I've have one dog owner contact me on two separate occasions about sitting their dog. The first time the owner contacted me at 10:30PM, the second time the owner contacted me at 9PM about sitting their dog that SAME night. I feel that is a bit late notice - I have not had a meet and greet with the owner & pup yet either. Any suggestions/help on how to respond?
I have my business hours posted in my profile as 9AM-7PM (8PM in summer). I say that requests received outside those hours will be answered at 9AM. I also have quiet hours set via the Rover website as 11PM-8AM.
Along with the other great suggestions I also recommend having "Open" and "Closed" hours posted on your profile. If you use your cell phone you can, on a computer/lap top, go in and set hours so they know you aren't available over night and aren't disturbed at night. Just remember to reset it in the mornings. Send the owner a message, as suggested above, that you require a meet & greet before taking any new dogs to make sure they are a good fit, that you require a _ days notice "after" the meet & greet before accepting a stay And, requests must be sent between the hours of a.m. and __p.m. I only use my laptop and shut down at 7pm to give my stays individual attention and myself evening down time.
Setting to hours section on the computer only works for cell phones with the rover app. I can't set my hours on the computer because it requires a cell and rover app.
You can set quiet hours on your profile, basically Rover holds the messages until the morning when you have a chance to respond. None of that will help you with clients that contact you after hours, but at least it doesn't affect your response time.
This has happened to me a few times. If I am available I ask if they can do a meet and greet in the morning before. If there isn't time I say sorry and that I am not available. It sucks and I hate to affect my booking scores in that way but it is what it is.
I tell potential clients I need at least 72 hours notice before the potential stay in order to do a meet and greet and then I make sure to tell them in the meet and greet that for future bookings (drop-ins/walks) that I need at least 24 hour notice. There is still no guarantee that they will get the time they requested, but I'll work to get them squeezed in to the best of my ability.