OK, so I understand that Rover encourages owners to reach out to at least three potential sitters when booking. I’ve even heard that they make it easy for them by allowing them to copy the same introduction message to everyone. I understand that it’s in the owner’s best interest to book as quickly as possible to secure plans for their trip. However I have concerns about Rover prompting them to reach out to so many at once, and the impact it has on the acceptance rate of the two unlucky recipients who do not get chosen for the booking, especially given that an owner cannot cancel their request - the sitter has to archive the request once they’ve found out that it was booked with someone else. Sometimes I get no communication from the owner after repeat check-ins and only discover that they booked someone else from the automated message. Every time this happens I mark the reason as “owner’s plans changed”, but I’m fairly certain it still brings my acceptance rate down. Can anyone confirm this? I think it’s entirely unfair for one mechanism to incentivize clients in a direction that necessarily drives down the rankings of two hapless sitters, at no fault of their own.

To all the owners out there, please consider sending one request at a time (if you have the time for it), then if you haven’t heard back send to a different sitter after maybe 20-30 minutes. Sitters are already incentivized to respond as quickly as possible (I try to within ten minutes). It sucks to put in the effort to read through the profile and care cards, consult your schedule, respond to the request, write several follow-ups, hear nothing back, then find out it’s been booked elsewhere and lose acceptance rating for the trouble. Huge waste of time and effort.