MaidBossPro Blog — Quotes & Pricing

Quoting a House Cleaning Over the Phone: The Questions to Ask

Most residential cleaning jobs are quoted without anyone setting foot in the house. A customer calls, answers a few questions, and gets a price. That only works if the questions are the right ones and the person on the phone asks them the same way every time. A short, consistent phone script is one of the most valuable tools a cleaning company can have.

Why a Script Beats Winging It

Pets are one of the questions that most often gets forgotten, as covered in Pets and House Cleaning Pricing: When to Charge More and How to Note It. They are not the only one. Without a script, it is easy to forget to ask about the basement, the alarm, or whether the customer wants the first visit to be a deep clean.

A script makes every call produce the same information, no matter who answers. It also makes the caller feel they are dealing with a professional company. A confident set of questions followed by a clear price beats a long pause and “let me get back to you.”

The Questions

Here is a practical order that works for most residential calls:

• Address. Confirms you serve the area and starts the record.
• What kind of clean? Recurring, one-time, deep clean, move-in / move-out or post-construction.
• Bedrooms and bathrooms. Include half baths, bonus rooms, offices and finished basements.
• Roughly how many square feet? Ballpark is fine.
• When was it last professionally cleaned? This is how you find out if a deep clean is needed first.
• Pets? How many, what kind, and do they shed.
• How often? Weekly, every two weeks or monthly.
• Any extras? Inside oven, inside fridge, interior windows, baseboards, cabinets, laundry, linens.
• How will we get in? Home, key, lockbox, door code, alarm.
• Anything to skip or anything special? Rooms to leave alone, products to use or avoid.

It looks like a lot, but it takes a few minutes once you have done it a dozen times.

Enter It As You Go

The worst place for phone answers is a notepad. In MaidBossPro, build the estimate while you talk. Enter the cleaning type, bedrooms, bathrooms, square feet and pets, add the extras the customer wants from your service list, and type the entry notes: “Lockbox on side door, code in notes, alarm off on cleaning day.”

Because prices can tie to bedrooms, bathrooms or square feet, the price comes from your setup as you enter the details. You can tell the customer the number while they are still on the line. And because those details stay on the estimate, they carry onto the job when it is approved. Nothing said on the call gets lost.

Giving the Price

Say the price clearly, with what it includes and what it assumes:

“For a 3 bed / 2 bath home with one dog, the first visit is a deep clean at $325. After that, every two weeks is $155 a visit. The inside of the oven on the first visit is $35. That's based on what you've told me, and if the home is quite different when we arrive, we'll talk with you before the second visit.”

Those are example prices. The key parts are the first-visit price, the recurring price, the extras and a short note about what the price is based on. Do not apologize for the price, and do not discount on the spot. If the customer hesitates, offer a different frequency rather than a lower number.

Send the Estimate Before You Hang Up

Tell the customer you are sending the estimate right now, and send it. They can open it on their phone, read the line items and approve it online. A customer who has the quote in hand while the call is fresh is far more likely to book than one waiting for an email that comes the next day.

If they want to think about it, that is fine. Estimate follow-up emails remind them later, so you do not have to remember to call back. Templates for your most common phone quotes make this even quicker, as covered in Cleaning Estimate Templates for Your Most Common Jobs.

When the Phone Is Not Enough

Some jobs should not be priced over the phone: very large homes, homes in heavy condition, post-construction, and offices with unusual layouts. Recognizing those calls is covered in the next guide. For everything else, a consistent phone script and an estimate built while you talk will win more jobs and fewer surprises. For how phone quotes fit with the rest of your estimating, visit the house cleaning estimate software page.