Your cleaner is reading your text on a phone, in a car, between jobs, with one earbud in and the heat on. The message that wins is the one with the answer in the first 14 words.
Most host texts don’t do that. They open with apology (“Hey sorry, last-minute…”), context (“So the guests had a dog this time…”), and then bury the assignment four paragraphs deep. By the time the cleaner finds the door code, they’ve already missed the most important question: am I being told something I have to do differently from the default, or just the default?
The four fields a cleaner needs at the door
Strip away the chatter and every dispatch message resolves to four fields:
- Address. Always. Even if it’s the same property they cleaned yesterday — they have three more on their phone.
- Door code. The actual digits. Not “the usual code” and not “I’ll send it later.”
- Window. When the guest is out, not when checkout is published. Add buffer. “Out by 11:30, next guest 4 p.m.” beats “11–4.”
- Exceptions. What’s different from the standard scope. If nothing is different, say “standard scope.”
That’s it. Everything else — guest name, party size, preferences, your weekend plans — is noise.
The template
Paste this into your phone’s text-replacement, your dispatch software, your cleaner dispatch generator — wherever you want it to live. Replace the brackets at send time:
[PROPERTY NAME] · [DATE]
[ADDRESS]
Code: [4-DIGIT]
Out by [TIME], next guest [TIME].
Scope: standard.
Photo of finished beds when done — thanks!Six lines. The address is a tap-to-navigate link on iOS and Android. The code is searchable. The window is unambiguous (“out by” vs “checkout”). The scope line is always present even when nothing’s special, so the cleaner doesn’t have to scan for an exception that isn’t there.
When something is different
Replace the scope line. Don’t add to it.
Scope: standard + dog hair (lab, 4 days). Add 30 min.Scope: deep — guest reported smell. Open windows, full kitchen, behind appliances.Scope: light — guest stayed 1 night, no kitchen use.The cleaner now knows three things at once: what’s different, why, and how it changes their time. That’s the entire job of the dispatch message.
Why “no scope line” is a trap
Every text without an explicit scope line gets read as “default scope.” That’s fine — until it isn’t. The first time a cleaner does a default turnover after a guest had a party because no one said “deep,” you’ll get a one-star review and a cleaner who is annoyed they’re now expected to read your mind.
Always include the scope line. “Standard” counts. The line is the contract.
What about confirmations?
Two-way confirms beat one-way blasts. After your dispatch, ask for a one-character reply:
Reply Y to confirm.If you don’t get a Y by [time], you escalate. This is the difference between “I sent it” and “the cleaner saw it.” Many hosts run their entire ops on send-and-pray. The Y is free.
For a four-property weekend, build a confirmation board: cleaner name, property, time, Y/N. The board lives in your phone or a shared sheet — wherever you’ll actually look at 6 a.m. on changeover day.
What about photos?
Always ask for a photo of the finished bed. One photo, doesn’t have to be a portfolio shot. Two reasons:
- Accountability. A photo proves the cleaner finished the room — not just walked through it.
- Evidence. When a guest says “the bed wasn’t made,” you have a timestamped image to send to Airbnb.
Don’t ask for ten photos. The cleaner won’t send them. One bed photo per property is the right unit cost.
The cleaner dispatch generator
The cleaner dispatch generator takes your day’s turnovers, splits them by cleaner, and builds the SMS for each one in this format. It also produces a printable PDF the cleaner can keep in the truck — same fields, same hierarchy, no surprises.
The point isn’t the template. The point is that every turnover starts with the same answers in the same order, so your cleaner stops reading and starts cleaning.