Never miss a call with 24/7 live receptionists.

Cleaning companies are regularly fully booked, their schedules often overwhelmed with various home, office, and event cleaning projects. They don't have the free time to every single call that comes in, but providing quality customer support through a reliable cleaning answering service has been shown to support businesses in the ways that matter most. Here are a number of the benefits home, office, and dry-cleaning specialists have experienced with us:

• Expanded availability‍

With a phone call answering service that’s available 24/7, your clients will always have a real person to talk to, whether your cleaning company is busy, closed, or on holiday. Your clients’ questions always receive a thoughtful response.

• Increased lead captured  

Missed calls means missed opportunities. Don’t say goodbye to leads just because you’re not always able to pick up the phone. Answering services provide nighttime, overflow, weekend, and after-hours availability so your company never misses another call. 

• Increased work productivity 

Through outsourcing call handling to an answering service, you’ll have the spare time to spend where you need it most and focus on more important work to create and grow your cleaning business.

• Enhanced client satisfaction and business reputation

Here at Smith.ai, we know great customer service and how to deliver it for a range of business types and industries. Our virtual receptionists are well trained in customer service and hospitality, so let us put our perfected practices to work for you and deliver an exceptional and professional response that represents your cleaning business in the most positive way possible. 

• Save money and time

No need to allocate limited time and money towards hiring an in-house receptionist when you can get all of the services you need and then some with an answering service for a fraction of the price. Customers who use Smith.ai can save upwards of $30,000/year. 

• Stay up-to-date with leads and clients

Phone answering services can provide your cleaning company with detailed call summaries after each call and even provide your customers with chat, social media, and text messaging so you can stay in contact with your most valued clients.

A live cleaning answering service can provide your business with a much needed sense of relief, whether your business is on a budget, overwhelmed by overflow calls, or simply looking to enrich your company’s customer service. Your cleaning company can reap even more benefits to help your team accomplish its goals, whatever they may look like, with Smith.ai’s cleaning answering service.

Smith.ai’s answering service can provide cleaning businesses with…

24/7 availability

After-hours & overflow answering

Bilingual answering

Outbound call-backs

Spam blocking

Appointment scheduling

Sales development

Payment collection

CRM Integration

Lead development

And much more…‍

With a seemingly endless list of accommodating features, Smith.ai’s answering service is guaranteed to boost cleaning companies' productivity, revenue, and outreach. Smith.ai has offered quality service to cleaning businesses for years and our clients trust Smith.ai to provide their business with premium support. Read our 5-star reviews to learn why cleaning services rely on Smith.ai.

The cost of a receptionist is obviously one of the most important factors to consider when deciding on whether to hire an answering service or a traditional, in-house receptionist. To give you an idea, here are the average expenses that come with an in-house receptionist.

The average salary nation-wide for an in-house receptionist is about $37,000 and they usually come with surprisingly pricey, hidden fees, such as:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance, costing about $11,000/year
• Life and disability insurance, costing about $2,000/year
• 401K’s, retirement and pension plans, costing about $2,000/year
• Paid sick leave, holidays, and vacations, costing about $5,500/year
• Commuting reimbursement, costing about $5,000/year
• Child care subsidy and parental leave, costing about $3,000/year
• Health and wellness programs, costing about $1,000/year
• Bonus pay, costing about $2,000/year
• Company retreats, team bonding events, and employee outings, costing about $4,000/year
• Free lunch, snacks, and drinks, costing about $3,500/year
  

Total Cost in Addition to Salary: $77,000/year

If your cleaning company is located in a highly populated area, the total cost may be even higher, especially when your in-house receptionist inevitably comes in late, calls in sick, requests time off, takes personal leaves of absence, goes on vacation, etc. Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists can accomplish the same tasks as in-house receptionist and then some, barring coffee runs and supply restocks, of course, and are much less expensive because your company doesn't have to pay for any of our receptionists' benefits or salaries.

