Fair play for being upfront that there are no customer results yet. That honesty will do you more good on here than a glossy pitch. A few points for you, and a few for any cleaning firm tempted to put their hand up.
For the cleaning business considering this A chat widget that collects names, postcodes, addresses and phone numbers makes you the data controller under UK GDPR, with ScoutAI360 as your processor. That is not a reason to say no, but it does mean sorting a few basics before the script goes live:
- Get a written data processing agreement from Henry, even for a free pilot. It should cover where the data is hosted (UK, EU or elsewhere), how long it is kept, and what happens to it when the 14 days end.
- Update the privacy notice on your site to mention the chat tool and what it collects.
- Check your ICO data protection fee is paid. Most cleaning businesses handling customer details need to pay it, and the tiers changed in 2025, so check the ICO site for the current figure. It is a quick online job.
- If the widget drops cookies that are not strictly necessary, your cookie banner needs to cover it under PECR.
On the consumer side, the DMCC Act consumer rules came into force in April 2025. If a chatbot on your site tells a customer something misleading about price, availability or what is included, that is treated as your statement, not the software's. Henry's line about not inventing quotes or promising slots is exactly the right design, but test it hard. Ask it awkward questions: "Can you do tomorrow at 8am?", "Is £60 fine for a three-bed end of tenancy?", "Do you guarantee the deposit back?" You want it to hand off, not improvise.
Sensible pilot setup Fourteen days is short, so make it count:
- Pick one flow only. End of tenancy is the obvious choice because the questions are predictable: number of bedrooms and bathrooms, oven included or not, carpets, is the property empty, when are keys available, is parking available.
- Note your enquiry volume for the two weeks before switching it on, otherwise you have nothing to compare against.
- Decide who checks the captured leads and how fast. The tool gathers details; a human still has to ring back. A lead sitting unanswered for two days is worse than no chat widget at all.
- Have your common answers ready in writing: insured yes or no, DBS checked staff, do you bring products and equipment, minimum booking, cancellation terms, areas covered. The assistant can only repeat what you approve.
Be aware of seasonality too. End of tenancy enquiries peak around the end of the month and in July and August, and in university towns things go quiet outside term dates. A pilot run in a dead fortnight will look worse than the tool deserves, so pick your dates with that in mind.
For Henry A couple of things that will make the offer easier to say yes to:
- Have the processing agreement and a one-page summary of hosting location ready before anyone asks. Small firms rarely know to request it, but the ones worth having as case studies will.
- Be clear about ownership of the captured leads after the pilot ends. Export in a plain CSV, then deleted from your side within a stated number of days.
- State now whether the £19.99 is inclusive of VAT, and whether Plus has limits on conversations or sites. Nobody likes finding that out at month two.
The pitch itself is reasonable: a defined scope, no card, no auto renewal, no invented quotes. Any cleaning firm with a website already getting a steady trickle of visitors has little to lose by trying it, provided the paperwork above is sorted first. One with almost no traffic should fix that problem before adding a chat widget to an empty room.
