Contract Cleaning
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
they adopted the quantity is better than quality approach. Place 10,000 calls sell 100 items with a 40% margin and you justify the next 1 million calls. With 230 million consumers in the US they can be calling for years and years and years...........
Back in the early 90's the national firm I was with had each regional office conduct a phone survey of CEO's, President's, VP's, Facility Managers, Plant Managers, in general the decision makers on contract cleaning. Over 2,500 calls were placed with over 1,600 responding.
Some of the questions were:
Do you use a cleaning service in your home? your office/plant?
What made you decide to choose the contractor you have?
What do you look for in a contractor?
How did you find your current contractor?
What are your expectations of your contractor?
While these high powered, executives did not blink once while turning over the keys to their house to a maid service with all their personal belongings at risk. They absolutely scrutinized, checked and checked again on who they let in their offices at night.
Why?
Perception, a maid service is personal, they know and trust 'Molly' she's been cleaning for us, for our neighbors, for my mom for years....
Why not janitors?
Some of the reasons given;
The janitors have such a high turnover, I never see the same cleaner for more than 3 weeks, I don't like how the cleaners look, it seems we have a new person in our building every night, Our last service was stealing from us, We've been burned so many times by contractors, Your all alike.....
Not one single respondent indicated that they chose or contacted their contractor because of a magazine or newspaper advertisement.
Everyone of them said it was because the sales person was persistent, kept calling on them for a long period of time and the company was stable and in business for more than 5 years.
What qualified their choice of contractor?
References and referrals from current customers but NOT ON THE NIGHTLY CLEANING!!
On:
Quality of supervisors
Communication with contractor management
Response by contractor management
Support of supervisors by contractor management
Now, surf the web for cleaning company sites, look at the brochures and sales letters your competition puts out. Now divide that by successful and those who aren't around too long.
Common denominator?
All the successful companies emphasize in the advertisements either family owned and operated, or highly trained, certified, registered supervision. Read further into their promotion and you will continue to see how much emphasis is put on how they train, continuing education, support their supervisors!! not the cleaners.
Now the final survey question:
How did you know that the service firm you selected was reliable and stable?
Answer:
By their community activity
Commercial cleaning is broken down by
Janitorial Services for
Commercial -- offices without manufacturing attached
Industrial -- offices with manufacturing attached
Retail -- Stores or places with general public access
Medical -- doctor/dentist, labs, hospitals, ER centers,
Institutional -- schools, dorms, campuses, churches
Janitorial Services include:
General cleaning -- trash, dust, vacuum, sweep, mop, bathrooms
Floor Care -- buff, scrub/strip/seal/finish
Carpet Care -- Cleaning carpeting by numerous different methods
Window Care -- cleaning glass, doors, windows, partitions
Specialty Services within the field include:
Clean room cleaning
wood/terrazzo/marble/travertine floor care
Elevator and escalator cleaning
Crime scene clean ups
Pressure washing--exterior, interior (locker/showers)
Construction/remodeling clean ups
Ask the customer what information they want you to give them in your bid. I know it's obvious, but it's only obvious after you lose a bid because you didn't check with the customer.
Many potential customers require more than just your price on an account. They'll often want proof of insurance, your description of the work to be done, a list of emergency services you provide, any specialty services you offer, whether or not you can provide them with paper/cleaning supplies or any one of a dozen other questions they might want answered. Always check with them to make sure you haven't left anything out.
Hints and tips on cleaning and janitorial businesses.
Interstate Competitor - Integrity Property Solutions
Contract Cleaners for Offices, Schools, Medical facilities and Factories in Melbourne, Victoria
Integrity Property Solutions
