How come all the sitters have five stars?

Hi Kirsten -

I'm very sorry your experience hasn't been ideal so far. Not all sitters with Rover have a 5 star ranking, but Rover's marketing is very heavily geared toward the idea that all Rover sitters are 5 star sitters. They review (and potentially deactivate) sitter accounts which fall below a certain threshold (I believe under 4 stars) which is why you're seeing that skew towards only highly rated sitters. Every review on our profiles are public and in the order they were left, but only clients who book a stay are able to leave reviews, so a sitter's star rating doesn't account for their interactions with potential clients they declined to sit for. As for how honest a profile is (or isn't), we all are responsible for our own content. The sitters I know take their job very seriously, and are honest in their profile. If you've come across an instance where you believe a sitter to be lying about their qualifications/experience, be sure to let Rover know. That's a serious problem, and it damages the everyone's reputation by taking credibility away from the Rover platform.

As for the specifics of your situation, there are a variety of reasons a sitter might decline a stay, and a lot of sitters won't go into details. They may have an overlapping stay request which would prevent them from taking your dog (even if they showed available on the calendar, they may have one pending which will likely book, know that a regular wants that time, have a client outside of Rover who has requested that time, or even just need a couple days off), or some detail in the inquiry wasn't compatible with their schedule or preferences, or they may simply feel the dogs aren't a great fit for them. It's unfortunate, but since we sitters are self employed we don't always have the time and energy to give great customer service even to people we aren't going to book with. We all would love to give every request a chance and give everyone great service, but if we know (or have a good hunch) that a stay won't work out, it's sometimes in our best interest to decline the request quickly and move on, especially during busy periods. If you have a limited amount of time and energy to devote, it makes the most sense to spend that time and energy giving great service to the clients who will be reviewing us. That doesn't ever mean it's alright to be less than professional with a potential client, but you're unlikely to get a lengthy, detailed reply if the sitter isn't interested in turning your inquiry into a booking.

In order to make the best match for you and your dogs, I'd pay special attention to the stats on sitter's profile that indicates their average response... (more)