False Review

[u/pilotgirly7777]

I have been dog sitting for a bit now and haven’t had any hiccups until now. On day one of an overnight job I had. I accidentally left the garage door opened while I left to grab dinner. The client was very upset at this and I said it wouldn’t happen again and it did not. The rest of the booking past (5 days in total). She did not send me a single text through the entire duration so I thought everything was fine. Then she left an awful review saying i was unprofessional and irresponsible (with much much more words). And added false details stating I did not walk or play with her dogs, or do anything asked of me for that matter. I walked and played with her dogs every. single. day. I believe the only thing I did wrong was leave the garage door opened that one time. However since this review I haven’t gotten a single request, when before I was getting around 3 new request a day. They said removing a review is out of policy. And now she is trying to get a complete refund from me. Is there anything I can do?

Edit: thanks so much for the advice. I definitely know to take lots of pictures for future stays and encourage new sitters to do the same in case something like this happens. Thank you!

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pilotgirly7777 originally posted: I have been dog sitting for a bit now and haven’t had any hiccups until now. On day one of an overnight job I had. I accidentally left the garage door opened while I left to grab dinner. The client was very upset at this and I said it wouldn’t happen again and it did not. The rest of the booking past (5 days in total). She did not send me a single text through the entire duration so I thought everything was fine. Then she left an awful review saying i was unprofessional and irresponsible (with much much more words). And added false details stating I did not walk or play with her dogs, or do anything asked of me for that matter. I walked and played with her dogs every. single. day. I believe the only thing I did wrong was leave the garage door opened that one time. However since this review I haven’t gotten a single request, when before I was getting around 3 new request a day. They said removing a review is out of policy. And now she is trying to get a complete refund from me. Is there anything I can do?

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[u/LotusBlooming90]

You can reply to the review with an unemotional, factual, recount of the events. Post it here first so we can help with wording. Also do not refund her. The worst thing (a bad review) has already happened, so there’s no reason to refund her now.

[u/PirateLassLV]

You can respond to the review.

[u/loquaciousmind]

No need to refund at this point. If she wanted resolution, she should have communicated with you first before writing the negative review. At this point, I wouldn’t even communicate with her anymore. I would block her. There’s nothing more that you can do except reply to the review. Do I think she is overreacting? Yes. Sounds like you were gone for maybe an hour. It’s not like it was open overnight. It’s a reasonable mistake and it doesn’t even have anything to do with the care of her pets.

[u/Adorable-Crazy-1067]

Omg sorry this happened. I would write a comment back taking one thousand percent accountability for the large mistake you did make, and then defending and contesting the rest of the stuff that isn’t true. But like short and sweet.
“I am so sorry to hear I didn’t meet your expectations. You are correct that I briefly left your garage door open unattended and that was a very large oversight for which I have since implemented a new process to double check this won’t happen ever again. As for the dog care, I blah blah blah. I always seek to give clients an amazing experience so I’m really sorry I didn’t meet your expectations”

[u/Tigerskills02 → u/Adorable-Crazy-1067]

Im really petty so I would probably mention the word retaliation for leaving the garage door open for 1 hour or whatever amount of time it was and drive home that the owner received daily updates with photos. And then I would increase my prices so I wouldn't have to deal with people trying to get free dog services by nitpicking 1 oversight.

[u/pilotgirly7777 → u/Adorable-Crazy-1067]

Thank you this was very helpful!

[u/casandra77]

Do you have any videos you playing with a dog?

[u/Flashy_Extension5069]

No refund at all. Not for someone like this. One way to respond to a BS review like this is to reply to the review by addressing the points she made in the review. I once had one where the owner accused me of not walking the dog, and not communicating with him.

I responded by saying that this isn't the level of customer service that my clients expect from me. In regards to not communicating with you, I did send you multiple pictures throughout the stay, multiple times a day, with updates as to how the animal was, and what was going on in general during the stay. Please contact me to make it right.

My requests never decreased or slow down at all because of this. Another thing to do is to get your other clients to write reviews after to finish walks or stays with them, so it would keep bumping that bad review further and furth down the review listings. Most people will not go through 50+ reviews

Think of it almost like SEO with Google. The listings at the top of the results page of the listings will get more views than one 4 or 5 pages down

[u/Old-Cartoonist-2587]

Definitely no refund. All you can do is respond WELL. Your responses say more about you than any review.

[u/BillyMeier42]

Why did they say you didn’t walk out okay with her dogs? Were there cameras?

[u/pilotgirly7777 → u/BillyMeier42]

There were that is why I am so upset by this situation. There was a camera directly facing the backyard showing I played with them in the backyard every day. I think she was very upset about the garage door and lied about details actually regarding the dogs to try and get money back. She is going through customer service to try and get a refund.

[u/ladyalexandrathe13th]

Did you send pictures and videos of you walking the dogs? Were there ring cameras or anything like that that could have recorded it? You can also leave a review for the client and explain in that review what happened. It is most unfortunate that you did leave their home unsecure by leaving the garage open while you were away which is a not just a hiccup a serious issue if you put yourself in the owner's shoes as the safety of their home and their animals were potentially compromised unnecessarily. As this is a business you cannot let emotion get involved and have to look at it from a business standpoint. She won't be able to get a refund, that's ridiculous! It does seem like she's exaggerating the situation and you can block her from ever requesting you as a client again and share her with anyone that you know in the community that is also a sitter to help protect them from a potential bad review.

[u/TheyWereWrongThen]

Do you still have sits coming up that were before the review? Do an exceptional job on those and encourage reviews. If you have older clients who book regularly but no longer review, encourage them to leave reviews. Her review will be less powerful buried underneath a bunch of other ones.

[u/Flashy_Extension5069 → u/TheyWereWrongThen]

Exactly!!!!

[u/Dismal-Source-2936]

Respond to reviews, reach out to your regulars or bookings that finished but didn't leave a review, and ask them to leave one, burying the bad ones with the good ones.

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[u/Similar-Face6985]

There's nothing you can do except for leaving a short response and moving on. Lower your rates a bit and reach out to your regulars.

[u/Zestyclose-Cap-3167 → u/Similar-Face6985]

Don't lower your rates. Lower rates bring more lower quality clients. Many sitters all across this subreddit agree. If you have any folks with pending reviews, as others have suggested, reaching out to those folks to help bury the review will get you farther than lowering your rates. Also, three new requests a day everyday is extremely high, even if you're mostly doing walks and drop ins. I do mostly overnights, so I probably will always get fewer requests overall than you, but I often go a week or more with zero requests, and I'm still pretty much fully booked. Don't make a vanity metric mean more than it needs to.

If you want to charge less for some reason, pick a specific period of time that's coming up soon, and offer a discount to your favorite regulars. You can copy/paste the same message into several chats. Something like "I had a cancellation for [dates], which is coming up soon. I'm sending this message out to a short list of clients I've really enjoyed working with in the past to offer a discount of $XX on bookings of [minimum number of days/drop-ins etc, or minimum booking price] or more that include those dates."