AI receptionist for cleaning, maintenance and moving companies
The caller wants somebody today. Every crew is out.
Cleaning, maintenance and moving work happens in other people's homes, which is where everybody who could answer the phone already is. Belline takes the job, the property and the day the caller has in mind, and your team decides who goes.
Answers in English.
By city
Where we have written it up.
Each page is about a home services company's phone in that city — the week it keeps, the languages on the line and the calls it loses.
Dubai
Since January 2022 the federal public sector has worked Monday to Friday, with the weekend on Saturday and Sunday and a shortened Friday, and most of Dubai's private sector followed it.
Abu Dhabi
Monday to Friday, weekend on Saturday and Sunday, with a short Friday across the public sector.
Sharjah
Sharjah is the outlier.
Why the calls go missing
Nobody is ignoring the phone.
Cleaning, maintenance and moving companies lose calls for reasons that have nothing to do with caring about them.
Everyone who could answer is inside somebody else's home
The supervisor who knows what Thursday looks like is driving between jobs, and the crews are working with their phones in a bag by the door. There is no office in this trade, only a schedule, and the schedule is the reason nobody picks up.
Nobody rings a cleaning company to plan ahead
A drain has blocked, a cleaner has not turned up, a family is moving on Friday and has just realised it. The call is made under pressure and it is made to several companies in a row, so a callback tomorrow reaches somebody who found a crew last night.
A villa and an apartment are different jobs with the same name
A deep clean, a maintenance visit or a move means one thing in a two-bedroom flat and something else entirely in a four-bedroom villa with a garden. A message that does not say which is a message somebody has to ring back about before any of it can be priced or staffed.
Contract customers and first-time callers share one number
A household on an annual maintenance contract ringing about a fault and a stranger asking what a one-off clean costs arrive on the same line, minutes apart. They need different people and different answers, and sorting them out is the first thing a call has to do.
Where it stops
Knowing what not to say is the hard part.
Belline will not quote a job nobody has looked at, promise a crew at a time, say that a property is covered by a contract, agree a discount, or take a payment. It reads back the rates you have written down, takes the job with the property and the access details, and your team confirms who is going and when.
How it works
Set up from what you already have.
Most of the work is checking what Belline found. You decide when customers reach it.
-
Give Belline what you already have
Your website, price list or brochure. It reads them and drafts your services, prices, hours and the questions a home services company gets asked every day.
-
Check what it found
Fix anything wrong, fill the gaps, and set the rules it must hold. Nothing goes live until you have read it.
-
Switch it on
Ring it yourself first. Then forward your line and paste one line of HTML into your website. Customers only reach Belline once you do.
Questions
What operators ask us.
Can it tell a caller somebody will be there this afternoon?
No. It takes the request and how soon the caller needs somebody, and marks it for your team. Whether a crew can actually get there depends on where they are at four o'clock, which is something your supervisor knows and Belline does not.
Will it quote a clean or a move?
It reads back the rates you have fixed and written down. A move, a deep clean of a house it has not seen, or any job priced on a survey is taken as a message with the property, the date and the details, because a number said on the phone becomes the number the customer expects.
What does it ask about the property?
Whether it is a villa or an apartment, roughly how big, which floor, whether there is a lift, and whether there is access for a van. Those are the four or five facts that decide how many people and how long, and they are the ones a rushed message usually misses.
A customer on a maintenance contract rings with a fault. What happens?
Belline takes the property and the fault, notes that the caller says they are on a contract, and flags it for your team. It does not confirm cover or decide whether a visit is chargeable, because that depends on an agreement it cannot read.
Does it take a deposit or a card payment?
No. Belline takes no card details and no payments on any call. It states your deposit rule as you wrote it and takes the job on that basis.
Somebody wants a price before they will say anything else. What does it do?
It gives the rate if the rate is written down, and otherwise says plainly that the price depends on the property and asks the questions that let somebody quote properly. What it does not do is guess at a figure to keep the caller on the line.
What happens to a complaint about a job we have already done?
It goes to a person. Belline takes the date, the address and exactly what the customer said, and marks it. It will not offer to send somebody back or take anything off the bill on your behalf.
Will callers know it is not one of our team?
If they ask, it says so. It does not present itself as one of your supervisors or coordinators.
