Sitter Upgrades
From the prospective of a sitter on Rover there are a few things that could be tweaked on the app to make it a lot more functional. Clients should be able to send messages that aren’t attached to a visit. We have repeat clients that will have questions about availability on certain dates for the future that maybe they aren’t ready to book yet. To be able to ask us this or any question when they aren’t ready to book they have to find an old booking and ask a question on that previous thread. As a sitter you then have to find that message in your past or archived visits.
Also, there should be an inbox for any new messages. This should be whether it is on a past, archived, upcoming, or pending booking the new message(s) should all come to one place rather than having to find the booking request in the correct category.
As a sitter you should be able to click on your calendar on any given day and see all the bookings you have for that day. Not just your availability. As is, you only see all bookings for the current date. You can’t look at the calendar and click on a previous or future date and see what bookings you had/have.
Also, there should be an inbox for any new messages. This should be whether it is on a past, archived, upcoming, or pending booking the new message(s) should all come to one place rather than having to find the booking request in the correct category.
As a sitter you should be able to click on your calendar on any given day and see all the bookings you have for that day. Not just your availability. As is, you only see all bookings for the current date. You can’t look at the calendar and click on a previous or future date and see what bookings you had/have.
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Waste of Time & Money
If you’re looking to throw away thousands of dollars while you take a small trip here and there, this may work for you. I’m sitting here baffled by the prices. Even at $50 a night (which I thought was reasonable) you get gouged for additional dogs. That $50 becomes $50 per night plus $20-50 per night for additional dogs plus there are fees for hair, age, weight, playing, walking, etc.. Even for people who don’t even allow dogs in their home but only to stay on their farm. Why would I pay someone over a grand for a weekend trip? That’s absolutely absurd and not even competitive! There are local kennels that won’t charge that much with actual professionals and medical teams on staff. I downloaded this app hoping I could find someone who would make my babies feel at home while I was away and instead I find a bunch of people who don’t have jobs who want to charge money as if they are dog whispering gurus. It’s insane. Rover should keep these people in check. If they are actual certified professionals who open up their homes and charge a bit more, ok understandable. BUT don’t act as if a stay at home mom with 5 kids is someone I should throw a grand to because I need to leave for a weekend. Thankfully I have some good connections and will be flying out an actual professional and paying less than $400 to cover airfare, food and payment. Get your stuff together Rover and start getting people.
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Response from developer
Hello, each sitter on Rover set's their own prices. If you're needing a sitter in a specific price range you can filter your search by price. Our Rover Support team is here 24/7 of you need any assistance. All the best, Alyxe W.
Waste of money
I am currently waiting to start my full time job in August and I was looking for a part time job to make some income until then. I heard of this app from a friend and gave it a shot. Upon filling out all my information I realized that I had to pay $25 for a background check. I thought this over and I determined that the background check was important and reassuring to future clients. I paid the $25 even though it was a lot to me, considering I don’t have a job right now. I thought that I would earn the money back with time, but so far it’s been over a month and I don’t have a single message from a potential client. I am very disappointed because I was so incredibly excited to have something fun to do for a month and I was going to have the opportunity to meet cute animals. I am also disappointed because I did everything right, I posted good photos of me with animals, I had friends and past clients post amazing and heart warming testimonials about me, and I even chose to keep my rates distinctively lower than other rates I saw offered. I will keep the app on my phone, because it is well designed and the goal of the app is good, but I just can’t recommend this app to everyone. It was a waste of money (that I didn’t have) and there’s no way I’m ever going to get my money back, unless by miracle a potential client messages me. Thanks for reading :(
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Response from developer
Hi, thank you for your feedback and we're so sorry to hear that this has been your experience. Rover Support is available 24/7 at 888-453-7889 and we'd be happy to go over ideas with you for promoting your Rover profile which can help bring in new clients & booking requests. All the best, Frank P.
