How to pay walkers?
  • adogwalkeradogwalker
    I have always paid walkers a % of the walking fee. It has seemed like the only way to do it given the nature of the business and the fact that it's very hard to clock a dog walker's hours accurately and consistently. Of course there are advantages and disadvantages - when the walker has a lot of dogs, they're very happy with the money. But when they lose dogs from their route or experience a lot of cancellations, it hits them badly. Telling an employee that they've lost a dog or that they have heavy cancellations coming up has always, in my opinion, been one of the hardest aspects of the business. No matter how much you try to make them understand that there are ups as well as downs, you always feel for them when they lose part of their income. 

    I would love to be able to guarantee walkers an hourly rate and a guaranteed income. Do you think it's something that is possible in this business, what with the constantly changing schedules they have? I like the idea of paying a walker to be available 9 till 5 (for example), and knowing that they'll always know what to expect no matter how many dogs they walk. However, that's a risk on my part because if their route gets light or non-existent in certain of their hours, I'm taking a hit. Any thoughts? Every dog walker I know who employs people has told me they pay the rate per walk. 
  • Pet+Sitter+BiblePet Sitter Bible
    Great topic and thanks for posting!

    re: I would love to be able to guarantee walkers an hourly rate and a guaranteed income. Do you think it's something that is possible in this business, what with the constantly changing schedules they have?

    I'd love to pay an hourly rate too, I think it would make billing much easier, but unfortunately I agree with others you've spoken with too, and no it's not a good model for an in-home pet service. No matter how perfect we try and make our companies I feel we'll always be beholden to the crazy lives and schedules of our clients and at best we can make calculated guesses about how a season/year will go.

    This is actually why I've grown so interested in what my prospective employees financial situation is. I make sure to find out their total monthly bills and I get a sense if they have help from family or a loved when if they're ever tight. I always try and give me employees extra work when things get slow but there's just so much we can do right?

    So I guess my answer is try and get employees who can roll with the slow times without it creating chaos and I do think a per job % payment is the way to go and you've nailed it. I feel paying per job gives an employee a motivation to work more. I've also heard the complaints from employees of other companies who get paid a low hourly rate and thing they're getting jipped.

    I posted a discussion you might find interesting about the idea of charging clients a monthly sort of flat fee and if we were ever able to pull that off than yes I do think we could charge hourly but I don't see this method being a part of our industry anytime soon. You can check out the discussion if you'd like here:

    http://blog.petsitterbible.com/2010/04/dog-walker-dreamcharging-flat-weekly-or.html

    And there's a follow up discussion about the post here:

    http://petsitterbible.com/forum/discussion/29/should-dog-walkers-charge-a-flat-monthly-fees#Item_9
  • ThePurrfectNannyThePurrfectNanny
    Is this discussion about what and how to pay our pet sitters of what we think about the idea of charging our clients a monthly fee? In my opinion it's not so simply as it sounds combining those two matters. First of all, let me get to the topic, charging clients a monthly fee - how many of your clients are using your services every day of every month? I only have a few who actually are so regular - despite I have a very large client base. My clients come from all walks of life and some only use us for their vacation trips 3-4 times a year. Even the ones who are regulars ( daily midday walks) have to cancel oaccationly and I'm refusing to overchage a good client, who uses our services for regular midday walks when for some reason they stay at home for a day or two. My policies state, as long as my midday clients let us know by 9:00 AM the same day, there will not be a cancellation fee. Yes, that might be a loss of a few $$ occasionally for the sitter as well as for the business but we treat clients with respect and dignity. This is what I consider excellent customer service. So far I only had one sitter complaining about that and she was the worse sitter I ever had and I had to let her go anyway. And I would also never have the thought to charge clients for sittings they don't receive, or better to say, don't credit back when there is a cancellation for a midday walk but turn around and bill them if they ad another visit on.

    Having that said, because of the infrequency of the sittings it's not possibly to pay an hourly rate to the sitters.This hourly rate would have to be much lower that the percentage they receive now when they actually have work to do. This also would enable them to possibly do other work during non working times, because of course I would except someone I pay an hourly rate to be "on call" for all those hours the person is paid for.

    I feel my concept of paying when they work and paying a percentage is not perfect but still the best of all solutions. However, I tell all my new sitters that it needs time to build up a client base and after a while all of the sitters became very busy and successful and take a good amount of pay home every month, even it varies from month to month a bit. But it varies for me as well....This is just the nature of this particular business.
  • adogwalkeradogwalker
    ThePurrfectNanny, have you thought about increasing the requirement for notice people have to give you for cancellations? I have found that virtually everyone accepts and agrees to a 24 hour cancellation rule. It's pretty much standard in any kind of appointment based business and people are used to the idea of having to pay for a same-day cancellation on an appointment with, say, their chiropractor or therapist. I don't feel that it's unreasonable in the slightest. You have a finite number of available appointment slots during the day, and every one of them is extremely important to your livelihood. When people have one of those slots booked and cancel without giving you time to take another booking, they're rendering one of your valuable slots useless and affecting your livelihood. 

