We have been learning about commercial and office cleaning for many years and hope you find the following useful.    It comes from what the training we have gone on, things we have been advised, read, learned, our experiences and so on. 
 
It is the operations manual and training that we use for staff. 
 
Please excuse that we are only slowly putting it all online, so you should see more and more appearing over time.   
 
We also plan to update it as things change over time. 

Floor scrubbing machines

It can be tempting to just use a mop and bucket for hard floor areas where there is high foot traffic, lots of dirt, or larger than 200 square feet.  This is because the equipment is cheaper and it takes less training.

However although it can seem easy in the short term, in the long term the results are not as good.  This is because most cleaners can put all their weight into the mop for a short time, but never day in and day out to really achieve what a scrubbing machine can achieve.

Often the people who are tempted to use a mop and bucket instead of a machine, are those that have not had to do the job themselves over a long period of time.

The machines work well because they are motorised and their weight really digs into the dirt.

As a result a floor scrubbing machine is needed for the sake of the job as well as the cleaner.

 

Learning to use them

This is a handy guide, however please make sure you receive sufficient training from a person who has knowledge and experience using such a machine.

It needs a person who has practical experience and knowledge of the machine,  to show a new person how to use it.

For safety reasons and to learn how to use it properly,  a person should not use these machines if they have not shown by such an experienced person.  Also that the new person should not use it by themselves until the experienced person has verified that the new person is up to using the machine by themselves.

A good janitorial cleaning materials supplier will show you how to use the machine.

If used incorrectly they can fly across the floor with great force and hurt someone.

After a few minutes a person should be able to do it with someone else next to them, but it takes about an hour until they will be good enough to do it by themselves.

Used correctly and after a bit of practice, it takes very little effort to use these machines as they balance on the pad, if someone is having to push or is tugging the machine they are not balancing it correctly on the centre of its pad.

The machine should be held with both hands on both handles, the following is said as an analogy so this can be easily understood that must never be done in practice.  Balanced correctly it could be used with the operator having one finger on the controls.  However this is said is just to put a point across and the operator must have both hands on the handles, so can resolve any situation that may happen.

When the pad is balanced, by gently pushing it one way, the moving edges of the pad will mean the scrubber is moved for the operator.  So the operator does not need to push it, just gently tilt the machine which is on the moving pad.

If feels like, when the operator tilts the cleaning pad, the moving pad moves the machine for the operator.

This is a bit like how a surfer tilts the board to go in a different direction, just by gently leaning on it.

Lifting the machine handle up, it tilts the disc forwards and the machine goes to the right.  This is because the rotating disc then touches the floor more at the front and makes it go right.

Letting the machine handle drop down a bit, it tilts the disc backwards and the machine goes to the left.  This is because the rotating disc then touches the floor more at the back and makes it go left.

This can also be done to make the machine go backwards and forwards.

This is why it takes around an hour to learn, because the operator has to be able to balance it, so it does not go all over the place. Like anything this takes time and practice.

The smoother the surface, the easier it is to balance the floor cleaning disc.  A surface such as a reclaimed wooden floor is almost impossible to buff clean, because the disc grabs and is moved around by all the bits sticking out of it.  As a result it is impossible to balance it, so the edges of the disc touch the floor and it flies off in different directions.

Need to be really careful of this as the machine has enough power and force to break someone’s leg!

 

About the machines

Scrubber machines last for 3-4 years if used 8 hours per day, every day.  They of course last even longer if used less often.

We recommend finding a janitorial or cleaning supplies firm that can, repair it for you.

There are two kinds of machines,

1, High speed for polishing,

2, Slow for scrubbing.

If use the fast one for scrubbing the cleaning liquid would splash everywhere.

There are two speed machines, but they are twice the weight.  They are also really heavy to move around, such as to a different floor of the building.

Pads and brushes

A pad or brush goes on the bottom.  They sit on a drive board, so there is a machine, then drive board and on that sits the pad or brush.

Brush: For coarse or surfaces such as rough concrete.   Please be careful, these will literally take the paint off a floor so we have never had a bad enough surface to use them on.

They do last years though, which is an advantage.

Floor pads: For more normal surfaces.  Black is the most aggressive, red is less aggressive, then blue and white is the least aggressive for polishing such as when it is used for cleaning a surface every day.  They do not last that long, to make them last longer they can be turned over to use both sides and cleaned.

