How to Get Cleaning Business Reviews (108 in Two Years)

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Oak Bay Clean had 108 Google reviews at the two year mark. They are the reason we could stop blogging, and the reason our phone rings.

We wrote blog posts in our first year to get Google to notice us. Once the reviews were coming in fast enough and good enough, they did that job instead, and they did it better, because our ideal client was never going to read an article about cleaning. She reads reviews.

Getting them was never about asking harder. It came down to three things: stop promising something you cannot deliver, automate the ask because you will forget, and pay the person who earned it.

The short answer

• Rename the deep clean. Call it a first time clean. This one change took our complaints from about 2% of clients to about 0.5%.
• Set the expectation in writing before the cleaner arrives. Most bad reviews are born at the booking, not at the clean.
• Ask at the moment of peak happiness, which is the moment the job is finished.
• Pay the cleaner $25 for every five star review.
• Reply to every review by hand. Name your town and your service in the reply.

Stop calling it a deep clean

The words "deep clean" promise perfection. The client hears a home restored to the day it was built. What they get is a very good first clean of a house that has not been cleaned professionally in years.

We renamed it. It is a first time clean, and we define it on the booking form as a home that has not been cleaned professionally in the last 30 days.

Our negative feedback dropped from about 2% of clients to about 0.5%.

"It wasn't a cleaning issue. It was a communication issue." Vic

I know most of the industry still says deep clean. I think it is asking for negative feedback.

Most bad reviews are written before the cleaner arrives

Angelica Kuini runs a cleaning company outside Toronto with her husband and works at NiceJob. She put it better than I ever have.

"Most of the time when there's a legitimate negative review, it's due to not meeting their expectations. So if you set the expectations right away from the beginning, there should be no reason why you're going to get any negative reviews." Angelica Kuini

So our booking confirmation email does the work. It says, before anybody picks up a cloth:

• We are placing a hold on your card, not a charge. People panic about this, and a panicking client is not a five star client.
• What is included. A move in or move out covers inside the fridge, inside the oven, baseboards, spot cleaning of walls and inside the cupboards. It does not include windows, because we price those by the count.
• The home must be completely empty for a move out.
• There is a $79 same day cancellation fee.
• This is an estimate. It is not a guarantee. If we arrive and the home needs more attention than expected, we will adjust the price.

That last line goes near the top of the email. People skim read on their phones and it needs to survive the skim.

The booking form itself catches the rest. Do you have pets, which adds a pet fee. Will you be home. Is there an access code, because you would not believe how many people never think about this.

What happens when the clean is a nightmare

A client booked a one bedroom, one bath move out with us. The cleaner arrived and the place was far worse than the booking described. It was going to take nine or ten hours instead of the estimate.

Because the estimate line was in the confirmation email, I could message the client, tell them the space was in much heavier condition than expected, roughly double the price from about $320, and offer them the option to cancel.

They took it. The clean took seven hours, so it came in under what I quoted them. They were happy with the price and the clean. The cleaner made over $300, because we pay 60% of what we charge the client.

A job that could have produced a furious one star review produced a satisfied client instead, and the thing that did it was a sentence written before the cleaner ever knocked.

"Is it annoying to deal with this? Abso-freaking-lutely. Do we wish people were cleaner and treated cleaners with more respect? Absolutely. But everybody lives in different ways and that's okay. So it's really about setting yourself up for success, thinking through these things, and just dealing with it." Vic

Ask at the moment of peak happiness

Angelica's phrase, and it is the right one. For a cleaning company that moment is the second the job is done, when the client walks into a home that smells like nothing and looks like a hotel.

When our cleaner finishes and the office charges the card in Convertlabs, NiceJob fires the review request automatically. Then it nudges them a couple of days later, and again after that, until they either leave one or stop hearing from us.

Two rules from Angelica that decide whether the ask works:

• Put a direct link in the message, to the exact place you want the review. Without it, "that person's going to be like okay, but where, and then they're going to give up."
• Ask on Google. That is the one that decides whether you make the map pack.

And one she was blunt about, as a person who sells review software:

"Yelp actually has an agreement that you cannot solicit reviews with them." Angelica Kuini

Be on Yelp for the link. Ask on Google. More on that split in local SEO for a cleaning business.

