Hi, normally I get bookings pretty regularly, and holidays are especially busy. However, Thanksgiving is in a few days and I've received no booking requests for the holiday. I'm really surprised - I was expecting it to be busy. Is everyone waiting the last minute to book, or staying home for the holidays? Anyone else experiencing this?
Rover has totally let me down pretty much all year. Thank goodness I have a bunch of neighbors whose dogs I take care of because I haven't received a nibble from the Rover site in months and months. My area is saturated with potential sitters and the search algorithm hardly makes it easy on people to find sitters in their own zipcode. I haven't checked lately to see how many pages I am on a general search, despite keeping my calendar up to date. I am probably in the teens somewhere, unless a person uses the map function or gets real specific on criteria (e.g., house with fenced-in backyard, etc.)
This might be the first Thanksgiving I won't be boarding any dogs, although I do have my neighborhood dogs for Christmas. Rover has been a total waste of time for me this year.
Hey Karen, I'm not being snarky and I understand the competition but you haven't had a new review since 2017, this is definitely hurting you in the search algorithm
I know you're not being snarky, Walt. With the past few bookings, people haven't left reviews and I don't bug them. The lack of recent reviews doesn't affect the search, but you are saying it could be a turn-off to potential customers, right? If so, I guess I had better solicit some testimonials.
I usually start booking thanksgiving in march. My rover income has dropped to half. I'm not sure why. I'm guessing because of my rates. But I was at this rate last year as well.
My rover requests have dropped tremendously! I hardly get any requests anymore. I am lucky I have repeat customers on and off rover, but its been disheartening. I am not sure what the issue is?
That is disappointing to hear that people are seeing a drop. Luckily, I haven't had that issue. I had one Thanksgiving booking request back in Spring, then received a few more in October. Most of mine were repeat clients. I don't know if any of this will help but I tend to keep my rates at the upper end of average for he area; however, for most repeat clients, especially the ones with well-behaved dogs, I lock in a lower rate. I also offer the occasional discount to my repeat clients. I know that I have lulls; when that happens I make sure my calendar is updated. I haven't done it, but I would if I didn't have recent reviews - offer someone that you're pretty confident would give you a good review a discount on their next stay if they provide a review. You could also just ask, but incentive is always nice. LOL Good Luck!!
I have noticed the same thing when I searched for a sitter (to see where I would come up in my neighborhood). There were sitters with less reviews and higher rates ahead of me which doesn't make sense to me. I have recent reviews, decent rates, and a fast response rate. I am not getting as many Rover requests which I think I should be.
I received booking requests 1-2 days before Thanksgiving. I also had someone book for the Xmas/New Years (3 week time frame) the day before Thanksgiving, to reserve their spot
22 sitters were in Calgary when I started (with DogVacay, which merged with Rover). At last count, now 550+ sitters. I don't know if Rover sets a limit based on demand or allows unlimited sitters. We are usually booked because we have 64 reviews, 35 repeat clients and we only take one dog at a time.