 

Moving the machines to different floors of a building

When the machines being moved upstairs it does need to be done carefully.  It is easier on stairs with a good depth on each step as the machine can rest on each stop.   However on steps that do not have much depth, there may not be enough space to rest the machine on them.

The machines are heavy, so as part of the training the instructor needs to ensure the operative can take them up and down the stairs safely.  A large part of this is if they are strong enough.

The machines are heavy because of their large motors.  Also they need to be heavy as it is the weight on top of the cleaning disc turning that makes them dig into the dirt.  It is possible to also get horse shoe weights that can put on the machines which make them clean even better.

 

Health and safety

This is very important, a full on site risk assessment must be done.  Things to look for include:

  • How the operator takes the machine up and down the stairs if needed
  • Ensuring the cable goes nowhere near the machine and so does not get tangled up in it
  • The operator knows to stand not too close the machine head, so that if a part of the pad gets stuck on floor surface and kicks, it does not hit the operator. This can happen with enough force to really hurt someone.
  • The operator knows how to stand with a posture that they will not hurt their back from moving and controlling the machine.  So they stand with a straight back, using their arms and hands and not use any of their back muscles to move the machine.  So of course they also most not be standing too far away from the machine to do this.

Please look at full health and safety materials for how to do this, what is put here is just a supplement to those.

The manager then needs to:

  1. Have done this health and safety audit and shown it to the operator to read and check.
  2. Do a practical and theoretical training with the operator and give them documentation to read.
  3. Ask the operator if they have any questions or if there is anything they have not understood.
  4. The manager then needs to get the operator to sign a document saying that they have read, done and understood it all.

 

Other recommendations

It is possible to get small cleaning solution tanks which connect to the lever on the machine, so pulling the lever makes them put cleaning solution into the cleaning disc.  This saves the time of separately putting the cleaning solution onto the floor.

There are also machines that suck of the cleaning solution after it has been applied, otherwise need a wet suck vacuum cleaner to take up the cleaning solution as a separate process.

Please be careful not to over wet a floor with cleaning solution, as means there is more to suck up again and also the solution can sock into and so damage the floor.

Used correctly the machine balances so the weight goes through the centre of the pad, an inexperienced operator may cheat by having the weight of the machine go through the wheels.  This is a cheat as then the machine’s weight is not going to the cleaning.

Just like having a car is not just about buying it, it is also about learning how to drive, having it repaired and so on.  We use a knowledgeable janitorial supplier who can repair, train and give guidance.  It is for this reason we use a janitorial supplier and not just buy one off the internet, of course it is a personal choice.

Cleaner introductory training

We are putting more and more of our training online, this is just some of the training that the cleaner needs to go through when they first join us.

Spot cleaning

Commercial cleaning has very limited budgets and the results are achieved by being clever.

This means looking at what needs cleaning and only cleaning what is needed.

This is an example of an office with 50 people in, the cleaner has 2 hours per night and goes 5 nights per week.

 

Without spot cleaning

The job is very hard and loads of stuff is missed.

Clients do not notice what has been done a bit less often, they do notice when something has not been done for a long time.

 

With spot cleaning

The job is easy, things are just cleaned when needed, not just for the sake of it

There are no arease that have not been cleaned for a  long time

The cleaner can deep clean an area each time, then after a number of visits have worked around so deep cleaned the whole office and can start again.  For example high level dusting, clean window frames, vents and so on.

 

 How to do spot cleaning

If for example coming every day of the week to an office

Before the cleaner starts they are clever.  They take 2 minutes to look around and see what is dirty.  They are trying to find all the things that they have missed, there is always something.

Only vacuum where they can see dirt each day and then once per week vacuum the whole floor.

They clean glass where they can see stains, then once every fortnight do all the glass

They only empty bins that they see have rubbish in.

So the office is clean and it takes a quarter of the time and life is easier!  Also they have spare time for deep cleaning areas.

 

Limits of spot cleaning

In the kitchen, all food preparation areas and floors need to be done every visit, unless we are told otherwise.

Also in toilets, all toilets, sinks and floors need to be done every visit.

There maybe a priority area in the cleaning specification that is especially important to the client and needs to be cleaned more often.

