MaidBossPro Blog — Recurring Cleanings

Requests From Recurring Cleaning Clients Through the Customer App

Recurring clients have a steady trickle of small requests. Can you add the oven next time? Can I get an extra cleaning before my mother visits? My card expired. What did I pay last month? Each one, by phone, is a call the office has to answer, often while doing three other things. A customer app lets clients handle much of it themselves, at nine at night, without waiting on hold.

What Recurring Clients Can Do in the App

Vacation dates, covered in Vacation Holds for Recurring Cleaning Clients: Move the Visit or Skip It, usually arrive by text. Plenty of other requests can come through the customer app instead.

In the MaidBossPro customer app, clients can:

• Request service, such as an extra cleaning or a one-time deep clean
• Sign up for services and see your pricing
• Update their card on file
• See invoices and pay online
• Rate visits and refer friends
• See today's route on a live map on cleaning day
• See before-and-after photos on past visits, when you turn that on
• Choose their alerts: night before, when they're next and when the team arrives

Service Requests

The most common requests from recurring clients are for more cleaning: an extra visit before a party, a deep clean before the holidays, a move-out clean for a rental they own. When a client requests service through the app, the request comes to the office, and you turn it into a job on the schedule.

A few tips for handling them:

• Respond quickly. A client who asked for something should hear back the same day, even if it is just “Got it, we have Thursday open.”
• Think about the count. An extra standard cleaning resets the days since the last cleaning, which can push the next regular visit. Ask the client if they want the regular visit to stay put.
• Add extras to the regular visit when you can. If the client just wants the oven done, it is usually easier to add Inside Oven to their next scheduled visit than to send a team out separately.

Card Updates and Invoices

For recurring clients on auto-charge, the card update is one of the most useful things the app does. When a card expires or gets replaced, the client updates it in the app, and the next cleaning charges the new card. No reading numbers over the phone.

Invoices are there too. A recurring client can look back at any visit, see what was on it and what they paid. If a charge failed, they can pay the open invoice online right from the app. This cuts down on calls asking “what was this charge for?” More on billing is in Auto-Charging Recurring Cleaning Clients After Each Cleaning.

The Live Route Map

On cleaning day, the customer app shows the client the route on a live map and their place in it: “You're stop 3 of 5 — the crew is 1 stop away.” Clients who work from home use it to plan around the visit. Clients who want to be out of the house when the team arrives use it to time their errands. Either way, it saves the office a lot of “when will they get here?” calls.

Ratings and Referrals

Recurring clients can rate visits in the app. Ratings are an early warning system. A long-time client who suddenly rates a visit low is telling you something before they cancel. Call them. Ask what happened. Look at the before-and-after photos and the team's notes for that visit. Often it is something small, like a skipped room or a moved item, that is easy to fix if you hear about it.

Referrals matter for recurring businesses because happy recurring clients know other people who want the same thing. Neighbors, coworkers and friends from the kids' school all live within reach of your existing routes. A client who refers through the app is handing you a new recurring client who probably lives nearby.

Requests That Should Still Be a Text

Not everything belongs in the app. Changes to entry codes, schedule changes for this week, vacation dates and anything sensitive or urgent are often easiest by two-way texting with the office. Make sure clients know they can always text you. The app handles the routine. Texts handle the conversations.

Tell Clients the App Exists

A customer app only helps if clients use it. Mention it in the welcome text after signup, link it in your reminder emails, and point clients to it when they call about something the app can handle. To see how the customer app fits with the rest of recurring work, visit the MaidBossPro recurring cleaning software page.