Do not buy the software on day one

Angelica sells NiceJob and she still said this on our channel:

"I'm being completely honest as a salesperson here: wait until you have a couple of customers, because it is an expense that you might not need immediately." Angelica Kuini

Her threshold is around 20 customers. Before that, ask by hand, in person, at the door, and follow up with an email. Kevin from Convertlabs makes the same argument from the other direction: while you have very few reviews, call every customer after the job yourself. A bad review lands much harder when you have almost none to absorb it, and a phone call gives you the chance to fix the problem before it becomes public.

We still call every customer after their first clean. We offer a 24 hour guarantee. If they are not happy, we come back and fix it.

Jen and I put NiceJob in about a year in. We should have done it at six months.

"You're human and you're going to forget, and your customers are human and they're going to forget." Vic

Pay the cleaner for the review

Every time a cleaner gets a five star review, that cleaner gets a $25 bonus.

I was stuck on how to get more reviews for a long time, and the answer turned out to be embarrassingly simple. I pay them extra money.

It works because the cleaner is the one who earned it, and because the cleaner is standing in the client's kitchen at the moment of peak happiness, which is somewhere I will never be.

Reply to every single one, by hand

We handwrite every reply, including the bad ones. You can spot a company using ChatGPT for its review replies instantly, and it reads like a robot to a busy mother deciding who to let into her home.

Angelica gave us the trick that turns a reply into SEO: name the town you service and the service you provided. Not "thank you so much."

"If you're not replying to reviews you're missing out on a whole lot of SEO." Angelica Kuini

On bad reviews

We get them. I always laugh, because I love our one star reviews.

A negative review from a client who was never a fit will scare off other clients who were never a fit, and that is a service. It also tells you where your system leaks.

We have a one star review accusing one of our cleaners of stealing a bottle of salad dressing. We have another from a caller who never became a client at all. Our assistant googled his address, saw the house was 8,000 square feet, and would not quote him the price of a small home. He wrote the review off the back of a phone call. We never cleaned for him.

Neither of those killed anything. What kills a business is having six reviews, no calls after the clean, and a client who is upset and has nowhere to put it except Google.

The order to do it in

1. Rename your deep clean to a first time clean and define it on the booking form.
2. Put the estimate line, the card hold, the inclusions and the cancellation fee in the confirmation email, near the top.
3. Call every client after their first clean. Offer to come back and fix anything within 24 hours.
4. Ask by hand, at the door, with a direct link, until you have roughly 20 customers.
5. Then automate the ask so it fires when you charge the card.
6. Pay your cleaner $25 for every five star review.
7. Reply to every review yourself, naming your town and your service.

Do that and the reviews arrive on their own, every week, forever. I cannot explain the emotional impact of getting a five star review every day, but it is the best thing about this business.

If someone else has already done it, why can't you?

Frequently asked questions

How do I get more reviews for my cleaning business?

Ask at the moment the job is finished, with a direct link to Google. Do it by hand until you have around 20 customers, then automate it so the request fires the moment you charge the card. Pay your cleaner a bonus for every five star review. Oak Bay Clean pays $25 and had 108 Google reviews at the two year mark.

Why should I stop calling it a deep clean?

Because the words promise perfection and the client is expecting their home restored to new. Rename it a first time clean and define it as a home that has not been cleaned professionally in the last 30 days. When Oak Bay Clean made that change, negative feedback fell from about 2% of clients to about 0.5%. It was never a cleaning problem. It was a communication problem.

When is the best time to ask a cleaning client for a review?

At the moment of peak happiness, which for a cleaning company is the moment the job is completed and the client walks into the finished home. Angelica Kuini of NiceJob, who also owns a cleaning company, recommends a direct link to the exact platform in the message, because without one people give up looking.

Should I ask for reviews on Yelp?

No. Yelp's terms prohibit soliciting reviews, and Google matters more for a local cleaning company. Keep a complete Yelp profile for the link value and ask for your reviews on Google.

Do I need review software to start a cleaning business?

Not on day one. Angelica Kuini, who sells NiceJob, says to wait until you have roughly 20 customers, because it is an expense you may not need yet. Before then, ask in person and follow up by email, and call every client after their first clean so a problem never reaches Google.

How do I handle a bad review of my cleaning business?

Reply by hand, in a human voice, and never with AI. A negative review from a client who was never a fit will scare off other clients who were never a fit, and it shows you where your system leaks. The better move is prevention: call every customer after their first clean and offer a 24 hour guarantee to come back and fix anything.

How many reviews does a cleaning business need?

Enough to make the map pack, and there is no fixed number because it depends on your city. Oak Bay Clean had 108 Google reviews after roughly two years. The three businesses in the map pack get the calls, and reviews are the ranking factor you control most directly.