 

 

Rotations

Some things are cleaned in full every so often, so it is good to do a big clean of one type each visit.

The specification will not say how often, so there is what we recommend for the kind of office in this example:

  • Once every 2 weeks dust everything
  • Once every 2 weeks dust high up areas with feather duster
  • Once a week dust the computer and telephone handsets
  • Once every 2 weeks clean entire glass partition areas
  • Once per week hoover or half of the entire office
  • Once per week hoover half of the other half of the office
  • Once every 6 weeks clean the inside of the fridge
  • Clean inside of microwave, daily, weekly or monthly depending on how much it is used
  • Please see the cleaning specification for more things to clean.

 

With hard floors one week entirely dust and the other entirely week mop it.

If a cleaner is cleaning a space less than 4600 square feet, with 2 hours per night, 5 days per week then it means the customer needs a higher standard and so things should be cleaned more often.

 

Micro Fibre cloths

You will be supplied with 3 state of the art micro fibre cloths, each a different colour.

One for the toilets

One for the kitchen

One for general areas.

It is important that these areas do not mix.  So the cloths are not used in the same kind of areas, water, chemicals, buckets etc.

For example using the toilet one on kitchen surfaces could give everyone working there, men, women and children nasty infections!

Please wash these at the end of your cleans, or at least every week so they should last a long time.

 

Please use the cloth for the general areas completely dry and do not use any cleaning chemicals on it.

We have given you good ones so they clean without the need for cleaning products.  The reason not to use any detergent or moisture on them is:

  1. They work by the tiny close knit surfaces grabbing the dirty. Moisture or cleaning chemicals stop them from working and break them.
  2. It means that things you clean such as computers, art, paintings etc cannot get damaged by moisture.

For toilets and kitchen cloth we have to use the cleaning chemical so it disinfects.

 

 

Damaging things

If there are risky things that could be damaged.

It is better to not clean them and them not get damaged, than clean them and there is a risk of them being damaged.  This is no matter what the client says!  If there are any problems with this please report it to us.

Examples are things like paintings, glass sculptures and objects, old things, etc

Basically if it looks like it could get hurt.

Please also remember the importance of using only dry micro fibre cloths as this will help.

 

Locked toilet roll holders

People hate to run out of toilet paper!

 

When there are non locked toilet roll holders, if you think they will use up all the toilet paper before you next come back, please leave spare toilet rolls in the toilet cubicles.  This is so the people in there can use them when the toilet rolls in the holder runs out.

 

 

 

 

 

However if it is a locked toilet roll holder and it is not the type with 2 toilet rolls in there.  Then once it is run out there will not be any left.

So please do not wait until it is  empty to refill it.  Ensure there is at least enough to last there until you come next, even if it means throwing away a toilet roll that is not yet finished.

How and why to train cleaners

Often a cleaner does not perform because they have not been given the right training.

Cleaner performance can massively improve from training, because then they know what to do.

Also because now they know what they are doing and can see the good results from their work, they can take pride in doing a good job. Before they were secretely embarrassed and not coping,  so not care.

Very often when we take over a site from another company training can resolve the problem.  It is very easy to think that can just getting different staff will solve the problem.  However it can just get new people with different problems, but the same level of issues.

So we first see if things things can be sorted out by training.

Often the first thing to come up is that the cleaner has areas that they do every visit such as vacuums every corner and bit of the site  every day.  it is best if they just do the bits where they see dirty daily and do the whole floor once per week.

Then they can do the bits that they do not have time for otherwise, such as high level dusting, small objects around the edges of the rooms that may get missed such as windows frames and low level vents.  This is because commercial cleaning has limited budgets so such decisions do have to be made.

This can be caused by the cleaner personally thinking certain things are important, thinking that some things have to be done every day.  However often it can be lazyness so they are doing the things they see as easy, they may not even be conscious of that is why they are doing it that way.

How to deliver training

1, Bossing people around makes people recoil as they are being pushed.

2, Deliver the information as a service to them and in a way to help them.

3, Set an example, when we do on the job training, we clean with the cleaner so they can see how it should be done, then often nothing even needs to be said.

4, The cleaner may like to show off what they know, we listen as then they feel it is an information exchange and a two way street.

