What to ask an agency before it markets your maid service

The last week of February is when cleaning company owners hear the most pitches. Spring deep-clean requests are weeks away, the schedule still has room, and agencies know it. Most home services packages were built for trades that sell emergencies, a burst pipe or a dead furnace. A residential cleaning company sells a stranger with a key, in the house on a Tuesday while nobody is home, every two weeks for years.

Here are the questions we would want an owner to put to any agency before signing, including us.

Why a cleaning company is marketed differently from a repair trade

Thumbtack’s hiring advice for homeowners, on the price guide it updated in early January, reads like a trust checklist: ask friends for referrals, choose a company that is bonded and insured, hire one that is legally registered, read client reviews, do a phone interview, ask for the same crew each time and lock up valuables. Price comes near the bottom, and only as a warning that a very low quote may not be legitimate.

That list should shape the marketing: be the company a careful homeowner feels safe choosing, then keep that homeowner on the schedule. The value sits in the repeat visit. Thumbtack’s national averages put a visit every two weeks at $160 to $220, slightly below the $174 to $256 for a one-time clean, and it tells homeowners outright that weekly or every-other-week service can cost less per visit than a monthly one.

Questions that separate a specialist from a generic package

Ask these in the first meeting, and listen for specifics.

• “How will you show homeowners that we are insured and bonded?” The right answer names places: the Business Profile description, the home page above the first button, the pricing page and the ads. A bond is worth naming plainly, since homeowners are told to look for one and it is the thing that reimburses them if something goes missing.
• “How will you word our background check claim?” If your checks run through a screening company, the FTC’s guidance for employers says the Fair Credit Reporting Act applies, which means a stand-alone written notice and the applicant’s written permission before the report is pulled. An agency should ask whether every cleaner you send has been checked before it writes the words “background checked” anywhere.
• “How will you get us reviews, and what will you refuse to do?” The FTC’s rule from August 2024 bans rewards conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment, so a discount for five stars is out. A request to every client, with the crew’s name and a direct link, is in.
• “What will Google check before we can run Local Services Ads?” House cleaning services is its own category. Since October 2025 the ads carry one Google Verified badge, which replaced the older guarantee and screening badges, and claims under the money-back guarantee that came with the old badge had to be in before December 7, 2025. Google asks this category for general and professional liability insurance and a public, verified Business Profile, and runs business and owner checks for select advertisers. Its own estimate for screening is three to four weeks once documents are in, so an agency promising ads live next Monday has not been through it.
• “Which clients are you trying to win us: one-time cleans or recurring ones?” If the answer is “leads”, keep asking. A plan for a cleaning company should say how a first clean becomes a schedule.
• “What is out of date on our site?” A small test. ARCSI rebranded as ISSA Residential in May 2023, so an agency that flags an old ARCSI logo in your footer is paying attention.

How reviews decide a cleaning job this year

BrightLocal published its 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey on February 11, and the numbers are blunt for any company whose last review is from the fall. Almost half of consumers (47%) say they will not use a business showing fewer than 20 reviews, and 74% care only about reviews from the last three months. BrightLocal also found that templated replies put off half of consumers, and every reply on a cleaning profile is read by someone deciding whether to hand over a key.

Recurring clients are the natural fix: they see your crew every week or two and have plenty to say. An agency should ask every one of them in the first month, then build the ask into the first and third visits for new clients, with replies written by a person.

What the first ninety days should look like

For cleaning, we would start with being chosen rather than being found, because traffic sent to a profile with no proof of trust is wasted. A plan we would sign off on:

• Weeks 1 to 2: the proof. Insurance certificate, bond, how staff are screened, real photos of your crews, and call and form tracking switched on.
• Weeks 2 to 6: the profile and the reviews. Services listed on the Business Profile (recurring, deep clean, move-out), a service area that matches the ZIP codes your crews can reach, the recurring price on the site and a review request to every current client.
• Weeks 4 to 10: being found. Local Services Ads applied for now, so screening finishes before the spring rush, and pages for deep cleans and move-outs ready before May.
• Weeks 8 to 13: keeping clients. A call after every first clean, an offer of the next slot, rebooking reminders and a referral ask.

What a monthly report should show

A useful report follows each inquiry to a recurring client, not just to a booked visit.

• Inquiries by source, and how fast each got an answer. Google lists average response time among the factors that decide where a Local Services ad ranks.
• First cleans booked, by source.
• The share of first cleans that became recurring clients, by source. This is the number most reports leave out, and the one that pays your crews.
• Cost per recurring client. LocaliQ’s 2025 home services benchmarks, covering April 2024 to March 2025, put the median cost per lead for Cleaning / Maid / Butler Services search ads at $46.99, with 17.65% of clicks becoming leads, the best conversion rate of the 16 home service categories it measured. Cheap leads are good news only if they turn into schedules.
• Reviews gained this month, and replies sent.

What we are telling clients

• Put your insurance certificate, bond and screening process into one short paragraph you can paste onto the profile, the site and any marketplace listing.
• Start a Local Services Ads application now if you plan to run them this spring, given Google’s three to four week estimate.
• Text every recurring client a review request this week, with the crew’s name in the message.
• Check your site for an old ARCSI logo, an outdated badge name or a “background checked” line you cannot document.
• Ask every agency you meet for a sample report that shows recurring clients by source.

An agency that answers these plainly is worth a second meeting. Our page for house cleaning companies lays out how we would approach your first ninety days, and our review request work and Business Profile setup show the parts most cleaning companies need first.