Smith.ai’s answering service costs as little as $255/month, with no hidden fees. Ever. By hiring an answering service instead of an in-house receptionist, your business could save over $33,000/year on salary alone, and possibly up to $40,000/year in benefits beyond salary payments. Not only will your business save money, but your business will also be able to optimize productivity and revenue like never before. Unlike in-house receptionists, virtual receptionists can answer calls outside of normal operating hours, which is far more important than you might recognize, as 27% of leads call after hours. Smith.ai’s agents can answer live chats, texts, and social media messages. SMS answering can be overlooked yet over 46% of customers prefer communicating with businesses through text. 

Virtual receptionists can even provide sales assistance by making outbound calls to convert more leads, which has been proven to be helpful as over 67% of clients base their decision to hire a business on the initial responsiveness to their call or email. It’s absolutely crucial for businesses to respond promptly. Leaving leads waiting can encourage them to take their business elsewhere and you may not have the chance to explain why you’re the right cleaning service for them, costing you much more than one customer. With Smith.ai’s cleaning answering service, your business can receive all the benefits of an in-house worker without the unnecessarily high cost. Read our article to learn more about the differences between an in-house vs. a virtual receptionist.

Owning and operating a cleaning service can become unmanageable quickly, from delegating various cleaning projects to overseeing overall company development and growth. Companies like these inevitably come face-to-face with issues that can easily impact their ability to succeed. The most common scenarios that cleaning teams like yours need virtual receptionist services for are:

• I require “front desk” support, but can't afford it

“Front desk” support helps offset regular administrative pressures so workers can focus on what matters most: getting real work done. When cleaning companies have a more realistic, yet smaller budget, however, they may not be able to afford the high expenses that come with an in-house receptionists, especially when they already have to make room for office rent, cleaning supplies, marketing, and advertising. 

• I'm constantly distracted by phone call interruptions

Phone calls come in whether your cleaning company is open and your team is available to answer them or not. When cleaning specialists have to answer phone calls in addition to their regular cleaning projects, they can quickly fall behind on work and lose focus on their tasks. On average, it takes about 23 minutes to get back to a task after being interrupted by a phone call.

• My cleaning team can't handle growing business demands

Businesses grow and while that growth is great for many reasons, it can be difficult for already-overworked employees to keep up. With calls that need to be answered, appointments that need to be scheduled, and invoices that need to be sent, it’s easy to see how cleaning teams can fail to get everything done.

• I can’t offer around-the-clock availability to answer calls 

When the work day ends, home, office, and dry-cleaning specialists want to go home and enjoy their free time away from clients, but calls don’t stop coming in and when your team isn't available to answer the phone, leads can often be missed, as over 27% of leads call outside of regular business hours. Sure, cleaning businesses may want to offer accessible customer service around-the-clock, but it's often unrealistic and unmanageable for them to provide after-hours availability, especially with a limited in-house staff.

If your cleaning team is enduring any one of these troubling scenarios, an answering service can help by allowing a trained professional to take these tasks on for you. A cleaning answering service will help your team by sending some of the more time-consuming and frustrating responsibilities to virtual receptionist, who can address and resolve many of the tedious issues your business faces. Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists can be of great service to you, whether your cleaning company is searching for additional call handling, spam blocking, or lead qualifying support. By eliminating the need to allocate time to screening calls and answering clients’ questions, your cleaning business can get back to focusing on more important work without neglecting your client relationships.

Cleaning companies are not exempt from finding themselves in compromising situations that require outsourced assistance to resolve, like any business. Some of the most frequently reported problems are:

• I can't answer all of the incoming calls and messages from clients

With a limited staff and a never-ending list of assignments, cleaning staff may struggle to answer phones and respond to messages from clients as quickly as they need to in order to capture leads while they can. Attempting to successfully keep a cleaning business up and running while still providing high-quality customer service can lead to poor performance in both.

