Trust is one of the key aspects to home-exchange. How do we promote it and how can you contribute to it?
At HomeExchange, we believe that trust is key for a successful home-exchange. There is no greater sign of trust than to open the doors of your home and offer your hospitality to another Member.
Every day, you feed this trust by communicating between yourselves. By completing your profiles with nice pictures, presententing yourself, talking to your exchange partners, and preparing your trips, you create trustful relationships.
For us, it is also very important to nourish and boost this trust in the whole community and for this, we are working along the following lines:
Fostering trust through the platform with your profiles and the messaging system.
We have simplified the profile verification process. Now, you can simply upload the necessary documents on our platform, and within 24 hours the team will verify your profile. This tool has proven to be very useful as 76% of our active Members have chosen to verify their profiles.
As you have shared your doubts about the calculation of this rate, we have added this information in your profile so that you can understand how it is done.
We have a new feature that should allow you to gain a few seconds: you can now answer through your email, without going through the platform! This makes communication between Members easier and faster, allowing you to build a stronger relationship as you communicate more often.
Our closed Facebook groups reserved to Members allow you to share advice, exchange offers, experiences and to reinforce your relationship with other Members, and us!
Consolidating the spirit of HomeExchange - sharing and spreading its values.
Because all Members should be involved in the fostering of trust and values that characterize HomeExchange.
We were very happy to define and share with the whole community the 6 Fundamentals of HomeExchange, which highlights what makes us different - our hospitality.
It is important for us that everyone understands that exchanging a home is NOT like renting it out, and that our community has so much more to offer compared to other rental platforms.
Have you received rental offers in a message or have you seen them indicated in any profile? Please do not hesitate to let us know. When you come across them and tell us about it, our Happiness team contacts the Member to remind them about our rules. If the Member does not respond, we deactivate the account.
Have you received a message from a Member saying they wanted to "reserve" your house or "pay" with GuestPoints? Feel free to talk to the Member about it, of course in a kind manner, to explain why this terminology does not characterize us. Our hospitality is a gift, and when we are invited we offer our GuestPoints in gratitude for that hospitality.
Are you receiving exchange offers for 1-2 nights? Home-exchanging is a very rewarding and unique way to travel, but we know it is also very demanding to prepare your home! That is why we don’t encourage short and quick stays. Home-exchanging is an experience that begins from the moment the first message is sent, and that you need to nurture continuously. Do not feel obligated to accept any proposal that does not feel right. Of course, remember that we all started as “new” Members and receiving advice from experienced HomeExchangers is also a great way to make our community better and stronger.
We have been working on creating content that helps us share what makes us unique - our hospitality. Exchanging a home is NOT traveling for free, but sharing your hospitality and generosity with the community. It is by being both a guest and host that you best represent HomeExchange.
Let's continue to foster trust together on our website!
