Is it common for owners to... | Rover Q&A Community

Is it common for owners to contact a sitter, have full conversation, and then never respond?

I have had this several times, someone would contact me regarding a stay and have a full conversation involving the stay. Including dates, drop off-p/u times, meet and greets, etc and mid way just drop the conversation. Assuming, they've just found a new sitter but by no means end the conversation with me. Mostly, I just find it rude, but also it holds those dates so you don't show for other potential owners until it's archived. What is the protocol for archiving a message, 1 day/couple hours?

I'm still very much new to rover and just recently getting a decent amount a request, so I don't want to wait on one persons requests when I could be helping other owners who will follow through.

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How hard is to get contact by a customer the first times, any tips, how long it took you to get contact

Juan B.

Oni J.

This has happened to me also and I usually interpret it to mean they found another sitter. This is very common. I always respond promptly to all requests (even those sent at 3:00 am waking me up...), yet the favor is not always returned by owners.
As you mentioned, you want to remain in the search results so you don't want to let it sit for too long, so usually I archive requests within 72 hours, sometimes 48. Of course, a lot of times, people come out of the woodwork days later asking to go ahead with the stay. This is fine, except for when I've gone on to give that spot to someone else which creates a bigger problem of either declining a stay (too many of those can hurt your ranking, too) or accepting it and being overbooked.

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Thanks so much for the feedback! It has happened with about 80% of my request so far. I believe it's mostly because I have a cat. Even though he is in my profile photo, they don't see that I have cats & don't know how their dog would respond to one. I just assume they find a household without cats.

Katie C.

Owners LOVE to disregard information that you provide on your profile. Have you used indicated that you have a cat using the pet icons? They may pay attention to that since it's quick and visual and something they don't have to actually read. It will also be one of the first things they see even before they scroll down to the text on your profile.

Oni J.

I haven't, I did not know that was something I could do. I'll have to find it. I made my profile picture of myself and my cat, for that purpose, so they wouldn't have to read through my profile just to see I have a cat. Like you said, as a visual indication, but I guess even that hasn't worked.

Katie C.

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Is it common for owners to contact a sitter, have full conversation, and then never respond?

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