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Believe me I know how tough it is to run a business at a time like this. Having had to take cost cutting measures at all levels of the business it didn’t take too much thinking to decide to go for cleaning services at a budget level. Something I now regret.
I avoided the more expensive companies as I felt that one cleaner was as good as another and that really I would just be paying for the name and maybe a bit more security, but I never expected the cleaning firm I went for to have such an effect on my business.
Don’t Trust Certificates You Can’t Verify
When you go looking for a cleaning company one thing that will grab your attention is all the environmental, bacteria management and general trustworthy looking certificates and badges they all seem to have. I went for one with a ‘Green Certificate’ that said they used environmentally friendly products. Unfortunately this turned out to be over a year out of date and when I checked, very few of their products where anywhere near ‘green’. They were basically the cheapest ones available at the wholesalers.
Don’t trust certificates a company says it has until you can verify that they are valid.
Low Price = Sub Standard Cleaning
I’m sure there are plenty of cheap cleaners out there who do a good job but in my recent experience this is not the case. For example, we asked them to clean our carpets (quite a standard cleaning task you might think) but when we returned after the weekend they still had stains where they were before and the whole office stank as they had been left all wet with the windows closed.
As I now know they just shampooed them by hand when, they should have followed a much more sophisticated process such as:
- Pre-vacuuming to pick up loose dirt and carpet
- Pre-treating the carpet to break up any remaining dirt
- Special attention to stains with carpet safe stain remover
- Used a special hot water extraction machine to wash the carpet
- Properly dried the carpet with fans, dehumidifiers and open windows
Ask any new cleaning company about their cleaning policies and expect a sophisticated answer.
Smaller Companies Have Less Back Up Staff
Our supposedly regular service grew steadily worse as cleaners would often not show up. It turns out they got a bigger client across town and decided to divert their limited staff across there.
Make sure you have a rock solid contract that clearly indicates what services you will receive, when they should happen and how often.
Cleaners Protect You and Your Staff
We believe a bout of illness that put several of our staff out of action for weeks was due to the watering down of cleaning products and an inefficient or just plain negligent approach to the cleaning itself.
We can’t prove it but the situation reminded me just how important good hygiene and cleanliness is in order to ensure the health and productivity of your staff.
Needless to say we have now invested in a much more reputable cleaning company that we are very happy with. Let this article stand as a warning to you if you are planning on saving money on cleaning services now or in the future.
Please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below.
Image courtesy : Microsoft office
