How do I stop air duct cleaning customers from ghosting appointments?
Short answerAsk the customer to confirm that an adult will be home with vent access, call as the crew arrives, and set a stated trip fee when nobody answers. Duct cleaning needs access to every vent and the furnace, so an empty house means the crew cannot start and the truck sits idle.
The explanation
Ghosting in this trade usually means the customer is not at the property. Maybe they forgot, maybe a family emergency came up, but the crew arrives with a loaded truck and no way in. The cost is the travel and the lost slot, and it hits more heavily than a short visit would.
Prevent it with two messages. The day before, ask for a reply confirming an adult will be home and the furnace area is clear. On the day, the crew calls or texts on arrival, waits a stated grace period, and then leaves with the visit marked as a no-access miss.
A trip fee for no-access visits should be written into the booking terms, with an amount or formula. Applying it once, with a friendly offer to rebook, usually ends the problem without damaging the relationship.
Steps
- Ask the customer to confirm that an adult will be home with access to vents and the furnace.
- Have the crew call or text on arrival and wait a stated grace period.
- Mark an unanswered visit as no-access and apply the trip fee in your terms.
- Send a rebooking link the same day.
In residential cleaning (maid service)
Duct cleaning requires indoor access to vents, returns and the furnace area. A crew arriving at a locked house has no partial job to do, so the confirmation of who will be home is the key control. All residential cleaning (maid service) scheduling questions.
How Apex does it
In progress
Part of this is built. The rest is not. Status as of 2026-10-07; the badge shows the least-built feature involved.
Apex is designed to send confirmation messages, an on-my-way text with an ETA and a cancellation policy with no-show fee rules. Texts need a connected provider account first, and the policy piece is in progress.
- CM04Confirmation messages(Built, rolling out)
- SC20ETA text on the way(Built, rolling out)
- BK23Cancellation policy and no-show fees(In progress)
Apex Flow Scheduler is in early access. See how we label status.
Where this question comes from: we wrote it from research on common owner problems. It is not measured search demand.
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