Great but recently has a glitch
I’ve only been using rover for about 3 weeks now as a sitter and it’s already brought in a significant amount of income for me. I’m a stay at home mom and have been searching for something I can do from home and so far rover has worked out perfectly. I take pretty much any client as long as they get along with kids and other dogs. I already have tons of booking and a few repeats clients. I’ve liked the small updates the app has had but just yesterday, all of my pending bookings are showing a “pending owners response” highlight at the top of our messages as if I sent them a booking request. Which I haven’t to any of them. I’m not sure if it’s just a glitch on my end but if it has actually send requests it may cause me to look bad and potentially lose clients and money. I almost always meet the family and dog before sending a request or accepting one so this is an issue for me. I’ve tried logging out, deleting the app and everything else I can think of but the “glitch” won’t go away. I’m hoping this issue is resolved quickly.
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DON’T USE ROVER!
To all the dog owners out there, DO NOT USE ROVER! I work in San Francisco and work as a GHR dog walker. For the owners that don’t know what that is, GHR stands for Guaranteed Hourly Rate, which is a program that pays $20/hour for 3 hour shifts throughout the day for eligible walkers. If you sign up for this shift, you must take all ASAP walks that come up in the app in your specific region of the city. They have a NE/NW/SE/SW region in San Francisco. This program, which started around June/July of 2017, has been a disaster for owners, because walkers like me take shifts because the money is guaranteed to us, so even if no walks come up during our 3 hour shift, we still get paid the $60 per shift. And while you may think you’ll get a regular walker for your dog on a recurring, weekly basis, no one wants to do those anymore because we can make more money doing GHR shifts, and having a recurring, weekly walk doesn’t allow you to work a shift during the time of your walk. So if I sign up to do a walk every Monday for Teddy at 12pm every Monday, I’m out $45 because I can’t do the 9:30-12:30 shift. So if you live in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Denver, and LA where these shifts occur, that’s why no one wants to walk your dog on a regular basis. To be honest, it works very well to network and find a sitter you may like and use off the app in future sittings, but other than that it’s a no go for me
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Good for extra cash, but it’s always crashing
I’ve been using Rover for over a year now and it’s been great using the app to earn extra cash. I set my rates and my schedule with it and can talk with clients through the app. Also, I love that you can contact their customer support line to edit the booking if the client makes a last minute cancellation or date change. I’ve had great service with the customer support line every time.
HOWEVER. My biggest pet peeve is that IT IS ALWAYS CRASHING. I’ve updated to the latest software, I’ve deleted and reinstalled SEVERAL times, and I’ve reset my phone. Nothing has helped. It’s super frustrating because it’s always happening while I’m walking a client. In the middle of a walk, it’ll just shut off MY ENTIRE PHONE and my phone will restart. I can’t even open the app without it crashing 3 seconds later. Or I’ll try and add a picture/pee/etc, and it’ll crash. At times when I finish a walk or check-in, it’ll shut off my phone and when I try to open the app, the walks/check-ins will sit on the page and not send and I’ll try and send and it’ll restart my phone again. I get messages from owners because they’re concerned that they haven’t received a Rover card after it’s started and I have to explain that it’s a glitch. If this could be fixed, I’d give the app 5 stars.
HOWEVER. My biggest pet peeve is that IT IS ALWAYS CRASHING. I’ve updated to the latest software, I’ve deleted and reinstalled SEVERAL times, and I’ve reset my phone. Nothing has helped. It’s super frustrating because it’s always happening while I’m walking a client. In the middle of a walk, it’ll just shut off MY ENTIRE PHONE and my phone will restart. I can’t even open the app without it crashing 3 seconds later. Or I’ll try and add a picture/pee/etc, and it’ll crash. At times when I finish a walk or check-in, it’ll shut off my phone and when I try to open the app, the walks/check-ins will sit on the page and not send and I’ll try and send and it’ll restart my phone again. I get messages from owners because they’re concerned that they haven’t received a Rover card after it’s started and I have to explain that it’s a glitch. If this could be fixed, I’d give the app 5 stars.
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Liked them...at first
I loved the sitter we used, so much I had them watch my babies multiple times.
We were out of town when my Boston was bit by another dog that was being watched. Not the sitters fault at all. My dog was bit on the eye, all three eyelids were punctured, his eye bleeding. I took him to the doggie ER. They were concerned the bite may have hit his cornea (it did). They sent me home with meds to fight off a nasty infection. This was going to be an ongoing injury that was going to take time to figure out the diagnosis (he still may need his eye removed). This was devastating news to me with him being my “first born” and all.
