Thanks so much for joining us for the first ever Rover Round Table! You’re part of a sitter community that’s 300,000 strong and spans 10 countries. You’re an incredibly important part of the work we do as we strive to make it easier for people to have the unconditional love of pets in their lives. We’re so happy that you are part of the continuing conversation about what the future looks like here at Rover.

If you missed the livestream or want a reminder of what’s coming up, keep reading!

You might have noticed we’ve changed or improved a few things in the past 6 months. In case you missed it, here’s a rundown of what’s new.

Sitter Resources

First, we’ve created some new sitter resources to improve your experience.

The Sitter Perks Hub. We now offer discounts and perks based on the feedback you shared on ways that we can help you save money while running your business. It’s a place for you to get exclusive discounts on essentials like poop bags, house cleaning and more to help you run your business.

New and improved Rover Store . Based on your feedback we’ve updated the Rover Store. Get the gear you need to promote yourself and rep your Rover business

Running Your Business Day to Day

We’ve also got some new tools to help you grow repeat clients and run your business day to day. We redesigned the app home screen thanks to your feedback (you may have noticed a redesign) to improve your experience.

We worked hard to make the app work faster and designed the home screen so you can more easily see the bookings on your schedule.

Stay tuned, more enhancements are coming in 2020!

Based on your feedback about wanting different rates for new and repeat clients, we created the Locking Repeat Rates feature.

Locking repeat rates is the ability to change your public rate, while locking in repeat clients at a set rate.

Rates can be set from the details window of a request.

This feature is live on the website and will be available on the app this winter.

If you’d like to change your rate for new clients, you can lock your repeat clients in at the rate of your choosing.

We hope that this change will make it easier for you to maintain and manage your repeat clients while attracting new ones.

Recurring Requests

Recurring Requests mean you can set up regular requests with clients (like a walk that repeats every Monday and Wednesday).

Allows customers to book once, and set up repeating services s uch as a walk every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday And now you’re getting paid weekly for any bookings that occurred.



Cats

Lastly, we’ve done some work to improve the experience for cat owners and sitters!

Our customer research was loud and clear: the cat market is underserved. We understand that many of you appreciate the addition of cat drop-ins as it can be slotted in between other services It’s a great way for you to maximize your time and earn more money.

We made it easier for owners to search for and book cat care Pet owners no longer have to list their dog breed as cat

We’re also testing an additional cat rate (just like the additional dog rate) We want to ensure that it works smoothly, and that it has a positive impact on your business We’re aiming to have this in place by end of year, if not sooner



Tipping

We know that many of you would like to see a tipping option in the app.

We want you to know that we hear you and we greatly appreciate your feedback.

We have been testing tipping for Rover Now services as a first step. We want to be sure that it’s working well and not causing any negative impacts to sitters and pet owners on Rover.

We’re continuing to work on this and we’ll share more updates with you as they come.

It’s important to note that Rover will NEVER take a cut of any tips, for any service. This policy will not change.

Calendar

We know you want to see improvements to help with managing your calendar and bookings. For example, if you’re a student and want to take bookings only in the morning before your class starts. We’re actively looking into features to help accommodate needs like this and other improvements

Good news: we are getting started on the calendar feature now

But foundational changes to the calendar take some time we have to build everything for app and website, plus t esting is required to ensure that it works smoothly for you and your clients.

We don’t have any concrete updates at this time, but will keep you informed.

Pet Information

We know that you want more information about potential pets in your care, and we’re actively working toward implementing a better pet profile.

We understand that more and better info helps you to pick the right clients and ensures stays go smoothly

more and better info Rover is striving for continuous improvement to make it e asier for owners to complete pet profiles/care instructions and r eplace open ended questions with more specific ones like bathroom schedule, feeding schedule, and medications.

pet profiles/care instructions and r We’re also considering pet reviews.

We’re really excited to share this with you and will continue to improve this experience. Keep an eye out in the sitter newsletter for updates about when this will be live.

2020 Priorities

So what are we focused on for 2020? Our key considerations are always informed by what you told us is important: trust and safety, helping you earn more money, and improving the tools you use to run your business.

Trust and Safety

Safety of pets and people is a top priority – and thanks in no small part to the fact that Rover is a community of pet lovers, the vast majority of bookings go as planned.

Minimizing Suspicious Requests

We have done a few things on our end to minimize suspicious requests. Here are a few things you can do to continue to be safe:

Never share your password, log in or banking information with prospective clients Be wary of potential clients who only want to correspond via email or text messages outside of the platform You can Message, book, and collect payment on Rove



Trust your instincts; if a request seems suspicious, please report it to Rover, and our team will investigate. Remember, you can always reach out to our customer support team any time, they’re always happy to help!

Helping You Make More Money

We are committed to helping you earn more money in the following ways.

We’re looking into improving booking flow to make it easer for you and your clients to book a stay.

improving booking flow to make it easer for you and your clients to book a stay. We’re redesigning the homepage to help owners more easily find and contact sitters who are a good match for them.

Exploring features like ability to charge for early drop off and late pickup.

We want it to be easier for you to manage your business and get more clients.

We’re exploring ways to improve the messaging function and inbox. We’re making changes to the sitter profile so it’s easier for you to manage your rates, services add-ons.



Thank you for joining us for the first ever Rover Round Table. We’re already working on our next event, so please let us know what you’d like to see for our upcoming livestream. Together, we’re making it easier for everyone to have the unconditional love of pets in their lives.