WhatsApp CRM · Cleaning, Pest Control & AC Services
A WhatsApp CRM for cleaning, pest control and AC service work
Written for how cleaning, pest control & ac services actually work
One-man AC technicians and their helpers, small general pest teams, home and office cleaning crews, and the more formal termite and commercial cleaning companies running contracts and warranty periods.
The job itself is fast — hours to a few days, a little longer for termite work that needs a site visit first. The cycle is the slow part: roughly three to four months for AC servicing, a season to a year for pest treatment, once or twice a year for deep cleaning. So your follow-up is set in months, not days, and the only quick chase you need is on a quote that never got an answer.
March into mid-April brings the pre-Avurudu deep cleaning rush, and the hot months that follow bring the AC servicing wave. Monsoon months drive mould and damp cleaning plus pest activity, with termite enquiries often following visible swarming after rain, and December brings a second, smaller cleaning spike.
A normal day in your inbox
- "AC is low on gas, I need a service — how much?"
- "We want a monthly cleaning contract for the office, I'll have to tell the staff."
- "Termites have come up in the house, what has to be done? Urgent."
- "Full house deep clean before Avurudu — what's the price?"
- "The management office at our flat gave me your number, I need an AC service."
- "Is there a warranty on the termite treatment, and how much is it?"
- "Sorry, I don't have your number saved — were you the one who serviced it last time?"
Where the deals leak
- Enquiry with a photo
- Address and property details
- Quote
- Booked visit window
- Job done
- Payment
- Next cycle due
There are two. Early on, a vague enquiry with no address, photo or scope takes several messages before you can name a price, and the slowest quote loses to whoever replied first with a workable time. The bigger loss comes months later, at the cycle point, where nothing happens at all.
An AC needs servicing every three or four months, a pest treatment runs on a season, a deep clean repeats before Avurudu and again at year end. For a repeat customer you are not competing with another business — you are competing with being forgotten.
A board that matches your job
Most of these jobs run from enquiry to finished inside a week, so the board is not where you negotiate. It is there so you can see who is booked this week and, more usefully, who has been sitting in Due again since last month.
Stage 1
New enquiry
Photo or description is in, but the address, area and scope are still missing.
Stage 2
Quoted
Scope and price sent, waiting on a yes.
Stage 3
Booked
Date and time window agreed, address saved on the contact.
Stage 4
Job done
Work finished and paid, and the next cycle date written on the contact.
Stage 5
Due again
The cycle date has come round. These are the chats to message today.
Tags worth having
- AC service
- Gas top-up only
- General pest
- Termite
- Deep clean
- Office contract
- Apartment / management office
- Same-day urgent
Set it up once
Everything below happens inside WhatsApp Web, on the number you already use. No API, no new inbox.
Add InboxCRM to Chrome- 1
Ask for address, photo and area in one message
Save that request as a quick reply. One message instead of four back-and-forths means you can quote while the customer is still comparing you with two other numbers.
- 2
Write the cycle date on the contact before you leave the house
Custom fields hold what you'll never remember otherwise: unit count, last service date, treated areas, warranty end date, which floor. Next time someone says "I can't remember when it was last done", you can.
- 3
Set the reminder while you are still in the chat
A scheduled message written the day you finish goes out on its own months later. That is the mechanism this trade is missing — no memory needed, and no new marketing spend to win back a customer you already had.
- 4
Let follow-up rules catch the quotes that went quiet
Put a rule on the Quoted stage so a chat sitting there for two days comes back to you. A quoted-but-not-booked job is usually someone who got busy, not someone who said no.
- 5
Keep the day's visits in the appointment centre
Booked windows in one place instead of scattered across chats. It also makes the honest answer to "can you come today?" easy, because you can see the earliest slot you actually have.
- 6
Put running warranty periods in their own chat tab
A tab for termite and treatment jobs still under warranty means you can scan that list once a month and offer a re-check before it lapses, rather than finding out a year late.
The messages that stall a sale
“"That's expensive."”
Usually means
They are usually comparing your full service or treatment against a smaller, cheaper job — a gas top-up alone, one room instead of the house.What works
Break down what the quote covers before repeating the number. The gap is nearly always scope, and cutting your price to match a comparison you haven't seen is the wrong fix.“"Is there a warranty?"”
