Do you get taken advantage of after you book stays?
I'm wondering if anyone else gets put in these positions by pet owners.. I have all of my services and charges laid out in my profile.. but I find that all too often during the middle of the stay, while the owner is gone they'll add things or request things of me that I normally charge for. In one situation, I was asked to watch a dog. At the very end, the owner asked if I would refill the cats water ONE TIME while she was gone, as she would leave enough food out to last the cat the whole week. I said yes. The next day I arrived at the house to take care of the dog and the owner had left me instructions to prepare food and feed the cat twice a day.. I didn't know what to do because I didn't want the cat to starve. But that was a whole other animal I had to care for for the entire week. The owner was nice at the meet and greet, and I felt confident but as soon as the stay started, she was very demanding and rude about how she wanted me to care for the dog. Then she left me to take care of her cat for free and proceeded to complain about how much she was paying me in the first place. I went out of my way to accommodate her, drove an hour commute each day to fulfill her demands and she left me a 3 star review...
Another time, I agreed to pick up the dogs I was watching, which was a mistake on my part, because I charge for this. But then when the owners came back I told them they needed to come to my house to get their dogs and they went around and around and changed their plans and wasted several hours of me waiting for them to pick up their dogs before they finally said they were not coming, and I had to meet them somewhere.
How do you deal with situations like this and not get bad reviews? I've started asking very specific questions BEFORE the booking as to what services they will require. I have always been kind and accommodating in order to have good customer service and make the owners feel comfortable with me, but I'm tired of getting taken advantage of.
What are your experiences with this sort of stuff?
I just had the same situation happened with me about a cat
I didn't know my client even owned a cat until after the stay was booked
Set your demands. Tell them ASAP as soon as they request that you will charge for this service We all have to remember we are the BOSS. We deserve to be paid for all the work we do, because we all know this job isn't a walk in the park.......well kinda..
The same thing happened to me too! With a few clients. Why does everyone think they can just sneak their cat in there for free? Is the option to add a cat not shown to the client when they are submitting a request? It really should be made clear that they cannot do that. It's not fair.
I believe there is an option to modify the services from your end on Rover so you can add additional services
If the animal's health is harmed due to lack of food when the owner is not responsive to multiple requests from the sitter for help in this regard. Who is liable for damages, I wonder?