MaidBossPro Blog — House Cleaning Software

Texting and Alerts: Reminders, On-the-Way and Arrived Messages for Cleaning Clients

Texting is how cleaning clients want to hear from you. It is also how a lot of maid service owners end up with a personal phone that never stops buzzing: client questions, schedule changes, door codes, “running late” messages and payment reminders, all mixed in with family texts.

House cleaning software should take the routine messages off your hands and put the real conversations in one place.

The Messages Clients Need

Website Request and Sign-Up Forms: Turning Inquiries Into Clients covered how new clients first reach you. Once they are clients, most of your contact with them is by text.

That contact falls into two groups. Some messages are the same every time, like reminders and on-the-way notices. Others are real conversations, like a client asking to move a day. MaidBossPro handles the first group automatically and gives the office a single place for the second.

Automated Reminders and Alerts

Automated reminders and alerts go out by text and email. The three alerts clients can choose are:

• The night before. “Your cleaning is tomorrow.” Gives the client time to tidy up, put away valuables or let you know if something has changed.
• When they're next. The team is on the way. Good for clients who want to put the dog out or turn off the alarm.
• When the team arrives. Handy for clients who are at work and like knowing the team is inside.

Clients choose which ones they want, in their alert preferences. The on-the-way and arrived texts are sent automatically from the team app as the team works the route. Cleaners do not have to stop and type anything.

Two-Way Texting From the Office

When a client replies, or texts out of the blue, the message comes to the office. Two-way texting lets the office answer from one place, with the client's record right there. That changes a few things:

• The owner's personal number is not the company's number anymore.
• Anyone at the office can pick up a conversation, not just the person the client happened to text.
• Messages are tied to the client, so you can see what was said last time.
• When someone leaves the company, the client conversations stay with the company.

What to Text About, and What Not To

A few habits make texting work better for a maid service:

• Keep it short. One topic per message. “Hi! Could we move tomorrow's cleaning to Thursday?” is easier to answer than a paragraph.
• Do not text codes back and forth. Put door codes in the entry notes, where they show only to signed-in cleaners.
• Confirm changes. When a client moves a day, reply once it is done so they know it is set.
• Leave the routine to the alerts. There is no need to send a manual reminder when the night-before alert already went out.

Text Allowance and Segments

Each plan includes a monthly text allowance, counted in segments sent and received:

• Start: 500 segments.
• Pro: 1,000 segments.
• Crew: 2,000 segments.

A segment is a chunk of a text message. A short text is one segment; a long one can be several. Both the messages you send and the replies you get count. Keeping messages short and letting email carry the longer notices, like invoices, helps the allowance go further.

Texting is offered for clients in the US and Canada.

It is worth a look at your usage after the first month. If you are close to your allowance, check whether long messages could be shorter, or whether some clients would be happy with email alone. If your client list has grown, a larger plan may simply fit better now.

Emails Alongside Texts

Not everything belongs in a text. Invoices, estimate follow-ups and longer reminders work well by email. MaidBossPro sends reminders and alerts by email as well as text, and estimate follow-up emails go out on quotes that have not been approved yet. Clients who prefer email still get the information they need.

Why This Matters for a Cleaning Company

Cleaning is personal. You are in someone's home, often when they are not there. Clear communication is a big part of what makes clients trust you with a key. A night-before reminder, an arrived text and a quick answer to their question do more for that trust than almost anything else you can send.

It also saves the office real time. The routine messages go out on their own, and the conversations are in one place. Billing is the next piece of the puzzle, covered in Invoicing and Card on File: Getting Paid for Every Cleaning. To see how texting fits with the rest of the system, visit the house cleaning software page.