Cleaning Estimate Calculator

Cleaning Estimate Calculator

So you are looking to get more leads for your cleaning business. Well you are in the right place to do just that. This page will show you how an estimate calculator can elevate your cleaning business and bring in more leads automatically through your website!

What is a cleaning estimate calculator?

A cleaning estimate calculator is a set of questions that provide an automated estimate once they have been answered. The easiest way to answer this question is by showing you an example of one. Check out the example cleaning estimate calculator to see one in action.

Why does my cleaning website need an Estimate Calculator?

There are numerous reasons why your cleaning website will benefit from having an estimate calculator

1. Save Time

   Time is money. By automating the estimate process for your cleaning business you can spend more time focussing on running your business.

2. Improved Customer Experience

   When a customer visits your website, they are looking for information that will help them to decide whether to use your services. By offering them a customised instant estimate they get the information they want quickly and efficiently.

3. Outshine the Competition

   Let’s face it, our estimate calculators look good. Having one on your cleaning website will make your business stand out from the crowd and contribute massively to building trust with your customers.

Cleaning Estimate Calculator in detail

Let’s take a look at our example cleaning estimate calculator in more detail to see all of the specific features.

Service Selection

When your website user opens your estimate page, the first part of the estimate calculator they will see is the “Select Service” page. This is pretty self explanatory, but just to be clear, this is where they select the service that they wish to receive an estimate for.

In our example we offer “Cleaning” and “Carpet Cleaning”. Each service then has its own set of questions. It might be tempting to have different types of cleaning here such as “End of tenancy cleaning” and “One off deep clean” but as these services are very similar and therefore ask virtually the same questions, we opt to ask the type of cleaning on as a question after the initial service selection. This might sound confusing but it will all make sense when you see it in action.

Question Types

There are three question types: Choice, Quantity and Text. Let’s have a look at each of these in more detail.

• Choice

  Choice questions are the most simple type of question and what we like to use for 90% of all the questions on an estimate calculator. The user is presented with a question and then has a choice of answers. Their answer is selected by clicking on their choice if using a desktop/laptop or tapping on their choice if using a touch device. Ideally all your questions would be choice questions. The reason for this is that they are the most user friendly, especially for users on mobile.

  

  The reason for this is that they simply have to tap the answer of their choice and they are taken through to the next question. This means that it is super easy to use and they can get their estimate ridiculously quickly.

• Quantity

  Quantity questions allow your users to increment the amount of an item that they require. In our example we have used a quantity question to ask the user how many of each appliances they need cleaning. The same result could be achieved by using a choice question, but we opted for a quantity as it made sense to do so. This is a matter of personal preference though.

  

• Text

  Text questions are questions that allow the user to enter some text. These are useful for instances where you want your website user to provide information that wouldn’t work with a pre-set answer. One such instance of this can be a question that asks “Is there any other information that you think would be useful for us to know?”. These questions cannot have an impact on the estimate that is generated, but they are useful for gathering information.

Images

Answers can have an accompanying image. This is a good way of making your cleaning price estimator look even better. Images won’t be required in every instance, so we have the option to include them or exclude them on each specific answer.

Make it simple for your users

When it comes to getting website users to submit their details into your online cleaning price estimator – simplicity is key. The simpler it is to use the better. That’s why we have added in some handy “More info” abilities where it is not completely obvious what your question or answers mean, or if more info is required to help the user understand and make the correct selection. We have created 2 types of “More info”. These are a “slideover” to add supplementary information to go with the question. And a more info dropdown to give more information to a specific answer. Let’s have a look at these in more detail.

More info slideover for question

Sometimes you will want to have a question that requires a longer amount of text or an image (or both) to help you describe or explain exactly what you mean in the question. An example of this is shown in one of the questions for our example Carpet Cleaning service.

The question “How many winding staircases require carpet cleaning?” may be confusing for a user. They may question whether this is the type of staircase they have. Because we want to keep the question as simple as possible, we don’t want to have a long description displayed with an image on the page along with the question. So instead we have a clickable link saying “Is this my staircase?”. When the user clicks this link, the “more info” slideover is displayed, showing an image if the type of staircase along with any text required to explain further. This keeps our question page clear and simple and provides a great user experience.

