Sarah O'Brien runs Sparkle Clean with one part-time cleaner. They do regular domestic cleans, end-of-lease cleans, and one-off deep cleans across Mernda, South Morang and Doreen. Sarah handles all bookings, customer communication and scheduling herself — while also doing the cleaning.
The business had grown from 8 regular clients to 26 in 18 months. The manual admin that worked fine at 8 clients was falling apart at 26.
Every new booking required Sarah to manually send a confirmation SMS. At 26 clients with some having fortnightly bookings, this was 12 to 15 manual messages per week — all while she was trying to do the actual cleaning.
Clients occasionally forgot their booking, especially for once-a-month or end-of-lease cleans booked weeks in advance. Sarah would arrive to find no one home. She charged a cancellation fee but it still wasted two to three hours.
New enquiries came in through Facebook, SMS and occasionally the website. If Sarah was in the middle of a clean when they arrived, they sat unread for three to four hours. Two prospective clients she knew about had gone elsewhere during that time.
From two to three missed bookings per month down to roughly one every six to eight weeks, after implementing day-before reminder SMS.
Booking confirmations, reminders and basic enquiry replies that previously required manual attention at various points through the day.
A low-cost SMS scheduling tool covers the day-before reminders. The time saved more than covers the cost in the first week.
We help small mobile service businesses set up booking confirmations, reminders and enquiry replies that run without manual effort every day.
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