I have several friends and acquaintances whose dogs I have sat for in recent years. I just want to make sure there is no conflict of interest with them continuing to book my services outside of Rover (since Rover did not help me find them)?
No, there is no conflict of interest since Rover was not the source of the job lead. Also, there's no reason why you would want to convert them into Rover customers. Aside from you losing money, your clients would have to pay the additional 5%-7% service fee that Rover levies on the customer side.
I sit for a number of my neighbors' dogs. None of them are Rover customers.
I have known people to do this and the sitting dog passed away due to the sitters negligence (hit by car).b the sitter was sued personally by the dog owner for the cost of another dog and had no backing by Rover since they went off platform.
Unless you have independent insurance caring for pets outside Rover leaves your self open to liability claims should something go wrong while the dogs are under you care, custody and control. I've converted my friends and family to Rover clients for peace of mind.
You are an Independent contractor. There is no requirement to convert existing personal clients to Rover. Some Sitters even sit for other platforms such as DogVacay (a bit of a hassle in my opinion).
The problem would be if you were to take clients away from Rover or use Rover's advertising to get clients for yourself.
You may want to consider converting your existing clients to Rover for convenience sake and because this way Stays would be covered by Rover's insurance. Not to mention that having your existing clients book repeatedly and give you 5 star ratings would give you a boost in search results, which in turn would bring in more bookings for you from Rover.