Communication on Rover: A Step by Step Guide
Welcome to Rover! Now that your profile is live, you can start receiving requests from pet owners. Here are 6 things you need to know about your Rover inbox and conversations with pet owners.
Download the Rover App to make managing your pet sitting business easy and convenient.
Booking with a New Client
When a pet parent sends you a request, it’ll show in the Pending section of your Inbox. Depending on your notification preferences, you may receive an SMS or push notification alerting you to your new request.
Here’s an example of what your inbox will look like when you have a pending notification.
Next steps:
- Select the pending request
- Review the details to make sure the request is a good fit for you. You can see more details about the dog by tapping on the Dog Profile.
- Click on the “Propose a Meet and Greet” button.
We highly recommend conducting a Meet & Greet with every owner who reaches out to you. Meet & Greets are a great opportunity to get to know the pet parent and dog before booking a service. Here’s what that looks like:
Finalizing the Booking
When you and your client are ready to book, either of you can select Book.
After the Book button has been selected, the other party has 72 hours to accept the request. After 72 hours, the request expires. It’s easy to renew the request if needed—check out this article to learn how.
Once a request is booked by both parties, it automatically moves to the Upcoming section of your inbox.
If you don’t book the request, decline and archive the stay instead of just ignoring it. Until you archive the request, you may not show in search for dates that you have a pending request. You can learn more about archiving requests here.
Response Time Expectations
Your response rate, response time, and photo rate boost your standing in search and attract clients to your profile.
For the best chance at booking a stay, respond to messages quickly—under an hour if possible. The speed at which you respond to potential clients is known as your response rate. It measures how often you respond to requests within 24 hours.
Response time measures how quickly, on average, you respond to new requests.
- Responding within 15 minutes of receiving requests is a great way to improve this stat. If you haven’t already, enable text message notifications to reply faster than ever.
- This number is based on your 10 most recent requests.
By keeping these numbers high, your business will attract more clients. But how can you tell if a request is authentic?
How to Spot a Fake Request
At Rover, safety for dogs and humans is our top priority. We’re continually improving our website to protect pet owners and sitters, and we’ve outlined some different ways you can be proactive about web security.
Go with your gut! Fake requests will feel different than requests from real pet owners.
While it rarely happens, people will attempt to take advantage of others online to gain information or money with no intention of using Rover’s services. Keep an eye out for the following suspicious activities:
- Phishing
- Overpayment
- Advance fees
Read here to learn more about how to protect yourself and your account.
Other Unusual Requests
Keep an eye out for other unusual requests or behaviors, like:
- Messages that ask you to provide a service unrelated to Rover, like being a personal assistant.
- Messages from an owner asking you to contact their friend outside of Rover because they’d like to use your services, such as the owner’s “boss”.
- Messages or phone calls that use odd or complicated language and/or include a sympathetic story that may seem over the top.
- Personal info that suddenly changes and is different than what they’ve told you before, like a family members’ name or their email address.
- Impatient behavior, like an owner who wants you to respond or do something that seems questionable right away.
When to Contact Rover
If you experience any of the above situations, flag the conversation in your Rover account via the app and contact us as soon as possible. The sooner we know, the sooner we can take action!
Include as much information as possible when contacting Rover Support so we can best investigate the situation. This could include, but is not limited to:
- The name(s) the person contacting you used.
- Any email addresses or phone numbers they used or mentioned.
- What they asked you to do or what they offered you.
- Screenshots of text or email conversations.
Reporting a security issue
If you notice any security or privacy issues on your Rover account, please email us at security@rover.com.
Accepting and Modifying Requests
Occasionally, you or your client may need to change a request before booking it. You can do this from the Pending section of your inbox within the Rover app, or from your computer. From here, you can edit:
- Dates
- Pets
- Price
- Number of walks/drop-ins per day
Modifying Requests in the Rover App
The following instructions are for IOS users.
- Select Inbox at the bottom of your screen.
- Select Pending and choose the request you want to modify.
- Navigate to the service details, then select Modify.
- Edit the dates, pets, price, or add-on services.
- Select Save at the top of the booking details. The price will automatically adjust to reflect any changes.
- When finished, select Book.
How to Modify a Partially Confirmed Request
If only one of you confirmed the booking, you can still edit the details by declining the request (this will not cancel the booking). Here’s how:
- Select Pending from the app and locate the request you need to modify.
- Open the service details and select Cancel.
- At the top of the request, select Modify, and then edit one or more of the request details.
- Select Save when finished.
Now you’re ready to accept bookings and start your pet sitting business! If you have any questions, please explore our Sitter Resource Center and our Help Center.