do some sitters.
ooof. There are only 2 sitters I’ve had who I might not recommend, although nothing terrible happened in either. One got dinged harder by subsequent HOs and is no longer on the site, and the other was fine, but not a good match for me. Their other reviews reflect my experience - that they provide excellent pet care and occasionally fall short on being self-reliant, but do very well in homes that are well set up for them. So even though *I* wouldn’t recommend them, I would not feel comfortable stating it because there are homes and locations where this person thrives (the center of a bustling city is not it).
I think a better metric would be “Would I have this sitter back/do this sit again?”.
But the question ‘Would you recommend them?’ will be prompted by THS immediately after submission of review - so within 14 days of end of sit. So presumably before any potentially corrective actions. This thread question therefore makes that assumption.
@Haubigut, completely agree that preferences of both pet parents and housesitters probably vary a great deal. On related note then, through THS Forum, we have come to appreciate the seeming high diversity within the housesitter community - in terms of personal situations, housesitting objectives and listing/sitter preferences.
But THS will soon ask the question ‘Would you recommend them?’. THS is not asking members to second-guess whether another housesitter may enjoy this sit, or whether another pet parent may like this housesitter.
Personally, we hope that the responses to this new THS question may not be meaningless. Rather they may help to identify any bad members - on either side - and perhaps to identify any common causes of poor experience that may be remedied by better policies, procedures, expectations (or firing of THS Marketing team ).
We initially thought this too. Or equivalent question of ‘would you complete a repeat sit for this pet parent?’.
But we guess - just a hunch - that this would be a tough question from housesitter perspective. Such a housesitter question may then include reflection of geography, travel and other non-THS matters.
For example, say a housesitter completes a housesit in country X and determines that they would not complete a repeat sit … as they would prefer to visit incremental countries. In such a - perhaps credibly likely - example then the THS proposed question of ‘Would you recommend them?’ would yield a more insightful response.
As a sitter I would say while I enjoyed all our sits maybe some of them I would not go back, purely because the world is a big place and I spent enough time there. If the hosts moved to a different place, maybe I would because I did grow very good of all the pets and all our hosts were good ones. It really is very hard to quantify.
There would need to be some sort of narrative associated with “no” and “maybe” submitted by sitters. A “no” could simply be because a sit was in a city and the sitter isn’t fond of cities, but everything about the HO, home, pet… were perfect. Same sit, a city person may enthusiastically mark a “yes.”
So, with no context, those two answers do not provide any assistance to a sitter.
However, I think these recommendations are applicable for HOs. The sit is a constant, so a HO is comparing apples to apples. More useful for other HOs.
I agree with many of you - I think this is truly subjective. Recommend them to whom? We all have such different priorities when sitting. Everyone’s preferences are SO different. My answer would be “it depends…” Even my husband and I don’t have the same “favorite” sits. One sit I would NEVER do again was one of his favorites - him bc of the location (Malta) and me bc of the condition of the apartment (no no no).
I also wouldn’t like to be asked “would you sit here again” because we’ve had some great sits but we have “been there, done that” and don’t typically return to the same city once we feel we visited there. There are very few places we’d go back to in our travels (Seville is the only one I can think of) - doesn’t mean we didn’t enjoy our Panama sit, for example, (they asked us back and we declined); we loved it, but we felt like we saw what we wanted to see and we want to see other places now. We have 4 locations out of about 30 that we’ve been repeat sitters for - a couple of them are because they are near where one of our daughters lived at the time.
We have 19 reviews on THS but the reality is that we have done closer to 40 sits. Many repeats “off platform” and 2 couples whom we met through Home Exchange and have stayed with their dogs subsequently several times. Only 1 sit was a complete loser, due to dog behavior. There were a few others that we would not repeat, but they were not terrible— just not worth a repeat. They were fine, and I am sure some other sitters would be happy.
We get lots of requests to repeat in the San Francisco area. Many of them, we are unable to do. I know that many of you are not coming to the US at this time, but please feel free to reach out to me if you want to hook up with some great owners/dogs in the San Francisco area!
Seems like it adds another level of anxiety to the review process, and entirely unnecessary. People can read the reviews and make up their own minds. I dislike that change. A lot. I have dozens of 5-star reviews --nothing less. And almost every one of them says “i recommend her!” or “I only hope she’s available next time!” So I’m not worried about how it affects me, however I don’t want to rate owners that way. I’ve had one or two sits that were stressful, and had issues, but I was still able to make it into a great sit. The difference is that we all have our own “buttons” or things that make a sit good or bad. I might say that I 'dont recommend" someone, but the other sitters didn’t have an issue. Seems like a good way to lose a lot of paying customers. Ill-advised
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