    Sometimes you have to explain the policy to a client who doesn't quite understand. I have found that it helps to mention the following: 

    • If you receive the cancellation 24 hours in advance, this gives you time to fill the empty slot. Sometimes you receive requests for one-off walks, and usually you have to turn these down because the walkers are fully booked with their regular walks. If you have an empty slot however, you can take such a booking. Last minute cancellations don't give you enough time to take such bookings, hence the 24 hour notice requirement. 
    • You have a deal with your walkers whereby you still have to pay them for cancellations they have been given with less than 24 hours notice. If the client didn't pay for such a cancellation, you would have to pay the walker out of pocket at a loss to yourself. 

    Most of the time, of course, you won't be able to fill a slot that's been opened because of a cancellation. But the client doesn't have to know that. What matters is that the 24 hour notice will actively reduce the number of cancellations you receive in a week. If a client finds out in the morning that they'll be working from home that day, then what I've found is that they'll either say "no walk today, but feel free to bill me anyway because I know it's last minute" (as if they're actually giving you permission to enforce your own rule, lol) or they will say "I'm home, but you might as well come walk Fido anyway since I'm paying for it. I've only encountered problems with this on a couple of occasions. The first was a crazy woman, very wealthy, who threatened to "ruin me" because I charged her for a cancellation that was made two hours before the walk. The second was a client who was shocked...shocked...that I billed him for a late cancel, until I pointed out the terms of the contract that I'd discussed with him and that he signed during our initial consultation. The crazy woman eventually calmed down (you will always encounter crazies in this business) and the other guy was fine once I'd reminded him of the contract he'd signed (having a service contract makes your life sooooo much easier!)

    I would definitely advise anyone to charge for last minute cancels on pet sits too. Clients who book long pet sits then tell you a couple of days before that they've "changed their plans" are a real problem. You only have a limited number of employees who are prepared to do overnight stays and their time is valuable. When they're booked for a sit, you have to turn additional sits down. Charging sit clients a 50% non-refundable fee upfront is perfectly reasonable, and to those clients who think it is unreasonable, well perhaps you should seriously think twice about whether or not you want to do business with them. Back when I worked alone I had a couple who would constantly book sits and then cancel them at the last minute and it severely affected my livelihood, especially over the holiday season when demand is high. 

    One thing I've learned in this business is that the worst thing you can do is sound apologetic when you're explaining or enforcing a policy. If the client suspects that you're not confident about it, then they will get the impression that you're not being fair and will seize upon it. Never apologize for adding surcharges for weekend or late walks - even when they add up and greatly inflate the price of the job. Always keep reminding yourself how valuable your time is and that of your walkers. 

    With regards to the main subject of this thread, I have thought about the monthly "membership" fee and it's a very attractive idea, not without its drawbacks and problems of course. I had thought before that perhaps it's a way to deal with clients who tell you upfront that they cancel a lot. Usually I turn down such clients, but perhaps if I offered them some kind of minimum fee which is slightly less than the cost of walks every day, but more than they would be paying if they were being charged per walk with cancels taken into account - it's all about compromise. 

    And with regards to paying walkers an hourly rate, I have also thought about maybe paying them a low "base" rate per hour, to guarantee their availability all day, then adding a "bonus" per walk on top of that to top up their pay and give them a sense of involvement in the company's fortunes. One other problem of going all-hourly that I've thought of is that employees are going to be far less enthusiastic about coming to meet a new client after work or at weekends. Currently I'm able to persuade them that the meeting is beneficial to them as well as me, since it represents a new client and thus more pay. But if they were being paid an hourly rate, what do they care if they get a new client or not? And would they start to resent you if you added more dogs to their route, meaning more work and effort for them, but no more pay?
  • Pet+Sitter+BiblePet Sitter Bible
    re.: have you thought about increasing the requirement for notice people have
    to give you for cancellations? I have found that virtually everyone
    accepts and agrees to a 24 hour cancellation rule.

    Definitely agree, there are only so many spots we have on a route to make money so need to optimize them and a client who doesn't understand that is a bad client anyway.

    re.: I had thought before that perhaps it's a way to deal with clients who tell you upfront that they cancel a lot.

    Smart solution! Would love to continue that conversation in the other thread, I do think it's possible for our industry to have some type of membership system.

    re.: meeting new clients

    I hear you, I'm pretty up front with employees that outside of crazy late or early meetings they are not paid. If a client wants to meet a walker or sitter more than once though I do charge a meeting fee...
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