Phone answering for a cleaning business

"How much for a three-bedroom house?"

That's how nearly every call to a cleaning business opens. Before the name, before the address. And whoever answers has about a minute to give a real number, or the caller thanks them and tries the next company on the list.

So phone answering for a cleaning business comes down to two jobs: quoting from your price list and sorting out dates. A good setup knows your prices by home size, asks the few things that change the price, takes the booking request and hands it to your staff to confirm. Our line works that way. It quotes only from the list you give it, and only if you allow it.

The things that change the price are the ones you ask without thinking. Bedrooms and bathrooms. Rough square footage. Pets. When the place last had a proper clean. Extras like inside the oven, inside the fridge, interior windows. Say your list has a three-bed, two-bath standard clean at $180 and a first-time deep clean at $290. That's what the caller hears, with extras priced from the same list.

"Do you do weekly, or just one-offs?"

Recurring work is the business, so this answer matters more than it sounds. The line explains what you offer (weekly, every two weeks, monthly), what each costs, and that the first visit is usually a deep clean at a different price, if that's your policy.

We'd put the recurring prices in the instructions as plain numbers. "It's cheaper if you book regularly" convinces nobody. "$150 every two weeks against $180 for a single visit" does.

For a recurring request it asks the preferred day and time of day, how your team gets in, and whether there's an alarm, a pet or a parking problem. Keys, lockboxes and door codes get written down for you. You can tell it never to repeat a code to a caller. For a one-off it asks the date, the reason (guests coming, a party just gone, builders just left) and whether the date can move.

"Can you do a move-out clean by the 30th?"

Move-out calls run on a deadline, and they come with questions a regular clean doesn't. Will the place be empty? Will the water and power still be on that day? Are there carpets? Is there a checklist from the landlord or the property manager, and who's paying, the tenant or the owner? Where do the keys go afterwards?

If there's a checklist, the caller can paste it into an email to the line's own address, or send a link, and it arrives in the same history as the call. A PDF or a photo of it won't. The line keeps the text of an email and not the attachments, so for those put your office inbox in the instructions and the line gives that out.

Two things the line won't do here. It won't promise a date it can't see is free, so it takes the deadline and says your staff will confirm. And when a tenant asks whether the clean will get their deposit back, it doesn't answer. That's between them and their landlord, and no one on your phone should be predicting it.

"Can I move my Thursday?"

Existing clients call to reschedule far more than they call for anything else. The line takes their name and address, the visit they want to move, and two or three days that would suit. It states your policy on notice and late cancellations the same way on every call, which is more than most of us manage at 5pm on a Friday.

It can't see your schedule, so it doesn't confirm the new slot. The request goes to your staff. The exception is if you run your own AI assistant and you've given it access to your calendar. Then that assistant can make the change itself.

It works in the other direction too. When a team is running forty minutes late, or standing at a door nobody's opening, you can tell the line to call the client. It makes the call and tells you what was agreed. We say call, because texts from the line to other people are limited for now.

"Is it the same person every time?"

Then there are the small questions that decide whether someone lets you into their home. Do I get the same cleaner each visit? Do you bring your own supplies? Are you insured? Do I need to be there?

The line answers these from what you've written and nothing else. If your instructions say you're insured and bonded, it says that. If they don't mention it, it says someone will confirm. It doesn't decorate.

Complaints get the same treatment. A client calls to say a vase was chipped or the bathroom was missed. The line takes down what happened, when, and what they'd like done, in their words. It doesn't argue and it doesn't promise a refund. You decide, with the facts in front of you.

Who confirms the slot

Your staff do, in the tool they already use. The line is the phone conversation. It doesn't plug into booking software and it doesn't pretend to. After each call there's a written note with the home size, the type of clean, the price quoted, the preferred times and the next step, and whoever runs your schedule takes it from there.

Payment stays with you as well. The line never takes a card number and never agrees to a charge, so deposits happen wherever you take them now. The home services page has sample instructions, and how to brief an AI receptionist goes deeper on writing them.

Write the price list down first

If your prices live in your head, fixing that is tonight's job, whatever you decide about the phone. One page. Home sizes down the side, types of clean across the top, extras underneath, and a line for what you don't do.

Once that page exists, everyone who picks up your phone gives the same number. You, your office manager on a Monday, the line at 8pm. If you'd like to hear what an AI sounds like answering a phone before you hand it your price list, ours is called Lilly, on (949) 368-9902.

Common questions

More on home services

• An answering service for plumbers that takes the whole job down
• HVAC answering service: handling the first hot week of summer
• Answering service for contractors: quotes, callbacks and site visits
• Answering calls as a one-truck electrician