Keep Consistent:
Availability

Maintaining consistency with your availability doesn’t mean that you need to be ready to chat or call 24/7. Setting boundaries and taking breaks are crucial for your health. Rather, consistency in availability means that you promptly respond to messages, regularly engage users, and avoid going MIA.

As you likely already know, models need to respond to messages within 24 hours to prevent a user from requesting a refund for an unanswered message. That’s a base-level expectation, and you’ll need to go further to truly establish consistency.

If you’ve set an open availability (instead of custom) and you don’t set yourself as away, users can message you at any time. Even if you aren’t in the position to get into a long conversation, respond as soon as you can to let your users know you haven’t ghosted them. Say something simple that fits your persona and relationship: “Sorry, babe. Busy but back around 8pm Eastern,” or “My little sub must wait patiently until mommy is ready.”

Missed responding for a longer than reasonable time (but still under 24 hours)? Don’t make a habit of it but also don’t stress. Maybe you just fell asleep! If it fits your persona, apologize but make it cute and don’t dwell. You could say something like, “Looks like someone was up late. Sorry I couldn’t keep you company. What did I miss?”

Leaving them with no response for too long pushes them away. Users will be less inclined to contact you if they don’t think they’re going to hear back. By contrast, responding helps a user feel acknowledged, valued, and respected. Remember that in SW, like much of life, people simply want to be seen and validated.

If you offer phone or video calls, try to have calls on as often and as long as you can reasonably manage. A lot of users are looking for calls. If you’re rarely or never available—or worse, you’ve turned on calls with no intention of answering them—users will drift away.

The more often users see you online and active and the more often you promptly and regularly respond to users, the more likely you are to build a solid user base that will consistently come to you. Staying consistent keeps you at the top of users’ minds.