05 Sep How to Outsource Airbnb Cleaning Service in 5 Minutes

It is important to find a reliable maid that can help with last-minute reservations yet provide a high-quality clean. I use my maid’s cleaning service on the regular. Sometimes, as much as 16 times a month and I only have two units. I cannot imagine my Airbnb business without my maid.

Your guests were enticed by your photos, but if your unit is not as clean as advertised, then most likely you will not receive a 5-star review. I heard horror stories where guests check in to dirty units.

What a bad start and a horrible first impression!

Your goal as a host is to always provide a clean home, just like a hotel. In this post, I talked about the importance of building your credibility if you are just starting out fresh.

I will reveal my process of finding a maid and the email templates that I use to screen them. You can just copy and paste it or save it to your Google Drive for future reference.

It is not foolproof, but it will give you a good starting point to perfect your own template and screening techniques.

Where to find local maids?

Craigslist is my favorite place to post. I even use them to find new properties to arbitrage. In fact, I only use CL for finding new units.

If you have never used CL for a posting before, then I suggest head to this post to check out! It is important to keep in mind that in your ad copy, try to provide as many details as you can. This way, your prospects can judge if what you are offering is a good match to what they provide.

Now, when I first started, I contacted local cleaning companies. That was a mistake.

Cleaning companies did not provide the type of cleaning that I needed to get done for my Airbnb units. All of the cleaning companies just wanted to do the basic cleaning and couldn’t wash my beddings.

Essentially, I needed cleaners to provide what hotels maids provided. So, I started to Google around for full-service maids. I was able to find a few local companies, but they wanted to charge me $150 dollars per clean.

That didn’t make sense economically. I didn’t want to charge my guests a hefty 150 cleaning fees. Most of the hosts in my area charge around 60-80 dollars- a much more reasonable number.

This is when I turned to an “inbound” model. Instead of making numerous calls for cleaning companies, I turned to CL to generate inbound leads. A lead is a potential service provider.

On average, I receive about 12-15 leads per post. As you can see, this has saved me a lot of time searching and calling different companies. It takes about 5 minutes or so to get the ad up and running. Once I got the ad up and running, I just wait for my inbox to light up.

**Update: I now charge $100 cleaning fee for a 1-bedroom and $150 for a two-bedroom.

How much Do you Pay Your Cleaners?

This really depends on your area and would require some research. A general rule of thumb is to always pay less than what you are charging your guests per clean.

I charge my guests $79 dollars per stay and pay my cleaner $20 dollars an hour. I keep 39 dollars because that money goes into the replenishable goods like toilet paper, soap, and etc etc.

The 3-Step Screening Process For Your Airbnb Cleaners

As I have mentioned before, It is important to look for a high-quality provider. My criteria for a high-quality provider is simple:

1. Attention to detail
2. Communication
3. Current reference

Attention to detail

How did they respond to your ad? Did they provide you with all of the answers that you asked in the ad copy? If they had missed one question, then I would immediately respond to tell them that I am not interested. Why do I respond?

If they had missed one question, then I would immediately respond to tell them that I am not interested. Why do I respond?

Mainly, two reasons. Humanistic: I do not want to leave them hanging because they did invest the time to respond. The least I could do is to tell them. Organization: once I respond, I will delete their email to not clog up my inbox.

This step usually screens out about 50% of the leads.

Now, you can purchase my ad copy template on my website. Check it out here.

Communication

Did they respond with proper English? But more importantly, how did they respond?

This is my ad copy of a follow-up message that I send them after prevailing first step.

It is important to note that 90% of my leads were immigrants and English was not their first language. Still, communication is really important because they have to understand your instructions. They need to be able to read and understand your instructions because your main method of communication will mostly via texts.

I love texting and my maid will communicate anything immediately to me via texts if guests were especially dirty or broke something without telling me. You need to know these things as a host so that you can properly deal with them.

This step usually screens out another 25%.

Current Reference

The final step is to see if they are trusted and can provide social proof. If they have a current reference, that is a good sign! I call them up and verify if their employment is true.

I always ask if they are happy with the service because it gives you a clearer picture of their quality.

Ultra-tip, if you still do not know how much to pay them, this is your opportunity to ask!

Final Words

This 3-step screening process is not perfect. You can add your own to implement it on your Passive Airbnb business. Obviously, this whole process takes more than 5 minutes. It took me 3 months to find a great cleaner.

I hope I was able to save you some work and hassle by sharing my own experience!

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