Holidays are busy time for pet sitting and dog walking businesses. The demand goes up during holidays while the supply usually remains the same. Your customers will understand if you choose to charge extra for holidays. Here are some examples how some pet sitters are adding Holiday surcharges.
Charging for the whole holiday period for instance starting from December 24th through January 2nd , Spring break and around Thanksgiving. They are adding additional $2-5 per visit.
Charging additional $5-10 per visit just for the national holidays.
People who are working on holiday days in other industries also get additional perks for that time so why not the Pet Sitting/Dog Walking businesses?
For the holiday season we have seen pet sitting bookings starts up to six months in advance. Some business also adopts special holiday cancellation policy with doubling the notification time. If you have different policies let your customers know and also explain why special policy applies.
The recommendation of the industry is to split your holiday surcharge with your staff members. Staff members will likely agree to work over the holidays periods and appreciate it if they are paid more during that time.
With DoTimely you can automate surcharges for Holidays. You can setup your business calendar in advance and the software will apply the additional surcharge based on service setup. This will ensure you don’t forget to charge the customer or add charges manually to each appointment. You can also setup additional automated charges like weekend, after business hours or additional pets. Learn more here