People will call to schedule service. If one service is full, they keep calling around until they find someone with an opening.
As I have told many in my niche though...raise your rates. People who offer ‘services only’ for whatever reason are loathe to raise rates on existing clients.
I know Karen Levy in the article who runs the pet sitting/dog walking business. Dog walking is a volume based business model. The business has to turn a certain volume in order to be profitable and pay decent wages. If the business is understaffed it is losing money. Notice, I said pay decent wages. Most pet sitting companies right now are offering $12-15 per visit plus tips/bonuses. Price of dog walks is $20 for a 20 minute walk. Walker needs to do a minimum of 2 walks per hour. That’s a wage of $24-$30 per hour. Plus tips! Puppy kisses and fresh air. But the model is based on volume. If people won’t walk dogs for 24-30 per hour they are losing money.
It’s been a few years since we used our regular Rover lady. She was so full all the time that she took herself off of the Rover scheduling function. But regulars knew to contact her directly. (All communications were thru Rover, so the company still got their cut.) The lady was reasonably priced, especially for two dogs (which we had at the time). She was pure gold. If she had raised rates...we still would’ve booked with her. I’ve referred her out several times. The guess-work math I’ve done tells me she makes pretty good money dog-sitting.
We only stopped using Rover because we made the decision to look for pet-friendly hotels when we travel. A little more effort involved dealing with the dogs on the trip...but for roughly the same amount of $$$, we get to enjoy their company. They’re our buddies...