AI receptionist for cleaning companies. Can you do Tuesdays.
Your enquiries are not problems, they are availability questions, and that is the rare kind a receptionist can properly answer instead of writing down. Carrie says what you have got free, takes the address, the hours and whether it is weekly or fortnightly, and the job reaches whoever builds the rota.
Domestic and commercial come down the same line and want opposite conversations. She knows which one she is having by the second question.
How does an AI receptionist work for a cleaning company?
An AI receptionist answers the availability question with a real answer, works out whether it is a house or a business, and hands the rota something it can actually use. The same receptionist answers for every trade and local service on our books, and for yours the questions are about slots rather than faults.
Customers ring to ask a question, not to report a problem
Do you cover CO10. Can anybody do a Thursday morning. Do you do ovens. Nothing about that needs you, and all of it needs answering before they try the next firm.
Carrie answers and then qualifies the job
House or business. How many bedrooms, or how many desks. Weekly, fortnightly or a one-off end of tenancy. What time of day. Is there parking. Are there pets.
The job arrives as something the rota can take
A postcode, a slot, the hours and the frequency, in one place, rather than six voicemails that somebody has to ring back and re-ask.
A normal Monday
You are covering a sickness yourself, which is what happens most Mondays, so you are in somebody's kitchen with the machine going. Fourteen calls across the day.
Your office phone is a mobile in your pocket and you got to three of them. The rest rang out, and cleaning is the trade where they simply try the next name, because everybody does much the same thing.
Answered, that Monday looks like this by five o'clock. Nine domestic enquiries, seven of them inside the postcodes you cover, with the bedrooms, the frequency and the preferred day on each. Two were out of area and were told so politely rather than being strung along.
Three were commercial: a dental practice wanting an evening clean five nights, a small office wanting a fortnightly, and a landlord wanting an end of tenancy on Friday.
You built the rota that evening off a list instead of off fourteen missed numbers.
What cleaning companies ask about it
Mostly about whether it can be trusted with the availability answer, and about keys, which is the thing this trade cannot afford to get wrong.
Can it really tell somebody what we have got free?
It reads your own rota, so it says what is actually free rather than guessing. If Thursday mornings are gone until October, it says so and offers what there is.
That is the difference for this trade. Nearly every other trade on our list needs the boss to answer the question. Yours does not, so the caller gets a real answer at the moment they asked it, which is when they were deciding.
How are keys and alarm codes protected?
Every one of them stays behind you. Which cleaner holds a key, whether anybody is in a property today, an alarm code: none of it is ever said to a caller.
Anybody who asks is told a person will ring them back, and you get told they asked. Somebody phoning up to find out when a house is empty is a thing that happens, and now you hear about it.
Can it price a clean?
It can give your rate if you have one. Cleaning is often priced by the hour, and saying so up front wins the call. A whole house or an end of tenancy needs eyes on it first, so it gathers the details and sends them to you.
You decide what it says about price, and it says exactly that.
How does it handle commercial enquiries?
Differently, and on purpose. It asks what the premises are, roughly the size, how many nights, whether it is out of hours, whether they need their own products, and whether it goes to tender. Then it flags it to you rather than trying to book it, because a contract is a conversation.
What about end of tenancy? They always want it tomorrow.
She asks the date the keys go back, which is the only date that matters, and whether it is furnished, and whether the oven and the carpets are included. Those three decide whether you can take it at all.
Does it check the postcode before booking anything?
Yes, against the areas you actually cover, and it says no politely when it is outside them. Booking a job forty minutes away by accident costs you a morning and a customer.
Half my callers ask whether my staff are vetted.
It answers with whatever is TRUE for your business and nothing else. If your cleaners are DBS checked and insured, it says so plainly, because that is the answer that wins the job.
Everything she says about vetting and insurance is what is true for your business. So the answer that wins the job is also the one that stands up afterwards.
My cleaners ring in sick at six in the morning. Does it help?
She answers at six and takes the message, so you find out when they ring rather than when you wake up.
The round stays yours to move, because moving a cleaner from one house to another is a judgement about customers you know.
Do people trust talking to it?
They get a straight answer to a question there and then, at a time when you cannot pick up. For a scheduling question that is what people actually want. Anybody who would rather speak to you says so and she gets you.
Does my number change?
No.
How is it set up?
Twenty minutes: your postcodes, your rate or what you say instead of one, which services you do and do not do, what is true about vetting and insurance, and how far ahead you are booked. Then you hear the first call.
Does an assistant know which days we cover?
"Who cleans on a Tuesday round here" is a question people now put to an assistant rather than searching. One answer comes back with a name in it, and Google writes the same sort of answer above the blue links for people who have never opened an assistant.
- The days you work and the postcodes you cover are stated facts. Written on the page as text they can be matched. Held in your head they cannot.
- The answer is only as good as the phone behind it. Cleaning is the trade where the next name will do just as well, so a call that rings out undoes the introduction.
- How far you travel is a stated fact as well. Put it on the page and the enquiries that reach your phone are the ones you actually want.
Where else does she answer?
The phone is one of seven. A lot of domestic cleaning enquiries start on Facebook and never touch a phone at all.
The AI receptionist
All seven channels, and what she covers on each one. See the AI receptionist
A website for your trade
The site that separates domestic from commercial and holds the rota. See details
Facebook Messenger
Where a lot of local cleaning work actually starts. See details
What else is worth reading?
Every page here answers one question properly rather than skimming five. These are the others, and each one says what it is before you click it.
AI receptionist for decorators
You are up a ladder in a front room with a brush in your hand. She answers, takes the rooms and the timescale, and books the look round.
AI receptionist, dental and medical practices
The queue at half eight, and the ones who ring on a Sunday in pain. She answers every one, and knows exactly what she must not say.
Foothold AI: websites and AI for local service businesses
A website that gets found, a back office that runs the day, and an app for your team. From £295 to set up and £99 a month. Suffolk based, UK wide.
Where we work: Suffolk and north Essex
Twenty towns across Suffolk and north Essex, from Sudbury. Most are twenty or thirty minutes away, and the person who builds your site comes out.
How many asked about Tuesdays and never got an answer?
In this trade they do not wait. They try the next name, because the next name does the same thing you do.
Twenty minutes with Chad. Nothing to pay and nothing to sign. The whole receptionist, and all seven channels, are on the AI receptionist page.