What do customers really want?
Honestly, they want great service and no hassle. Everyone is very busy these days. No one has time! And if you are the person that is responsible for the site cleaning and it goes wrong, then you are going to get the emails and phone calls from colleagues. Nobody wants that, so we aim to deliver great service without a fuss.
Quite often people are unhappy with the existing cleaning arrangements, but they are busy, like we all are, and they put up with average service.
What does great service mean in practice?
Well, in 3 words actually- Recruitment, training and supervision. I have been in this industry for a long time and I often say that we are really, a big HR department that does cleaning. So, this means we interview everyone in the office or at their own home. Then we go through training with them- two things mainly- the customers cleaning specification (what to clean and how often) and compliance. Then from a supervision point of view, we audit each site every month (we do that on our own, we don’t drag the customer around with us unless they want to come: most don’t they haven’t got the time and anyway, they are paying us for the cleaning service!
You said you have been doing this for a while! How have things changed since you started doing commercial cleaning?
The biggest thing is technology. That hasn’t really affected cleaning, but it certainly means our customers have less time than they used to. Which means they want a great service delivered quietly and under the radar. The other is compliance, the burden of health and safety, immigration checks, training, risk assessments. Not to mention compliance measures specific to markets like CQC checks in medical and care arena, DBS compliance in schools and AA rosettes and the like for the hotel that we work for.
What makes you different?
The customers don’t want different. As I said at the start they just want good service and no hassle. It doesn’t sound like a lot to ask for, does it? If I had to pick something I would say, we fit the way our customers want to work- we are very flexible and we listen. At Brightr Cleaning and Facilities, we are always there to help you!