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- them, they'll get frustrated with you and the job. Or even worse try and make money on the side too.

Your Employees Personal Bills:

Make sure you know how much your dog walkers & pet sitters need to make to pay their bills. If it's more than you can ever provide -

Where as if you make mistakes or leave things open to interpretation with new clients you might lose them quickly and without notice.

If you gain the trust of your new clients in the first few days you might never hear a peep from them again.

Casino Customer Service:

Give your new dog walking/pet sitting clients Casino customer service! Send them a picture from their 1st visit and give tons of feedback.

Backing Up Emails:

Worried about losing your new emails if your computer died? Setup email forwarding to a Gmail address and you'll always have a copy...

When you do give your dog walkers & pet sitters feedback try & do it in person, over a coffee and not over the phone while they're working.

If you don't regularly check in on your walkers/pet sitters in person it becomes harder to give feedback & they'll take it more personally.

Check In On Your Walkers:

Don't go too long not checking in on your walkers & pet sitters in person. You can't judge their performance by their phone & text manner.

Images & Videos:

Dog walking & pet sitting clients LOVE receiving pictures & videos of their dogs. What is your favorite cell phone for taking pics & vids?

When they are with animals I don't want them to concentrate on anything but there walks.

When To Engage Your Walkers:

I try not to engage my walkers with problems while they are with animals. I find meeting for breakfast is a great time to talk shop.

And don't have too much pride to never apologize, nothing more pathetic than that and clients will read right through over explanations...

Poor Communicators:

Most people are poor communicators. Being a good communicator will always give you a heads up on your competition.

Spring Cleaning:

Spring Cleaning: time to set up a weekly backup of your computer's sensitive information if you don't do so already...

An employee with bad customer service skills:

An employee with bad customer service skills can hurt your company worse than a disgruntled client ever could...

What would your dog walkers and pet sitters appreciate more? Health insurance or a raise?

With the new health insurance bill it's "supposed" to be cheaper to cover your dog walkers and pet sitters with health insurance. A recent post card from the IRS says that small employers could qualify for a credit worth up to 35% of premiums paid in 2010 (learn more). But what would your employees appreciate more? And which would attract better dog walker and pet sitters to your company and keep them longer?

Downtown Pets:

I just bought my dog walkers & pet sitters Claritin, Coldeeze & Green Tea to combat this bad pollen season & make them more comfortable.

Employees:

You worry about your employees while they are on the job but how about when they are off the job?

Should you let your dog walkers or pet sitters have free contact with your owners?

As you add employees or independent contractors to your pet service you need to consider what level of contact they will have with your owners. Will you allow them to have free contact with your clients? Or will you control the conversation and have all information go through the office? There are positives and negatives to each option.

Allowing direct contact between walkers/sitter and clients:

The Positives:

* allowing direct contact frees you up from having to do the scheduling, requests, complaints, etc.

* this will give you a few extra hours in the day to so what you want, that you wouldn't have normally had

* direct contact with the walkers/sitters will make the clients' experience even more personal

The negatives:

* you lose control of company message

* you are still responsible for walkers actions yet aren't part of conversation

* the client's connection becomes with walker and less with company

* clients and walkers/sitters will become less loyal to you and you might experience more walkers working behind your back

* some walkers are simply not good communicators and not good with people

* walkers should just concentrate on the walking dogs during the day (not billing, random questions and minutia)

NOT allowing direct contact between walkers/sitter and clients:

The Positives:

* you are able to better control the message of your company

* you can stay on top of the pulse of your company and better notice trends for better and worse

* you can centralize your billing, scheduling and training processes

* your clients will stay more loyal to you

* your clients will more appreciate the job you do for them

The negatives:

* there will be rare occasions where the client contacting you instead of the walker or sitter will not be ideal (but as I say while having contact only go through the office might not be perfect it's the best thing going)

* you or your office manager will have more work to do

* you or your office manager will become essential to the daily running of your business (days off will become difficult to take unless more than one person knows how to run the office)

* some clients will balk at this policy (make your contact policy clear in your application before they get started - I have clients initial my policies before getting started)

* some clients will never accept your policy (you should highly consider getting rid of clients like this - if you have made your policies clear to them ahead of time you have nothing to apologize for) wants tips on parting ways with a client? buy my book if you haven't already (^_^)

Special Note:

* I would only apply the policy of having all communication go through the office if you make your walkers and sitters employees. I would not use this method if you classify your walkers and sitters as independent contractors.

Who is a great backup dog walker when u have an emergency?

Who is a great backup dog walker when u have an emergency? Your past dog walkers! stay in touch with them, They will often help u in a bind!

Which of the following do you think would have the biggest impact on your company?