Selling cleaning materials

Selling cleaning materials are an important revenue stream for office and commercial cleaning companies.

It is seen as an important upsell.  In an industry with low margins and constant pressure on costs, any place for more margin to come from is needed.

Customers normally choose the cleaning company to provide cleaning materials because then they do not have to worry about stock, ordering and having another separate bill to pay.  The cleaning company does all this form and puts it on the same bill that they pay for their cleaning with.

Cleaning materials are normally sold in 2 parts:

1, The cleaning materials that the cleaner needs for cleaning the client’s premises:

So these are things like vacuum cleaner, vacuum cleaner bags, cloths, chemicals such as toilet cleaner and so on.  This is a weekly amount and the same every week, so the cleaning materials belong to the company and are taken away if the client stops using the company.  The client is basically paying for the use of the cleaning materials.

It is important to have close stock control on cleaning materials to reduce the possibility of theft,

Training the cleaner in what measure of cleaning chemicals to use each time is also important, it is so easy for a cleaner to just pour toilet cleaner excessively down a toilet, loads of detergent into a mop bucket and so on.

Ways to budget this are:

  1. A cost per hour the cleaner is working, categorised by type of premises and cleaning processes being done
  2. The size of the client’s premises area being cleaned and how often the cleaner is going there, which leads to an amount per week.

At the time of writing this document we do the first, but are working on doing the second which we may find is an improvement.

Then check for each client how much you are spending on cleaning materials and what percentage you are getting in margin.

Different kinds of premises need different amounts of cleaning materials.  For example a car repair garage will create lots of dust and grease, the same for a restaurant that fries a lot of food.  They use up loads of degreasing chemicals and will be really intensive on materials such as cloths and mops.

A high end office will need high standards but will not produce so much of these kinds of intensive dirt’s and grease that needs cleaning.

So you will need to forecast cleaning material usage for each type of premises.

2, Cleaning materials that the customers need for cleaning themselves

These are things like toilet rolls, bin bags, hand soaps and so on.  The cleaning company cannot predict and forecast how many the client’s staff and customers will use.  As a result these are charged separately and per item.

We call this service ‘auto refill’ as we check their stock, order and add these to their invoice automatically.

Of the customers that choose to have us provide these kinds of materials, a small percentage may say that they would like to directly ask us for cleaning materials when they themselves see that they need them and not have us do their stock control.  So they will tell us when they want things.

Different customers will have different requirements for these. A high end customer showroom will need the highest quality toilet rolls even if they cost more, a builders yard will be fine with standard stuff.

Hand soaps and toilet rolls are personal things that the customers will use, they are a very different kind of proposition than the regular industrial type cleaning materials used by the cleaner.  This is why hand soaps and other personal hygiene materials is more of a boutique type industry.  It is important that the client is happy with what they are delivered as this is when they will notice issues.    People’s choices for these are very personal and need to listen to people’s personal needs on these.  For example with hand soaps, scented, colour, anti-bacterial or not is all choices that really matter too many customers and they all want different things.

If they are using it directly from the pump dispenser packet and not putting them in a wall dispenser, then the packaging container and pump also needs to be nice.

We recommend to customers that they use one of the wall mounted lockable toilet roll dispensers that use the jumbo toilet rolls, instead of the small domestic sized toilet roll holders.  This is because some companies find that a lot of toilet rolls are stolen by staff as one can easily be put in handbags, ruck sacks and so on.  People take them home and if a person steals one per day it all adds up.  This may or may not happen in an office where there are a smaller number staff of different people, so it depends if they have a person doing it.  However in places that the client’s customers use the toilet a lot such a restaurant or bar, it is even more important as there are lots of different people coming in to use the toilets.

The cleaning materials included in ‘the cleaning materials the cleaner needs for cleaning’

We have two levels of cleaning materials packages, standard and prestige.

The standard just has a basic range and the prestige ones have what is needed for a more advanced premises.

The standard ones are also a more basic formulation and potency, the prestige ones are a very high concentration and the best it is possible to get.

