A More Reliable Response Rate Coming Soon – Share Your Thoughts on the Future “Reactivity Level”!

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Hello there!

As you know, your feedback and insights, shared both here and elsewhere, are incredibly valuable to us. They guide us in improving the platform to better suit your needs. Based on what we’ve heard from you, our Product team is hard at work on enhancing the relevance and reliability of the response rate.

The Current Response Rate Issue

Many of you have pointed out that the current response rate isn’t always meaningful. For example, some members respond to all their messages weeks or even months later, solely to boost their response rate to 100%. The result? A perfect response rate that doesn’t reflect reality.

This approach is unfair to members who respond promptly, and it undermines the relevance and reliability of the response rate displayed on listings.

The Solution in Development: Reactivity Level

To address this, @Clara and the Product team are exploring a new approach, and we’d love your input. The idea is to replace the “Response Rate” (e.g., 100%) with a “Reactivity Level” (Low, Average, Great, Excellent), as shown in the images below.

Here’s what you’ll see on profiles going forward:

  • A Reactivity Level (new) replacing the current response rate
  • The Response Time (existing) (e.g., “Responds in under 2 days”)

Home listing
Home listing1175×669 61.3 KB

Why is This an Improvement?

This is where it gets interesting! The rule will be simple: any response made after an automatic decline (triggered after 4 days) won’t count towards the Reactivity Level calculation.

The Reactivity Level will be calculated based on the last 90 days of activity, meaning it will evolve over time to reflect recent behavior.

A Quick Note About Automatic Declines

You may recall hearing about this feature in a survey we shared on our Facebook groups back in October. In short, if an exchange request with GuestPoints remains unanswered for 4 days, it will be automatically declined. Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to pick up the conversation after the deadline.

This change addresses member complaints about delayed responses and makes searching for exchanges easier. Of course, we’ll share all the details about this functionality soon.

How Will the Reactivity Level Be Calculated?

The new Reactivity Level will be based on a formula that compares the number of messages responded to versus the total received. This will only consider activity from the last 90 days, ensuring the metric stays fresh and relevant.

We’d Love Your Feedback!

The team working on this feature would love to hear your thoughts—positive or critical. Your input is invaluable in shaping this improvement.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and thank you in advance for your contributions! :orange_heart:

The HomeExchange Team

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I think this would be an improvement! However, low, average, great and excellent are subjective terms. Will there be posted on the site what the descriptions mean?

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I think this will really be a negative. First off, unless you are a professional home exchanger which I guess some of you are how relevant is the past 90 days? I got maybe 2 requests in the past 90 days. Second , I think this is going to increase automatic no’s. In the summer I get many more requests If I am busy I am not even going to be evaluating the request because most of the requests are guest points and in the summer a quick no keeps your “reactivity " up. You can alway post your own request when you are sure on dates and get someone. Third, I am not responding on my two week vacation. Fourth " reactivity” is a lousy name for it. It doesn’t have the same connotation in english as response rate. Lastly I think percent response is more relevant you could just have a total response and a response rates in less than 7 days and be done with it.

And a question is a system no and a reply no going to be the same?

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I would welcome more accuracy:

  • responses within 24 hours
  • Responses within 3 days
  • Responses within 7 days
  • takes more time to respond
    All based on one year average (floating)
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First of all, it should be impossible to answer requests after the date requested!
4 days is really a too short time, unless the exchange request is done in last minute.
It happens to me often to wait a few days as I’m not sure yet to be able to make it or not and it happens that I’m not connecting for a couple of days, especially holidays.
As I was receiving too many requests, I completely limited my calendar open dates, only to the dates I’m sure I want to move.
The past 90 days is not relevant as requests often vary regarding seasons, the last whole year would be more relevant.

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Hi Trenke!
Yes, I think there will be some form of explanation somewhere so that it’s clear how these tags are accorded :blush:

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Hi Colleen!

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback - it’s incredibly valuable as we refine this feature. Let me address some of the points you’ve raised:

  1. Relevance of the Past 90 Days
    You’re absolutely right that the level of activity varies for members. For those who receive fewer requests, the reactivity level might seem less reflective of overall engagement. The 90-day window is intended to ensure the metric reflects recent behavior, but we could consider alternative timeframes or approaches that could make this more balanced.

  2. Increased Automatic No’s
    While the reactivity level could incentivize quicker decisions, we want to ensure it doesn’t lead to members feeling pressured into declining requests without proper consideration. Our thought was that members who need more time to consider the request could just reply saying that they need more time so that their potential exchange partners are kept updated about the situation. We’re looking into ways to communicate that thoughtful responses (even declines) are equally important.

