WindowBossPro Blog — Recurring Cleanings

Reminders Before Every Recurring Window Cleaning Visit

A recurring plan only works if the customer is ready when the van pulls up. Blinds open, the dog inside, the gate left open, the car out of the driveway where the ladder needs to go. For a one-time job, you can call the day before. For a few hundred plan customers coming due every week, you need reminders that go out on their own.

Why Plan Customers Need Reminders

Plan pricing gives customers a reason to stay, as covered in Pricing Plan Visits vs One-Time Window Cleaning Jobs. Reminders give them a reason never to be surprised.

A quarterly customer has three months to forget you are coming. A twice-a-year customer has six. Without a reminder, the tech shows up to locked gates, closed blinds on inside-and-outside jobs and a homeowner who scheduled the carpet cleaner the same morning. Every one of those is a wasted trip, a skipped visit and a cleaning that has to be rescheduled.

Reminders also tell the customer you are on top of things. A text the night before says “we did not forget about you,” which is half the reason people pay for a plan.

Automated Reminders by Text and Email

WindowBossPro sends automated reminders by text and email before visits, so nobody in the office has to work through a call list. Once a recurring cleaning is put on a van and a day from the Waiting List, the customer is in line for the reminders that go with it.

A good reminder is short and specific:

• Who is coming: your company name.
• When: the day of the visit.
• What helps: “Please leave the side gate open and blinds up for the inside cleaning.”
• How to reply: customers can text back, and replies go to the office.

Tailor the wording to the kind of plan. A storefront reminder can be one line, because the shop is open and the glass faces the street. A quarterly home with an inside cleaning needs a little more: blinds, pets, furniture by the windows, and whether someone needs to be home. Writing two or three reminder styles up front saves the office from rewriting them every week.

Alerts the Customer Chooses

Not every customer wants the same amount of contact. In the customer app, customers choose their own alerts:

• Night before — a heads-up the evening before the visit.
• When I'm next — a text when they are the next stop on the route.
• Tech arrived — a text when the tech pulls up.

A busy storefront owner may only want the arrived text. A homeowner with a dog and an inside cleaning may want all three. Letting customers choose cuts down on complaints from both directions: nobody feels spammed, and nobody gets surprised. On the day of the visit, on-the-way and arrived texts go out automatically from the tech's phone as the route moves.

Replies Come Back to the Office

Reminders start conversations. “Can you come Thursday instead?” “Gate code changed to 4471.” “Skip the inside this time, we have guests.” WindowBossPro has two-way texting from the office, so every reply lands in a thread with that customer and whoever answers can see the history.

Act on replies quickly and update the address. A new gate code goes in the access notes so the tech sees it on the phone. A request to move the visit means pulling it from that day's route and putting it on another. A request to skip is covered in Handling Skipped Visits on a Recurring Window Cleaning Plan.

Watching the Text Allowance

Texts cost money to send, and they are billed by segment. WindowBossPro plans include a monthly text allowance of 500, 1,000 or 2,000 segments sent and received on Start, Pro and Crew. A few habits keep reminders inside the allowance:

• Keep reminder text short. One clear sentence beats three.
• Let customers choose fewer alerts if they want fewer.
• Use email for longer messages like price changes or seasonal news.

As your plan base grows, check how much of the allowance you are using so you can pick the plan size that fits.

Reminders That Prevent Skipped Visits

Most skipped visits on a recurring route come down to the customer not knowing you were coming. Locked gates, cars in the way, closed blinds. A good reminder before every visit fixes most of that before the van leaves the shop. Fewer skips means fewer trips back, fewer overdue pins on the Waiting List and more cleanings finished on the first try.

For the full set of recurring tools, from plans to auto-charge, visit the recurring window cleaning software page.