Standard materials list:

  • Toilet cleaner
  • Toilet microfibre cloth
  • Disinfectant for cleaning kitchen and toilets
  • Kitchen microfibre cloth
  • General purpose cleaning fluid
  • General microfibre cloth
  • Long window cleaning cloth or blade
  • Vacuum cleaner
  • Replacement bag for vacuum cleaner
  • Bucket for mop
  • Mop
  • Gloves (always making sure there is a spare set in case one breaks)
  • Hazard warning sign

The prestige materials also has:

A higher grade of cleaning materials to what the standard ones are, plus:

  • Window cleaning fluid (as this is more expensive for cleaning chemicals than using a pole and reach system)
  • Window cleaning microfibre cloth
  • Limescale remover for sinks and basins
  • Kettle limescale remover

We of course recommend the prestige cleaning chemicals, there is more that we can do with them and being really good they help the cleaner to do an even better job.  However many customers do go for the standard ones because their budgets really do matter.

Supplying cleaning materials to smaller customers

For a customer that is 10 hours or more per week, it is easy to create a set rate for supplying the cleaning materials that the cleaner needs for cleaning.  This is because the larger number of hours means that the:

  1. It more covers the cost of organising the initial cost of the cleaning materials when the cleaner starts.  The cost of a good vacuum cleaner, cloths, mop and buck and so on are a big up front cost
  2. The client needs enough cleaning materials that the delivery amounts are above the janitorial suppliers threshold for free delivery
  3. Doing stock takes at the customer’s site, ordering and organising the cleaning material stock
  4. The client normally has a larger premises and room for these things to be stored

For 6-10 hours per week for the reasons above, we need to charge the customer the same amount for cleaning materials that the customer pays for 10 hours per week.   This is because it costs there is a minimum threshold where below this it is not economic.

For clients below 6 hours per week, we needed to find a solution that customers could still have us supply the cleaning materials but it still be economic for us to do so.

This is how we deal with the issues above:

1, Costs of setting up the cleaning materials and taking them back if they cancel:

For the up front costs of the cleaning materials and the costs if they eventually cancel with us.  At the time of writing this article, we charge customers  £40 + VAT for the standard materials and £60 + VAT for the prestige ones, please check our website for the current prices.  This is refunded to the customer if they return the cleaning materials, including if and when they eventually cancel with us.

2 and 3, Minimum delivery amounts and stock taking:

We charge a minimum amount for standard cleaning materials is £2.50 per week and prestige is £3.50 + VAT.  The cleaners then buy the cleaning materials, take a picture of the receipt with their phone, send it to us and we then pay them the amount.  This is less economic to organise and the prices we pay for cleaning materials are higher, but this gets around the delivery charges on smaller orders from suppliers.

4, Lack of storage space at the clients:

We create a micro box, it is the size of one file archive box, it contains a smaller vacuum cleaner, mop and bucket etc.  This can be stored more easily by the clients.

Before we deliver the micro box we have to ask the clients if we are cleaning their kitchen and toilet.  Also if they have hard wood floors or carpet, if they do have carpet then how much they have.

This is because many of the smaller customers are in a building where they share the toilets and kitchen with other companies and so we are not cleaning these areas.

The contents of the micro boxes are carefully sourced for being able to fit in small containers spaces and also being able to do the job well and properly.

Standard:

  • Toilet cleaner
  • Toilet microfibre cloth
  • Disinfectant for cleaning kitchen and toilets
  • Kitchen microfibre cloth
  • General purpose cleaning fluid
  • General microfibre cloth
  • Micro vacuum cleaner of the type that uses a filter and not a vacuum cleaner bag
  • Bucket for mop
  • Mop
  • Gloves (always making sure there is a spare set in case one breaks)
  • Hazard warning sign

The prestige materials also have:

A higher grade of cleaning materials to what the standard ones are, plus:

  • Limescale remover for sinks and basins
  • Kettle descaler

Summary

So in summary, when we sell cleaning materials we quote for ‘the cleaning materials that the cleaner needs for cleaning the client’s premises.  Cleaning materials that the customer’s staff and clients need for cleaning themselves are charged separately.

Why is Health and Safety important for cleaning companies

Health and safety is of course important for the welfare of your staff.  It is also a way of respecting and valuing your staff, in a way that they will hopefully value and reciprocate with goodwill that will help them to help your business.

However there is of course also the really serious legal issue.

Health and safety does not have limited liability, a director cannot say that the company is liable and not them.  This is also the same for other people involved with the business should they cause someone else to get hurt by not doing proper health and safety.    There is not limited liability with companies for health and safety.