  3. Vacation and Response Times
    This is a very valid concern. Taking a break shouldn’t penalize your reactivity level. As mentioned above, we were thinking that members who have less time to consider vacations and hosting could pop a quick reply to say that they’ll get back to them later so that their “responsiveness” isn’t negatively impacted. But I understand that that might not be enough and will share your feedback with the team!

  4. The Name “Reactivity”
    I appreciate your point about the connotation. While the name is still a working title, we chose it to emphasize responsiveness in a way that includes both speed and reliability. That said, your feedback suggests we should revisit this terminology to find something that resonates better with everyone.

Thank you again for your insights. This feature’s still a work in progress and it helps us a lot to have your feedback (along with other members’ so we can come up with something that works for members :blush:)

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Hi Marion!

Thank you for sharing your feedback! I wanted to address some of your key concerns

  1. Answering Requests After the Date Requested
    You bring up an excellent point. The ability to respond after a requested date has passed can create confusion and unnecessary effort for both parties. I’m not sure if we will block the conversation after the exchange date has passed (maybe @Clara can confirm?) but I think we’re hesitating with this as it could happen that even if the exchange date has passed they might decide to plan the exchange for the future instead and they’d be able to easily modify the dates of the request in the conversation.

  2. The 4-Day Timeframe
    We understand that 4 days might feel tight, especially for non-urgent or future-dated requests. The goal of this timeframe is to encourage timely communication, but we also want it to feel realistic and flexible. Our idea with this is that members who might need more time to properly consider the request would reply saying that they need more time and this way, their potential exchange partners are not kept in the dark with a reply for a long time.

  3. Seasonal Variations in Requests
    You’re absolutely right that activity can fluctuate depending on the season. The 90-day window was chosen to keep the metric fresh and relevant, but we can explore whether extending the evaluation period.

Thank you again for raising these points! Your feedback, along with other feedback with received from members will help us improve this feature for you guys :blush:

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I am completely opposed to this awful notion of automatic “no” replies, not only within 4 days, not only within a longer time frame, but any time. The notion that people are obliged to respond is ridiculous. Sure, I always look at the response rate, and use the filter for more than 80% response rate. And I try to respond as soon as I can, even with a polite no, and even to people who are blatantly asking for something we specifically exclude in our listing. But when I’m on holiday, when I’m ill, when I’ve had a bereavement, when I’m just really busy with other things, I can’t always do that. I won’t be checking the website, and I won’t be checking my email either. I think it’s pure entitlement that makes some people think that members should.

Frankly, I think any comments that have led HE to propose this must be from people who have the mentality that they are booking a hotel or AirBnB. They need to grow up and realise that this is (or used to be) a mutual process of seeking partners, not booking with hoteliers or landlords. I don’t have a receptionist! And I’ve been pressurised by people who have already booked flights, planned other parts of their trip around the assumption that they can stay at our place, and I’ve sincerely regretted it. I don’t want “quicker decisions”. I need to think about my own plans. I want to know that my potential exchange partners understand the unique nature of our house and location, I want to know a bit about them before saying yes or no. I don’t want to be rushed into a decision.

As other people have pointed out, the terms you propose (and their alternatives) are purely subjective. The current system is perfectly adequate.

90 days’ window is not workable for a lot of people, and therefore not fair.

And as for what you call it, your reply to Colleen again emphasises SPEED - not appropriate - and “reliability” - whereas for me, reliability is knowing that someone wants to make a good connection with me, understands the nature of my offer, and is prepared to spend some time discussing the exchange with me.

I wholly disagree also with the person who wants points to be allocated according to rental value - yet again, this is a proposal to commercialise the whole process. Where my house is, there is no such thing as rental value - no one rents a house in that region, and mine would be valued at about 0. But it’s a stunning house with very special opportunities to enjoy nature and immerse oneself in a different culture.

The whole thing smacks of turning HE even more into a rental-type platform, and I’m opposed.

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When the idea for exchanging homes was fostered by mostly teachers seeking an affordable way to travel it was only individual homes not second homes that were exchanged. This includes the expectation of getting to know each other and building trust.
Once the second home business plan became popular the system of guest points was invented and adopting the ABnB model of hosting folks or having them stay in the 2nd home for GP’s.
We exchanged with folks who only used their 2nd home and GP’s to make successive exchanges over 3 months.
There are other HE platforms with much fewer subscribers that only deal in exchanging homes.
We are retired and only seek reciprocal exchanges for 3 weeks minimum and yet the HE algorithm cannot learn to make this distinction even though it is stated in our home profile. So we must decline several requests a day in order to maintain a good response rating.

