MaidBossPro Blog — Scheduling & Teams

On-the-Way and Arrived Texts: Letting Customers Know the Cleaning Team Is Coming

A cleaning customer usually has a small list of things to do before the team arrives. Leave the side door open. Put the dog in the back room. Move the laptop off the kitchen table. Leave the check, or not, because the card is on file. A text that says “we're on our way” gives them a few minutes to do it.

Backing Up the Window

Arrival windows, described in Arrival Windows and Call-Ahead: Promising a Time Without Boxing In the Team, tell the customer roughly when to expect the team. On-the-way and arrived texts tell them exactly when, based on what is actually happening.

Sent From the Team App

In MaidBossPro, on-the-way and arrived texts are sent automatically from the team app as the team works through the day. The team lead does not have to type a message, find a phone number or remember to send it. They work their homes in route order, and the texts go out.

That matters because the moment a team is leaving one home is exactly the moment nobody has a free hand. One person is packing the vacuum, another is checking the last bathroom, and the lead is making sure the door is locked behind them. A text that sends itself is a text that actually gets sent.

Customers Choose Their Alerts

Not every customer wants every text. Some want to know about everything. Some find texts annoying. MaidBossPro lets each customer pick their own alert preferences:

• Night before: a reminder that tomorrow is cleaning day.
• When they're next: a text when their home is the next stop on the route.
• When the team arrives: a text when the team pulls up.

A customer who works from home might want only the arrived text. A customer who needs to open a gate might want “when they're next.” A customer who is never home might want only the night-before reminder. Letting them choose means fewer complaints about too many texts and fewer complaints about too few.

Why the Arrived Text Matters

The arrived text is easy to underrate. It does a few useful things:

• It tells a customer who is home that the knock at the door is the cleaning team. That is reassuring for customers who are cautious about opening the door.
• It tells a customer who is away that the team is inside. For homes with a lockbox or door code, that is peace of mind.
• It gives the customer a moment to mention something. “Please skip the office today, I'm on a call” is much better heard at the start than after the vacuum has run past the door.

Replies Go to the Office

When a customer replies to a text, the reply comes to the office through two-way texting. The office can answer it, pass it to the team, or update the job notes. “Can they do the inside of the fridge today?” becomes a quick decision at the office, not a surprise on site.

This keeps the team out of a dozen side conversations while they work, and it keeps a record of what the customer asked for.

Texts Follow the Route

Because the texts come from the team's progress, they follow the actual route order. If the office moves a home earlier or later, or a sick day moves it to another team, the alerts go out from whichever team ends up going, at the time they are really heading over. That is one reason to keep the route order on the board up to date when things change.

For customers who want even more detail, the customer app shows the live route map with their place in it. That is covered in The Customer App Route Map: Showing Customers Their Place in the Cleaning Team's Day.

Texts Are Part of the Plan

Every MaidBossPro plan includes a monthly text allowance: 500, 1,000 or 2,000 segments sent and received on Start, Pro or Crew. Keeping messages short and plain helps them go further. Texting works for customers in the US and Canada, and emails are available for reminders and alerts too.

Fewer Calls, Calmer Days

The biggest benefit of automatic texts is not any single message. It is the phone calls that never happen. Customers who know the team is coming do not call to ask. Customers who got the arrived text do not call to check. Office time goes back into building tomorrow's schedule. For the full picture of scheduling and customer communication, see the MaidBossPro cleaning scheduling software page.