More info dropdown for specific answers

Just like with questions, sometimes an answer needs more information to help the user decide if it is the correct answer to select. For these situations we have a handy dropdown to go with the answer. This can be seen in the question “Will you have a Checkout Inspection and want a 72 Hour ReClean Guarantee?” from our cleaning estimate example. Under the answer “Yes, 72 hour re-clean guarantee required” there is a icon.

Clicking this icon will reveal a dropdown with more information about this option. Again, this helps your website user to decide if this is the answer they need to select without cluttering the page with too much information.

Back button

Our back button makes it simple for your users to return to previous questions if they feel they have made the wrong selection for their cleaning estimate. When the back button is click or tapped, the selected answer to the current question will be forgotten. But the question that you end up on (after clicking back) will have its selected answer in place still. This makes for a great user experience.

Customer details

The details page is (believe it or not) where the user enters their personal details before receiving their cleaning estimate. In our example we have opted to ask the user for their name, email address, phone number and postcode. There is text to go with each input to indicate whether the field is optional or required. In our example we have made name, email address and postcode “required” and left phone number as “optional”. The reason we leave phone number as optional is because we don’t want to deter our users from submitting their details. Users are far more likely to leave the page altogether if they are forced to enter a phone number. However the email address is required in order to receive the cleaning estimate, so the user is forced to provide this if they wish to receive the estimate. If the user inputs an invalid phone number, email address or postcode, they will be shown an error message notifying them of this. They can then correct the information and re-submit their details.

Summary of answers

Below the customer details section is a summary of the answers provided.

Estimates emailed to your cleaning clients

Once a website user has submitted their answers, 2 emails are sent. One email is sent to the potential customer and one is sent to you, the business.

Potential cleaning customer email

The email that is sent to your potential customer contains 2 key pieces of information.

1. All of the answers provided to the online estimate calculator
2. Their estimate

Once this email is received by the potential customer they can reply to it directly to book in the job, or query anything.

Cleaning Business email (your email)

The email that is sent to you, the cleaning business, contains:

1. All of the answers provided by the potential customer to the online estimate calculator
2. Their estimate
3. Their details (name, email, phone number (if inputted), postcode

Receiving this information yourself makes it quick and simple to follow up on any enquiries that don’t reply to the estimate email. For example, if you do not hear anything from a potential customer, you could send them a special discount, or ask if they need anything clarifying about the estimate.

How we setup a cleaning estimate calculator for you

Setting up an estimate calculator for a cleaning business is easy, quick and painless. You contact us to let us know that you are interested in an estimate calculator. We will then ask you a series of questions to gain more information about your services and pricing. Once we have all the information required we will get to work building your cleaning estimate calculator. We do this using our in-house built software. Once your estimate calculator is ready, we will install it on your website. You are now ready to start getting more enquiries!

How to use your cleaning estimate calculator for your business

Get your customers using your cleaning estimate calculator!

Once your Estimate Calculator is setup and active on your cleaning website, you will be able to make use of it. When potential customers land on your website, present them with a “call to action” where you have a button saying “Instant Estimate” or “Get Estimate”(we can help with this if you need it). Your website users will be far more likely to complete the estimate calculator form as opposed to a regular contact form. So when they click on your “call to action” button, they will be taken to your Estimate page. Here they will answer the pre-set questions, then enter their details. Importantly they will also enter their email address. They then submit the instant estimate.

Automatically calculate their estimate

Behind the scenes, their answers to the questions are handled by your estimate calculator, and an estimate is generated. This estimate is then sent to the website user along with the answers to the questions that they submitted. An email is also sent to you (the cleaning business owner) with the details of the estimate. The website user can now reply to the estimate to quickly express their desire to go ahead with the service, or they can just as easily reply with any queries they may have.

Follow up on enquiries

If you do not hear anything from the user who submitted the estimate request, you can follow up with them, as you have their email address (this will need to be mentioned in your website’s terms and conditions). This is great because you can ask them if they have any further questions, or even negotiate a deal with them if pricing is the issue. If you did not have an estimate calculator, many of your website users may glance at your website and leave without enquiring.