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I see nothing wrong with the way the system currently works (response-rate and response-time). I think that the efforts of the development team should be directed to more important corrections and improved features such as:

  1. Correcting the flawed geographic database and system which cannot handle the “region level” (e.g. state, province) for reverse-search.
  2. Correcting the inability of the messaging system to construct a proper message for hosts seeking prospective GuestPoint guests.
  3. Improving/revising the categories used for Host and Guest reviews.
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Oh dear. I know you’ve worked hard on this, so with all do respect I think this is not a positive way first. I’m probably saying similar things to others, but just so you know they aren’t alone:

  1. “Reactivity” is a really bad word to use in this case – it is a scientific term which doesn’t apply to this kind of “activity”/
  2. 4 days?! People are on business trips, sick, on vacation for longer than that and shouldn’t be penalized for taking more than a few days to respond. I would say 10 days would be reasonable.
  3. How would you even communicate this? Most people aren’t reading emails from HE (that’s true across everything, not just HE) and you’re going to have a lot of grumbling members if they see they had things in their inbox that were declines without them responding.
  4. “Low”…" “Excellent” are meaningless if you don’t share the metrics. So why not just share the actual response rate and the average response time - LIKE YOU DO NOW :wink: I think the only change could be the automatic decline after a period of time (not 4 days!) and the members get an alert 1 day before that deadline to remind them to respond (emails should perhaps be opt out versus opt in for when members get a request).
  5. This is going to add stress to my life which I don’t need – making sure I respond to a home swap platform within 4 days or they are declined (it’s meaningless that we can open the conversation afterwards – the harm has already been done – who would want to swap with someone who is so disinterested in HE (or That’s how it would be perceived). I realize there are people very invested in HE (I’m actually one of them), but we’re all leading lives and this is not always the center of our attention for various reasons.

Overall this seems to WAY overcomplicate something when simple=best in most cases. Please reconsider how you want to respond to the issue of people responding way after the request was sent. I’m voting for keeping as is and adding an automatic decline (that clearly states it is an automatic decline from the system and not the host) at some point over 10 days.
Thanks for reading!

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I love that you are polling the community for feedback. It truly shows that you care about your community.

Most important input I can give is that allowing 4 days for a response is NOT enough. Use the last 45 days as an example : in my house, we have had 3 major holidays, family visiting, multiple events, shopping for gifts, and a weeklong cruise with limited internet. That doesn’t even touch on my crazy work schedule. No way I should feel the pressure to respond in 4 days - this is vacation planning, not emergency heart surgery.

By forcing the 4 day response, I am either going to have a poor rating or I am simply going to decline, decline, decline to keep my rating. Sometimes, it may take me a week to juggle my schedule to make an exchange work. This will ruin those opportunities. The rating should allow a response in 7-10 days.

Agree with many others who said that reactivity is an odd word.

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If you are not sure, you Can just say in the 4 days “I’m not sure, let me think about it and I’ll get back to you” . The goal is to avoid waiting 10 days to have an answer as you could do for now.

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If I am not sure, yes. But not when times are busy. 4 days isn’t even a work week, so if someone has an intense job, they aren’t going to answer or be on HE daily.

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One thing I believe could help is to minimize the poor exchange requests (too few days, already booked etc, no kids but they have kids) at the same time you are working on increasing response time. Way too many people are sending poor requests. Could you do a training video - “these are the steps to book an exchange”? Include things like read profile to ensure a fit, check minimum number of nights, look at their calendar, etc. Poor requests are super frustrating and waste time, but also make people disenchanted with the platform.

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It does give a response time on our page right next to the rate

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Fully agree with you that the idea of the 4 days is ridiculous.

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Like others, I do not like this change. If for any reason, I can not asnwer a request within 4 or more days, I would not want HE to “touch” my account (I know it’s automatic, but still). I want to manage my requests as I like/can/want.
I think the percentage way as well as the answers within X days are also perfectly clear.
The issue is not that, and you know. Most complaints come because of the way the calculations are done, for example, people answering even years after the request is received, etc.

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If you get a request, it should be responded to within 4 days or earlier. I think it is disrespectful to ignore them until you feel like responding. It has nothing to do with an “Airbnb mentality”….just politeness. I think you have to decide if this type of exchange is suited to you if you’re too busy to make the whole home exchange experience work for others. Imagine if you only responded on Airbnb when it was convenient to do so.
I applaud Home Exchange for the long overdue update that will hold exchangers to account.