• I can't be productive because I'm spending a large portion of my day on administrative tasks

With the cost of in-house receptionists being as high as it is, cleaning teams are left to delegate administrative tasks themselves. Despite spending a large portion of their day getting these office duties done, home, office, and dry-cleaning specialists are usually unequipped to balance their important cleaning projects with their administrative tasks. 

• I’m missing out on new business leads because I can't answer their calls

Cleaning businesses may try to attempt to respond to all of the calls they receive, however, they usually have higher priority tasks that take precedent. Cleaning teams can quickly fall behind on responding to new inquiries so potential leads will be missed.

• I can’t respond to leads as quickly as my competition

It's no doubt a major obstacle for cleaning companies to demonstrate their specialties and stand out amongst their competitors. Providing quality customer service through quick and thoughtful responses can place businesses well above the rest, but many cleaning businesses lack the free time between cleaning appointments to do so. 

• I'm struggling to capturing and convert new clients

One of the most crucial, yet challenging aspects of building a successful business is finding and converting new clients. With so much time and effort being spent towards existing clients, cleaning businesses may not have the ability to seek out and convert new clients. Home, office, and dry-cleaning specialists who spread their workload too thin may not be able to deliver quality customer service. Slow response times may frustrate customers and severely impact client loyalty and retention, as well.

• I'm unable to store and track of all of my clients’ data properly

Maintaining detailed phone records and call summaries isn't a simple task for cleaning businesses who likely disperse client data across a multitude of software platforms. Knowing how, when, and why clients call is significant for any business hoping to successfully navigate client relationships, but unfortunately, is not always easy to accomplish.

If your cleaning business is struggling to overcome one or any of these challenges, but struggling to do so, a virtual receptionist service may be useful for you. One of the many accommodating features of Smith.ai is that our services fit your business needs, not the other way around. Our virtual receptionists can allocate time where you need it most and address the specific issues your business face, whether your team needs additional support answering calls, book consultations, or sending invoices. Sign up risk-free with our 14-day money-back guarantee and see how Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists can alleviate the problems your cleaning company faces.

A good place to start is determining which services are most valuable and needed to your cleaning business. To figure out which services might be best for your business to receive, ask yourself what problems or opportunities you face that a virtual receptionist service can help to address:

• Does your business struggle to respond to client inquiries over the phone or online? 
• Does your business need additional help collecting payments? 
• Does your business have a hard time balance your team's workload with admin tasks, like scheduling? 
  

Whatever it may be, Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists can adjust their service to better suit your business needs. 

After that, think about what services would best fit your company’s activity level: 

• Does your business receive hundreds of calls a day or just a few?
• Do you receive more online messages than calls?
• Would your business benefit from 24/7 phone answering or would you prefer a particular time frame, such as 9-to-5, for answering calls? 
  

Whether you get twenty calls a month or 2,000, Smith.ai can customize your virtual receptionist service to fit your business activity so you only pay for what you need. 

All you have to do next is sign up. Getting started with Smith.ai’s virtual receptionist service is simple and fast. No annual contracts, no setup fees, and no need to supply scripts. 

Follow three simple steps:

1. Customize your instructions – Just answer a few, quick questions about your firm and the preferences you have and we’ll get you started. We’ll use your answers to customize the way our virtual receptionists answer your calls and your clients’ questions. 
2. Send your calls to us – We work with every phone system and can set up customized rules for when we answer your calls. Or we can answer every call, 24/7!
3. Try risk-free with our 14-day money-back guarantee – Fully experience our call answering, scheduling, payments, and other phone services completely risk free for 14 days. If we're not the right fit for you, get your money back up to $1000 within the first 14 days.

Whether your business is looking for a full-time virtual receptionist or an overflow or occasional phone answering service, Smith.ai can offer customized assistance to your team with quality customer service, lead screening, and sales development. When you sign up with Smith.ai, you won’t just be gaining a virtual receptionist service, you’ll be gaining a professional, reliable, and friendly team who are guaranteed to transform your business by capturing leads and delighting current clients. 

‍Learn how to get started with Smith.ai’s virtual receptionist service.