Every quote request in your Conversations list started with a real customer, not a form fill or a scraped lead list. How they got to you varies: some land directly on your public profile and request a quote from you specifically. Others start the same way, but the customer then invites up to four additional detailers to the same request — so it's not always just you they asked. And some start on the cleann.org homepage, where a customer uses "Let us match you" instead of picking a business themselves.
1. How "Let us match you" picks businesses
When a customer uses "Let us match you," we don't invite whoever's available — we invite whoever's actually relevant. We start from businesses within service radius of the request's location, then weigh a battery of measurements through our own AI to rank relevance: up to five of the best-fitting businesses get invited. If there aren't five relevant businesses nearby, we invite fewer — we don't pad the list to hit a number.
We also use this same request to invite up to five more nearby businesses that fit the job but haven't claimed their Cleann.org profile yet. That's a separate, smaller incentive list — a chance to show them what a real request looks like — bounded by the same rule: only as many as actually qualify.
2. You won't know which channel it came from — and that's on purpose
We don't tell you whether a request reached you because a customer picked you directly, invited you alongside others, or because our matching engine selected you. That's deliberate. Our goal is to get customers real quotes, not to guarantee any one business an uncontested shot. Assume you may be one of several businesses quoting on the same job.
That has a real consequence for how you should treat this conversation: your pricing should be numbers you'd actually stand behind, not a placeholder you plan to negotiate up later. And your trust signals — reviews, responsiveness, how quickly you reply — aren't just decoration. When a customer is comparing real quotes side by side, those signals are part of what decides who they pick.
4. Unlocking lets you talk to the customer
Unlocking opens the message thread with that customer. Free accounts get 5 unlocks a month, Pro gets 25, and Pro+ gets unlimited. Your subscription covers the whole platform, not just unlocks — and we can't promise a set number of leads in any given month. How many real requests come in is up to real customers, not something we control.
Once unlocked, there's no second tool to go find. The message thread lives on the same screen as the request itself. Whatever you do next — reply, schedule, quote — happens right there.
5. Talk to the customer if you need more than what they gave you
Sometimes the request already has what you need to price the job. When it doesn't — vehicle condition, add-ons, access, how firm their timing is — unlock the conversation and ask the customer directly instead of guessing.
6. Scheduling happens in the same thread
There's no separate booking calendar for this. Once you and the customer land on a time that works, that's settled in the conversation itself — the same thread where you asked your clarifying questions is where scheduling gets confirmed.
7. Send one estimate, or a few
Once the conversation is unlocked, you send an estimate using the + icon to the left of the chat. You're not limited to one — if it makes sense to offer the customer a couple of options (say, different service levels), you can send more than one estimate without starting a new thread.
The customer chooses who gets the job by clicking the award button on one specific estimate — not by just replying in the conversation. That's worth keeping in mind: a strong chat exchange doesn't win the job on its own. The estimate you send is the thing they're actually clicking to accept.