Ideal frequency for reminder email to review host/guest in Airbnb marketplace app?

Question

In a marketplace app (e.g. like Airbnb), what would the ideal frequency be for reminder emails to review the other party (e.g. host/guest)?

I read about Email Reminder Best Practices as well as the non-specific suggestions on Email reminder frequency to complete a task.

Example schedule

Based on the answers to the aforementioned questions, I think the idea frequency should be:

• Ask to review 2 hours after end of trip (while it's top of mind)
• Reminder 48 hours after end of trip
• Reminder 1 week after end of trip
• Reminder 13 days after end of trip
• After 14 days, the review period closes.

This is based partly on the suggestions in the aforementioned questions, and partly on what I've seen actual marketplace apps use.

Would this schedule be approximately optimal, if not, what would be?

Answer 1

It seems like there are two potential approaches to this. The first is to actually let the user decide whether or not they want to do this and to provide the review now or schedule a reminder at a later time. Taking this approach is probably a better experience for the user but slightly harder to manage, and you may still have to find the right way to exit the situation (for example if the user postpones for the third time then let them know that you will not remind them again).

The second way would be to consider the way that notifications are generated and sent to the user in your business operations, and the amount of time that you will allocate and wait for information that are of different importance and urgency. Taking this approach will ensure that there is a consistent experience in your communications with the user, but there might not be any existing guidelines or configurations used.

The schedule set out in the question seems to be reasonable as you don't want to ask the user immediately after the trip, and you don't want to wait to long before you remind them again. However, I would ensure that the user is able to opt out of future reminders if for some reason they change their mind about wanting to provide feedback.