Hi, everyone.
I had my first official house sit a week ago and the owner has not left a review yet.
At first, she said that there was a glitch in the server and she had tried but couldn’t, which was true.
But then the problem was fixed and I left a review for her profile.
Then the server ask me to request a review from her which I did.
After a few days, I asked her again, directly on WhatsApp.
It’s been a week now and I am mortified.
New house sitters NEED the reviews.
I don’t know what to do.
I think I’ll just send her a last WhatsApp message saying something to the effect of “I have noticed you haven’t posted a review yet. I am very serious about house sitting full time in the future, so this is important to me. If there are things that you didn’t like please let me know on WhatsApp. I want to improve what I can and your opinion is very valuable. But if you just forgot, please take a few minutes and do it, because competition is fierce and new sitters need every review they can get.”
It’s about all you can do.
We are all guilty of being forgetful sometimes and hopefully that’s all it is. Fingers crossed with a weekend ahead of them they’ll get round to it.
Our last but one sit we waited 8 months for a review, I’d obviously completely given up, and then it just appeared. We are lucky though we gave 30+, I know it’s far more important at the beginning of your journey.
Thank you for asking this. We are sorry to hear that the owner has not left you a review yet for your recent housesit.
I can see that you have been doing everything correctly, by reminding them to leave a review and by clicking to request a review. We would always encourage this should a member get in contact about no feedback or review left.
You can also reach out to us at support@trustedhousesitters.com if you would like us to send a reminder email to the owner and remind them of the importance of reviews and feedback.
@Catherine, I always check the reviews an owner has left for other sitters before I accept a sit. Within the past several days I came across a sit that sounded interesting, and the homeowner had six excellent reviews from sitters. When I checked those sitters’ profiles, the owner had not left one single review for any of them. I decided not to apply for the sit, as the sit wasn’t interesting enough to do it with no possibility of a review. And it made me wonder if a homeowner who is problematic about leaving reviews might be problematic in other ways.
There used to be an automatic reminder message at the end of every sit reminding me to leave feedback for the owner, and I believe the owner had a similar message reminding them to leave a review for the sitter.
But for the last few months, I have not seen this message, and as a result, I am not getting any new reviews and I have to beg the owners several times to leave me a review.
It would be very helpful to reinstate the automatic reminder to leave Reviews & Feedback at the end of every sit.
Thank you very much for all your help.
Hi @Maryse , apparently this problem had been identified, sort of, I haven’t had an email after my last three sits despite being assured by @Vanessa_A that it’s been fixed. I’ve tagged her so she can get you added to the list.
From my point of view though, me not getting an email isn’t a problem, I know, and I will do it, I just hate having to chase my homeowner’s.
Good morning @JackieX and @Maryse - It was thought that this had been fixed last month after a change was made to the email sequencing. It hadn’t ever been removed, but some of us sitters (including me) were no longer receiving that reminder. It was also confirmed that owners were not affected unless they’d unsubscribed from emails.
Unfortunately, last week it came to light (from another thread on this topic and your most recent feedback Jackie) that it was still not resolved for some, and so we passed on your newest feedback to the product team. They’ve been looking into this, and as I’m not working today I’m tagging @Ben-ProductManager in the hope he can give you an update.
I really do understand your frustration as I don’t think any of us are comfortable with chasing homeowners for reviews, and I will check in on this again when back tomorrow.
Hi Jackie… We heard at the end of this week that the problem has been identified but that it’s not an easy fix unfortunately - the team are working to resolve it. @Ben-ProductManager will update the post I’m sure as soon as they’ve found a fix. It seems it’s only affecting some sitters with multiple sits booked and owners are still getting their reminders, which means they will have been prompted to do a review for you unless they’ve unsubscribed from email notifications. I’m sorry this is still ongoing for some of us. It’s been difficult to reproduce as it hasn’t affected everyone.
Hi @Vanessa_A and @Ben-ProductManager just to say I’m still not getting emails.
We are currently on our last booked sit so will be interesting to see if I get one at the end of this sit.
Thanks for the update @JackieX … as you’ve tagged Ben, I’ll let him update you directly when he’s back at work tomorrow. Where are you off to for your next sit?
We are currently in St. Albans with two fab cats, who miaow with Australian accents, though one is a Siberian and one a Russian Blue. They immigrated a few years ago!
St Albans is a lovely city with more pubs, restaurants and market food stalls than can possibly be good for us
We’ve sat for three homeowners who never gave us reviews despite me asking a few times and to this day we’ll never know why as we have almost 30 glowing reviews. It’s so disheartening especially as a new sitter when it’s important to start gaining reviews.
Maybe THS could program the system so that they do a followup with any member (HO or sitter) who does not provide a review in a reasonable amount of time? And I mean reasonable and beyond, otherwise it could create too much work for staff. However, that way THS may get feedback on issues that members didn’t like to show in a review, or perhaps help members who genuinely didn’t know how to navigate the system. @Val@Ben-ProductManager@Angela_L
When we first joined THS, the second homeowner we sat for didn’t provide a review and I had mentioned this to THS on a live chat. THS asked me if I would like them to follow up with the homeowners. I declined the offer as they were an elderly couple and I really didn’t want them to be bothered further but perhaps THS still does this - not sure.
I will only ask once, if at all. I have enough good reviews though; I don’t mind if 20-25% never post feedback.
I did a long-term sit (4 months) and we’ve become friendly (I walked the dog the other day). She still has never left a review. Some people are just forgetful–some you’d be better off not getting their review.
Hi Katie welcome to our community forum and thank you for joining in the conversation … we would love to know a little more about where you are from and share in some of the other sits that you have done … after 4 months you will have become so attached to the pet or pets it happens to most of us after a few days, on long term sits it becomes so hard to say goodbye, did you find that?
Welcome again and enjoy connecting with members from around the world …