MaidBossPro Blog — Scheduling & Teams

Scheduling a New Customer's First Clean and Their Recurring Start

The first clean at a new home sets the tone for the whole relationship. The customer is watching closely, the team has never been inside, and the home usually needs more work than it will on any visit after. Scheduling that first visit well, and starting the recurring rhythm cleanly after it, saves trouble for months.

Where the First Clean Fits in the Rhythm

The recurring plans themselves are covered in Weekly, Every Two Weeks or Monthly: Scheduling Recurring Cleaning Rhythms. A new customer joins one of those rhythms, but they usually start with something different.

Many cleaning companies require, or strongly suggest, a first-time deep clean before a new customer goes onto a recurring plan. The reasoning is practical: a home that has not been professionally cleaned in a while has build-up that a maintenance clean will not touch. A first-time deep clean, say $325 for a 3-bed / 2-bath, gets the home to a baseline the regular visits can keep.

From Sign-Up to First Visit

New customers come in a few ways. Some fill out the request form on your website and you send an estimate. Some fill out the sign-up form, with a card captured, and it lands in Form Responses, where one click converts it into a client. Some call.

Either way, the estimate carries the details: cleaning type, bedrooms, bathrooms, square feet, pets, extras and entry notes. When the customer approves it online, it becomes the scheduled job and those details come along. The team sees “Deep Clean · 3 bed / 2 bath · 1,800 sq ft · Dog” on the card without anyone re-typing it.

Picking the First Day and Team

The team you pick for the first clean is the team the customer will expect next time, so it is worth choosing with the long term in mind:

• Which team works this neighborhood? If Team 2 is already on the street every other Thursday, start the customer with Team 2.
• Which day will the recurring visits land on? Pick the slot the customer will keep: the same day, time and team every visit. If Thursday at 9:00 AM is the slot, a Thursday first clean keeps things simple.
• Does the day have room? A first-time deep clean is long. Filter the board by team and make sure the day can hold it without pushing the regular homes late.

Some owners give first cleans an extra person or an extra hour on purpose. That is a judgment call, but the board makes it easy to see whether there is room.

Starting the Recurring Rhythm

Once the first clean is booked, open Recurring Cleanings and click Add Recurring Cleaning. Pick the home, the service and price, how often (weekly, every 2 weeks, every 4 weeks or monthly), the first regular date, the time and the team, then schedule 3, 6 or 12 months ahead. Every visit lands straight on the schedule, with the home's details copied onto each one.

For every-two-weeks customers, think about which week the second visit falls in. If the team's other every-two-weeks homes in that area are all on the A week, starting the new customer so they land on the B week keeps the team's weeks even. That is easier to set up now than to fix later.

Getting the Notes Right

The first visit is the best time to learn the home. Ask the team to leave good notes: which door they used, how the lockbox worked, which rooms the customer asked to skip, which products to use, how the pets behaved. These go into the job notes and onto the home.

MaidBossPro remembers each home. The next job at that address fills in from this one, including bedrooms, bathrooms, pets, extras and the entry code, with a note saying so. The team app also shows past notes, so the second visit starts with everything the first visit learned. Entry notes are covered in Entry Codes on the Card: Lockboxes, Keys and Alarms in the Team's Day.

Telling the Customer What to Expect

A new customer does not know your routine yet. A short text from the office the day before, through two-way texting, helps: who is coming, roughly when, and how they will get in. After that, the automatic alerts take over: the reminder the night before, the “when they're next” text and the arrived text, whichever the customer chose.

The customer app also lets them see the day's route and their place in it, update their card, and see their invoice after the clean. If the owner has turned it on, they can see before-and-after photos from past visits, which is a nice way to show what the first deep clean accomplished.

The Second Visit Matters Too

The first clean impresses. The second clean is where the customer decides whether you are reliable. Make sure the second visit lands on time, with the same team, and that the notes from the first visit made it onto the card. Get those two visits right and the rhythm usually takes care of itself. For more on how recurring homes and teams fit together, see the MaidBossPro cleaning scheduling software page.