We have recently redesigned the messaging flow between pet sitters and pet owners, taking into account the feedback we have received from our community over the years. The new system will enable you to communicate more freely with pet owners, and gives them more flexible options to book.
No more need to express interest before communicating
The step where you need to decide before responding to the owner whether you are interested or not has been removed. If you can help the pet owner, please arrange a meet & greet, just like before. If you can’t help, send them a nice message letting them know. If you have questions about the pet or the assignment, ask away! If the message is from a repeat client, they can book right away from there, without you having to accept first.
No more "Book now" option
Have you ever had a pet owner book you and make a payment without ever having spoken to you or met you in person? This was never the idea, but some pet owners did it nevertheless, and many of our sitters have told us that they didn't like it.
In the new flow, this is actively discouraged. The "Book now" button has been removed from all sitter profiles, and all pet owners, whether they are new or regular clients, need to click on "Contact" and will go through the same first step.
Your regulars will then be able to move on to make a payment right away, just like they did before. New clients, however, are informed that they should have a meet & greet with you before finalising the booking by making a payment.
Once the owner has booked, you will need to accept or decline the booking, just like before.
No more locked conversations
Previously, when you declined a request, or if either party cancelled a booking, the conversation was locked from that moment on. We did this to make sure that pet owners would start a new request when they wanted to re-book you later on.
To make it easier to communicate about future bookings, conversation threads will remain open from now on. If a pet owner is re-booking you, please remind them that they need to put through a new request for the new dates, and make a payment on the platform, so you can both benefit from the Pawshake Guarantee and our Customer Support.
New: Non-consecutive days
Do you have clients who need you regularly, maybe one or two days a week? Previously, they had to make one booking for each separate day.
Pet owners can now request up to 15 separate days in a 30-day timeframe. For example, if you're walking Max every Wednesday and Friday, Max's owner can now book this for four weeks in advance, saving you both the hassle of creating and accepting each separate booking.
You will get paid out after the last day included in the booking - hence the limitation to a 30-day timeframe, as we wouldn't want you to have to wait any longer than that.
Make sure to look closely at the dates of a new request going forward. To help you see whether it's "from May 5th until May 9th" (5 days) or "May 5th and May 9th" (2 days), the number of days (or nights, if it's an overnight service) is stated in the request.
It's faster
The messaging is already faster now than it used to be, and we know that this was important to many of you. It will continue to get even faster over the coming weeks and months, as we continue to work on our infrastructure to offer you an even better service.
What has stayed the same?
Just as before, we are still asking you to respond to a new request or a new booking within 24 hours at the latest. If you don't, our system will assume that your profile has become inactive, and will set it to unavailable. In this state, it can no longer be found on the search, or contacted by pet owners. You can reactivate it by responding to the request.
Please make sure to always let pet owners know where they stand. If you know that you won't be able to respond for a while, you can put your profile in away mode via your calendar settings.