How clean is your office right now? Are yesterday’s coffee stains still visible on desks? When did you last meet your contract manager?
If standards have started to slip, it may be time to start looking for a new cleaning provider.
It may just be a few small things playing on your mind, or it could actually be a long list of real problems which any professional and reputable cleaning provider simply wouldn’t allow to happen.
Proper office cleaning is more than just emptying the bins and running the vacuum cleaner around once a week. You know this, but over time some cleaners become complacent and slipping standards are not always immediately obvious.
Office Cleaning Provider Checklist
It pays to take stock once in a while, which is why we have prepared this checklist:
Do you trust, or even know your cleaners?
The cleaning industry has a bad reputation for paying low wages, not training their staff and therefore having a high staff turnover.
Like most other companies, office cleaning providers succeed or fail on the quality of the staff that they hire. Professional cleaning firms recruit professional staff – and then do their level best to keep them.
But the management should also make sure that their cleaners receive adequate training and support, because, at the end of the day, the staff are the representatives of their business.
They should also ensure that their staff are paid a competitive wage, otherwise they will feel undervalued, underpaid and will likely soon be heading for the door.
Some indicators that your current office cleaning contractor might not be hiring the best quality staff – or managing, compensating and training them effectively – include:
- A high level of staff turnover
- Unprofessional appearance
- Items “disappearing” from the workplace
- A high rate of absenteeism
- Poor timekeeping
- A lack of training for new staff
- Cleaners can’t work well unsupervised
- No supervision at all
- Cleaners not sure of their duties & responsibilities
- A lack of recognition/reward for top performing staff by the management
Bad Levels of Service
There is absolutely no reason why you should accept bad levels of service from your office cleaning provider.
You are paying good money, and you should expect good service in return. You wouldn’t just keep shelling out money to your other suppliers if they were letting you down, so why should your cleaning service provider get off lightly?
If you are seeing one or more of the following red flags then it is probably time to look for a new office cleaning service.
- Some office areas not getting cleaned at all
- Casual attitude
- A lack of attention to detail
- A disregard for Health & Safety issues
- The management don’t monitor cleaning standards
- A lack of quality control
- Cleaners are using old or unclean equipment
- Cleaning is rushed or corners are being cut
- A disregard for the security of your office
- No thoughts on how to improve their service over time
Bad Account Management
And, it’s not just the level of cleaning that’s important, it’s the whole package of the service that you receive.
Even if everywhere in your office is spotlessly clean, you should still be able to pick up the phone at any time and be able to speak to someone to discuss issues, resolve problems and settle payment disputes.
Do you recognise any of the following?
- Recurring issues
- A lack of communication / customer service
- A lack of reporting
- Increasing prices with no corresponding increase in quality of service
CCS Office Cleaning Providers
If you are seeing one or more of these worrying warning signs from your current office cleaning provider then it might be time to make a change. Simply get in touch with us to see why we can offer a better and more professional level of service than your current provider.
