So I have a little bone to pick about the response rate. Almost daily, I get 50% of either inquiries or booking requests after 11pm. Because of this, I’ve seen myself not be able to feel comfortable going to sleep because I’m so fearful that I’ll fall asleep and 6-8 hours later when I get up I’ll have several messages that I haven’t gotten to. As clearly noted by Peerspace, your response rate can either improve or hurt your ranking in search.
With that, I have a suggestion for the devs. Allow hosts to have an 8-hour period, specified by the host, where they will not be penalized for not responding immediately to inquiries. Allowing hosts to sleep a little easier knowing that they won’t get penalized for not responding because they are asleep. Anyone else have this issue?
Thanks, Lawrence. Looks like the thread is over a year old and no changes were made. At what point do the devs decide to come up with a viable solution for a thread like that with so much engagement, echoing the same concern?
Lance_R, I totally agree, our response time was drastically affected by this and with no fix offered, I added the text alert so I could respond all hours/days/times.
My response time varies from one to twelve hours every few days, and makes no sense at all as useful information— except as a vague indication that I am not asleep at the wheel and yes, I will answer an inquiry fairly rapidly. I have stopped paying any attention to it.
In any case, this subject hardly seems valid anymore; around here anyway, my inquiries are at their lowest since August. Gee, for some strange reason, people seem to be avoiding large gatherings these days…
I 100% agree that response times should not be calculated using inquires outside standard business hours.
Here’s another issue with response time that I feel should be resolved:
It calculates based on only the last few days or responses (aplogies for being vague - Peerspace hasn’t published the criteria they use which is another issue). So, even though we respond within one hour 90%+ of the time, if we fail to respond within one hour ONCE (always off hours or overnight) our response time jumps way up.
For example: we had maintained an under 1 hour response time for weeks until last night. We had a lead come in at 7:16pm and we weren’t able to able to respond until 8:30 this morning (I’m sick and our Ops Director has a rare night off). Now our response time is under 3 hrs so it jumped up 2 full hours for one ‘belated’ reply even though we have hundreds of replies within minutes over the past few years.
@peerspace-team what is the criteria you’re using to calculate response time and why doesn’t it take the average of ALL of our response times over the course of our time on the platform?
Agree wholeheartedly, and I personally feel response time should only be calculated by your response time during your set business hours. @Graham_M also makes a great point about the time frame of which it is calculated. Maybe not an average of your entire time on Peerspace since that would mean anyone who had a shaky beginning on the site would forever be penalized, but perhaps on a rolling 90 day basis like the Power Host analysis. This way there’s always a fresh start and a chance to do better without being permanently dragged down. Certainly though any solution would be an improvement upon the 24hr tethering that currently occurs.
Hi everyone! My name is Zoë and I am a new Customer Experience Lead here at Peerspace. I have just been given the reigns to moderate the host forum. In reading through this thread, you all make some really good points. I am going to do some digging on how response time is measured, and report back. Also, I hear your concerns about being a successful host on Peerspace, while also maintaining a work/life balance. I am going to pass along this feedback to the powers that be, in hopes that we can alleviate this stress. I am a firm believer that the only way Peerspace will continue to grow is by the feedback from our hosts and guests!
Hi all, me again! I found a different thread Below is a response from our founder:
Just to clarify, while we do count responsiveness for inquiries received in the middle of the night, the response time to those inquiries are adjusted to account for the fact that the inquiry was received overnight. For example, if you receive an inquiry at 11pm and respond at 9am (10 hours later) our system will assume a 2 hour response time (1/5th of the actual time). We still encourage hosts to respond as quickly as they are able to. I hope that clarifies the way responsiveness is calculated.
With further clarification:
Another important clarification is the difference between “response time” and “response rate”.
Response time is what we have been discussing on this thread, and is what is displayed to guests on your listing page. The purpose of this metric is to give guests a general sense of when they should expect a reply.
We use response rate as one component for determining power host because we do not want overnight inquiries to be the reason a host loses power host status!
Let me know if there are any other questions! Happy to help!
Another frustrating thing with response time … I had an average response time of less than an hour, but I missed one message, and now my response time is 8 hours. The calculation seems to penalize us for one missed inquiry.
Response time should be a MOVING AVERAGE of the last 10 inquiries. Not just the last two.
God forbid you miss one inquiry…and suddenly after many years of quick responses, it says I have a “12 hour response rate” when it’s really my response is almost immediate. Would be great to fix this one. And simple.