Usually means
They want to know what happens if the problem comes back — a fair question for pest and termite work, and usually "will you return free?" for AC.What works
State the period and what it covers, and say plainly if there isn't one. Don't overstate what a treatment can promise. Write the end date on the contact so you can offer a re-check before it lapses.“"What are you using, is it dangerous? We have small children."”
Usually means
A normal household worry about a treatment happening in rooms their children and pets use.What works
Give the practical steps — keep children and pets out of the treated area for a stated time, ventilate the room — and let the technician answer product questions on site. Don't name products or call anything safe in a chat.“"I can't remember when it was last serviced."”
Usually means
Not a difficult customer. It's proof that nobody in the conversation wrote it down, including you.What works
Ask for the approximate month, get on with the job, and start recording it from this one onward. The customer forgetting is normal; the business forgetting is the part you can fix.“"Can you come today?"”
Usually means
Something has failed in the heat or an infestation has become visible. The urgency is usually genuine.What works
Give a real time window, and if today isn't possible offer the earliest slot you actually have. Promising today and rescheduling costs you the repeat relationship, which is worth more than one job.
Quick replies to save first
Copy these, swap the details in [brackets], and save them as quick replies so you stop retyping them.
Getting enough to quote
To give you an accurate price, send me a photo of [the unit / the affected room] and tell me which area you're in.
AC scope, split clearly
A gas top-up on its own is Rs. [X]. A full service with the coil and filter clean is Rs. [X]. Which one would you like?
Safety question, honest answer
After the treatment we ask you to keep children and pets out of the treated area for about [X hours] and to ventilate the room. The technician can go through the product details with you on site.
Cycle note at handover
Thanks! The next service for this unit is due in about [3-4 months]. I'll message you when it comes round.
The cycle reminder itself
Hi [name], it's been about [4 months] since your last AC service. Shall we set one up before the cooling starts dropping off?
Free tools that help here: WhatsApp Link Generator, WhatsApp Business Message Templates.
The parts of InboxCRM you'll use most
Follow-up rules
A rule on the Quoted stage brings back chats that went quiet, so a job you already priced doesn't vanish because you were on a ladder when they replied.
Scheduled messages
Write the next-cycle message the day you finish and let it send itself months later. This is the habit that turns a one-off customer into a repeating one.
Contact notes and custom fields
Address, floor, unit count, last service date, treated areas and warranty end date, held against the chat instead of in your head.
Quick replies
The address-and-photo request, the AC scope split and the safety answer, typed once so you can reply properly between jobs.
Pipeline board
Five stages ending in Due again — the one column in this trade that earns money without new marketing.
Questions from cleaning, pest control & ac services
Can it remind me when a customer's AC is due for service again?
Yes. When you finish the job you can schedule a message to that contact for a date months ahead, and it sends on its own as long as Chrome is running with WhatsApp Web open. You can also write the last service date into a custom field, so the record is there even if the reminder is missed.
I'm a one-man AC technician working off my phone. Does this help me?
It runs in desktop Chrome on WhatsApp Web, so you need a computer somewhere — at home in the evening is enough. You set up the reminders and notes there and keep replying from your phone during the day. With no computer at all, the habits still apply; the tool just makes them automatic.
Does it handle termite warranty periods?
Not as a formal warranty system. You write the end date into a custom field and schedule a check-in message ahead of it, or keep those jobs in their own chat tab and scan the list monthly. The record is yours; InboxCRM keeps it beside the chat and sends the message when you asked.
Can I message all my past cleaning customers before Avurudu?
You can run a campaign to a list you provide of people who agreed to hear from you. It sends slowly, with caps of around 40 an hour and 250 a day by default, quiet hours and a per-contact cooldown. Anyone who asks you to stop should come off the list.
Where is the customer data kept?
In your browser, in chrome.storage.local on the computer you use. Notes, tags, custom fields and pipeline stages stay on that machine unless you turn on the optional encrypted cloud chat backup. You can take a local backup file any time and restore it, which is worth doing before you change computers.