As we approach the end of the year (a very challenging one, at that), our team continues working hard to make improvements on the platform, taking into account the context and your needs to help you facilitate exchanges more easily.
What’s been released?
1. Email alert when a new availability has been added to one of your favourite homes
Favoriting a home that you like can help you easily get back to these homes at a later date and it allows the owner of the home to know that you’re interested in a potential exchange. And now, you will also receive an email alert when one or more of your favourite homes have added a new availability to their calendar. This way, when they update their calendar with an availability, you can be the first to contact them with an exchange request to finalise your dream exchange!
Learn more about favorite homes here.
“That’s so cool! Well, I absolutely have to clean up my favorite homes because I'm going to be drowning in messages 😂"
- Sophie
2. A prompt to create an alert for a preferred destination in the search results
We learnt through our analysis that the email alerts for preferred destinations are really interesting for many members.
So when you make a search for a particular destination, we included a prompt in the results for you to create an alert for your search. This way, you will create an alert that notifies you by email every time a home that matches your search requirements is added to HomeExchange and again, this way, you can be the first few to contact them to arrange an exchange!
Learn more about preferred destinations here.
3. Better user experience with the app
We’ve been working (and will continue to work) on some deep links so that when you click on a link in an email and you have the app installed, it opens up to the directed place on the app instead of the website so that you can have a more friendly user experience.
What’s to come?
1. Restrictions for members who don’t have their homes completed to 80%
If you remember from our October updates blog article, we wanted to run a test on part of our community to prevent members who do not have a home completed to >80% from accessing and viewing the photos of other members’ homes.
“The results we have are really positive with many members who were restricted completing their homes to at least 80%. It’s a great way to encourage members with incomplete listings to complete them and to understand that they need to have a home online if they wish to engage with the community. So we’re in the process of making this a permanent “rule” and not just a test anymore.”
- Kate, Product team
2. Suggestions of similar homes
This was also something we talked about in our October updates blog article.
We want to make it easier for you to find the exchange of your dreams and go on vacation when it’s possible for us to travel safely again, so we’re working on a feature that will suggest similar homes to the listing you’re viewing.
This is something that we’re working towards and that you can expect to see pretty soon!
3. You’ll be able to choose how you want to sort the results when you make a search
We recognise that you may have different needs when making a search so we want to give you more flexibility in choosing the order of the results you get when you make a search. We’re working towards giving you the ability to order it by:
- Newest homes first (date of creation)
- Homes with the calendars updated most recently first
- Homes with the most responsive members first
4. Last-minute filter
“We’re seeing that last minute vacations seem to be a trend in this context as many opt to do shorter and more frequent vacations so we wanted to launch a filter that would allow you to find exchanges that have availabilities at the last minute.”
- Nathalie, Product team
This filter will be available when you make a search without any date input and will give you, in the results, homes with availability in the next 14 days.
And that’s all from us this month! Of course, we’ll keep you updated on them when they’ve been released and we look forward to sharing more improvements and features with you soon.
We’re always open and happy to hear your suggestions about how we can improve the platform, so don’t hesitate to send them to our member support team at contact@homeexchange.com.
Join our Facebook groups so you can find out first when we make updates to our site and to share your opinions and experiences with the rest of the community!
