June Update from Product Manager, Ben Cottrell

Hi everyone,

We’ve welcomed a lot of new faces to our community recently, so for those who don’t know me, I’m Ben - Product Manager here at TrustedHousesitters.

As it’s been a few months since our last product update, I wanted to let you know all about the great work our product team has been working on behind-the-scenes. Here’s what’s new:

1. CCTV policy now more visible

To help increase trust and safety across our platform, we now make all owner members aware of our CCTV policy at the point they create their listing.

This policy states that they must disclose if their home has any external cameras or recording devices, and that we don’t allow any internal devices (and if these are present, they must be deactivated during the sit).

2. Enhanced account security

We’ve had a few cases reported where a member was worried somebody else was using their TrustedHousesitters account.

We have now added the functionality so that if a member resets their password, all other active sessions on the web or app will be logged out.

Remember, if you have any concerns or believe your account has been compromised, then please get in touch with our Membership Services team to report this.

3. Updates to our codebase

We have been running on an old database version and now need to upgrade key parts of the site.

This is still ongoing and is quite a big piece of work. At some point over July/August, it is likely we will have to schedule some maintenance updates and the site may be down for a short while. Of course, we will communicate this to our members nearer the time.

4. Improvements to our iOS & Android app

Optimising our app has been another big priority for us, as members who use the app tend to see an increase in success. Most recently, we have made the following changes:

We have added a ‘download app’ prompt to the order confirmation page, and have added a prompt in the member inbox. This is to build awareness and drive more people to use the app.
We’ve made some updates to our app notifications, so they are now quicker and easier to load. This will also reduce some of the poor performance we’ve been seeing.
We’ve re-ordered the ‘Find a sit’ tab to appear on the app homepage. This makes it as easy as possible for sitters to find and search for a house sit, and has led to more searches, more listings being viewed and more applications.
We also fixed a number of bugs where the iOS app was crashing for users on iOS12, the navigation bar was not showing on Pixel 4 phones, and the Welcome Guide was appearing blank.

5. Pausing Applications

We have been looking at limiting the number of applications an owner receives. We are doing this to:

Redistribute applications and to help drive even more owner and sitter success across the platform
Drive a higher owner response rate
To remove house sits which are not going ahead, but have not been updated by the owners
To stop owners from being overwhelmed with applicants

How it works:

When an owner receives 5 open applications (i.e owner has not declined a sitter, sitter has not cancelled the application), we will pause the listing meaning no more sitters can apply at this time.

The owner would receive an email and push notification to make them aware they need to review the sitters that have applied (they can then organise a call/meeting, reject or unpause their listing). This will act as an opportunity for the owners to check in, and make it easier for the owners to manage and respond to sitters.

If the owner wants more applicants, they can simply unpause their listing and receive another 5 applicants.

Test

We have been testing this over the last month and have received positive feedback from members to say that this has helped prompt owners to confirm a sitter, and amend or remove the dates. We are now implementing these changes and this should go live in July.

Have a question about this update? Take a look at our Pausing owner applications FAQs.

Finally, we have been running lots of interviews and conducting research with our wonderful members, all about invites and the TrustedHousesitters calendar. We should have some more updates on this over the coming months - so stay tuned!