Then Rover called and said that their insurance would cover the cost minus at $250 deductible for a 30 day window.
This was great news. However somewhere the lines were crossed and I was under the impression that because it was an ongoing diagnosis that they would still cover the costs. I was wrong. Now I’m on the hook for whatever medical procedures are needed due to his injury. This is flat out wrong in my opinion. Some may not see it that way, but my dog is now blind in his eye due to retinal disconnection from the dog bite. I won’t be using Rover anymore, nor would I ever recommend them to anyone. My dogs are family. I wish I had paid better attention to the fine print.
We were out of town when my Boston was bit by another dog that was being watched. Not the sitters fault at all. My dog was bit on the eye, all three eyelids were punctured, his eye bleeding. I took him to the doggie ER. They were concerned the bite may have hit his cornea (it did). They sent me home with meds to fight off a nasty infection. This was going to be an ongoing injury that was going to take time to figure out the diagnosis (he still may need his eye removed). This was devastating news to me with him being my “first born” and all.
Then Rover called and said that their insurance would cover the cost minus at $250 deductible for a 30 day window.
This was great news. However somewhere the lines were crossed and I was under the impression that because it was an ongoing diagnosis that they would still cover the costs. I was wrong. Now I’m on the hook for whatever medical procedures are needed due to his injury. This is flat out wrong in my opinion. Some may not see it that way, but my dog is now blind in his eye due to retinal disconnection from the dog bite. I won’t be using Rover anymore, nor would I ever recommend them to anyone. My dogs are family. I wish I had paid better attention to the fine print.
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Gives sitters the freedom to do their best
I've worked for a couple of dog walking companies, and Rover is my favorite. I get to set my own wage. If I'm getting burned out, it's easy to temporarily turn off my availability to new clients or alter my calendar. Rover is great when there is an emergency, very supportive and willing to pay for vet care. The fee they charge for providing customers to you and insurance during stays is a lot less than the other company, meaning I don't have to rip off my clients to make a good wage. The app is great. I've hardly ever had issues with it and it doesn't need to be updated constantly. I would like if the walk map was more accurate, but that is a minor concern. The big difference with Rover, is that I get to talk with customers instead of going through a middleman, which makes me more comfortable when meeting new customers, and creates less problems with gaining access to the dog. Rover also allows you to decide with the owner what times work best for both customer and walker. The one downside with Rover is that they don't have an option for giving tips, which can be frustrating when you go above and beyond for a client. Other than that, I do love Rover!
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Not bad
I am both a rover sitter and a rover customer. We have found a reliable and trustworthy sitter that we use repeatedly for our pets and the app works great.
From a sitter perspective, there are a couple of tweaks I would like to see. I wish there was a way to combine housesitting and drop-ins in to one package deal. For pets that require extra attention such as multiple drop-ins during the day, it isn't a very efficient system. I have one client whose dog had bladder surgery and needs to be let out 4-5 times a day. While I am staying the night at the home and providing a morning and evening service, the extra day time drop-ins are awkward to set up for the owner. I feel there should be a booking for overnights with morning and evening service with an option to add full daytime service as well.
I did encounter one very uncomfortable situation as a sitter and as soon as I reported it to rover, their team was on top of it and provided excellent customer service. I really felt like they supported me and had my back. It was nice to know that the 20% they take from charges is being used to pay for excellent staff!
From a sitter perspective, there are a couple of tweaks I would like to see. I wish there was a way to combine housesitting and drop-ins in to one package deal. For pets that require extra attention such as multiple drop-ins during the day, it isn't a very efficient system. I have one client whose dog had bladder surgery and needs to be let out 4-5 times a day. While I am staying the night at the home and providing a morning and evening service, the extra day time drop-ins are awkward to set up for the owner. I feel there should be a booking for overnights with morning and evening service with an option to add full daytime service as well.
I did encounter one very uncomfortable situation as a sitter and as soon as I reported it to rover, their team was on top of it and provided excellent customer service. I really felt like they supported me and had my back. It was nice to know that the 20% they take from charges is being used to pay for excellent staff!
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Love the service, not so much the app!
I love Rover! It's an amazing service for dog owners and dog sitters. But the app needs some improvement. The calendar is pretty much useless as it doesn't show your bookings.
