Communication Is A Two-Way Street!
Hiring Distinctive Pet Care means that you have a staff of dedicated individuals to care for your furry family members. To avoid miscommunication all correspondence needs to come from and to one source; our office. The preferred method is through the time to pet portal but while email/Internet access maybe unavailable for you, our office line is always available any time of day or night. In our over 20 years as professional pet care providers, we have learned that having a consistent route of communication assures our clients and staff that no detail slips through the cracks. Recently, we have had situations where clients have contacted the sitter directly by text message or email, the sitter was on vacation themselves and the client either did not receive a response or the client interrupted the sitter’s time off. We would ask you to do most of your scheduling of your pet’s needs through the software client portal to avoid these issues. The office and the sitter will receive your request and we are able to confirm your needs more efficiently.
We ask that you use your sitters’ personal cell phone number with discretion. If they have requested a text message when arriving home, or you have a change to your schedule with less than 24 hours’ notice, these are acceptable. If you have more than 24 hours’ notice, please access your portal and add or cancel visits here. Your sitter will be notified when they confirm their schedule first thing in the morning. If a sitter is sick or has a family emergency, the backup sitter will have the most up-to-date information. Please also remember that your sitter is on call 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. They have blocks of time where they are “off of work”. Please be mindful of this and honor their free time. Please do your best to plan ahead for trips or give 24 hour notice on the client portal for changes to your regular weekly schedules. You are not their only client and a little pre-planning really helps reduce the chaos of ever-changing schedules and correct invoicing.
An alternative to a non-urgent request; such as availability of your sitter for an upcoming trip you are trying to plan can be sent to the office via email (info@distinctivepetcare.com) as we have a central calendar that the sitters schedule all their availability.
Please contact us via the time to pet portal for all of your questions, concerns etc. If you have a private matter or would like to speak directly to a manger/owner, please email us at info@distinctivepetcare.com. We do have a voicemail system but messages are checked less frequently due to our being out caring for animals. The portal and email are faster ways to communicate with the office and your sitter simultaneously.