An example which helps explain this.   If a person puts up some scaffolding for cleaning a high up area of a building and it collapses, killing the operative who was on it.  If it collapsed because of the person putting it up did not do it properly, it is their fault that it collapsed and the authorities would take them to court personally.  They cannot just expect the company to get the blame and the company cannot fully protect them.

This personal blame also goes up the chain of the business to the management and directors.  If the company that the directors are in charge of, did not do good enough health and safety processes, so that the person putting up the scaffolding was not facilitated properly, the directors of the company are also personally liable for this failing.   So the directors of the business are also personally liable and cannot expect it just to be the company.

Should a person be seriously or fatally injured at work, the local authority will get seriously involved, it is a criminal investigation process that is horrible for anyone to go through.

If there is more than one injury or fatality, or worse of all some sort of trend then the authorities get even more serious with their investigations of the company’s health and safety.  This is even more serious for workers, management and directors.

Written records and documents

A cleaning company should have great health and safety processes, but they also need to have a written record so they can legally prove how they act if there is a government investigation. It also needs to be real as a local authority will also see through a company that has it all on paper, but the things in it are never done in reality.  For example if people sign a form each time they have done something, but they do not actually do it.

It is very easy to outsource health and safety, but the company still needs to be involved to ensure that the company really does the processes and makes it part of what they do.  Health and safety law requires that every site is assessed and so your managers will need to be able to do this to assess all the issues with site, machines and processes at each site.

There was a building company that outsourced their health and safety, each page of their manual started with ‘Make sure you put on your hard had a protective gloves’, however so did the page which had health and safety for making a coffee in the office.  Evidently the health and safety company advising them had just used templates and the company had not gotten involved.

Another example was a company where the operations manual was distributed, but there was a glaring error in them that many of the pages were stapled together so could not be opened properly.  No one came back to report this to the company as no managers or staff had even opened it.

Interestingly a government health and safety inspector who did a talk at a British Institute of cleaning meeting we want to, said that he visits a company, he can tell which ones will grow and succeed.  Those that are good with their health and safety policies tend to be generally capable companies who are good at everything else as well and those are the ones that succeed.

The basic concept

Every risk needs to be assessed, cleaners need to be trained in how to act safely, even if something seems obvious.

If a cleaner has been:

1, Told how to lift heavy things

2, Been shown how to do it in practice,

3, The operative has done it as well with the teacher so the teacher can see that the cleaner has understood

4, The cleaner has been given documentation with a clear diagram and instructions.

5, The cleaner has signed to confirm they have been trained with this training and understood everything.

Then if they have not done it correctly then it is their own fault for not acting as they have been told to and they cannot win by suing the company because it is their own fault.

If they have not been trained and told how to do it, they can blame the company.

So legally and with good management the company is ‘removing the excuses the cleaners can make for not doing things properly’

Even if something seems obvious, sadly it still needs to be said to staff so they cannot make any excuses.

Of course any cleaner can sue a company and the company has to defend itself, but this means the company should win.  Also the cleaner is less likely to do this because they can see and would be advised by any lawyer that the company would win because the correct things have been done.

Getting quality control feedback from customers

Finding out as early as possible

To improve a service and solve problems, we find that we really need to want to know about problems.

It is upsetting and hurts our egos to hear problems and complaints, but we have to rise above that and just want to do what is right to create the best possible service.

Metaphors for this is people such as people covering their ears as they do not want to hear bad news, hiding or sticking their heads in the sand are all applicable.

Don’t assume no news from a client means everything is going great, there could be a very small problem happening but the client is too busy to contact you directly.  Nipping it in the bud early will make your client very happy and will keep them for a far longer time.

This means that we are actively hunting and looking for problems and this includes asking customers about them.

Customers normally only tell us once they are angry, normally as something has been going on for a while and they only tell us once it has gotten worse and worse.  As they are angry it is then harder to resolve the problem, it is also harder as the problem will have probably grown.

As a result they are more likely to cancel.

Even if they do not cancel this time, we have used up  goodwill with them and any good feelings towards us, so they are less likely to forgive any future issues and so even more likely to cancel in future.

Our aim is to build up goodwill and their feelings towards us.

So we need them to say before the point they are so angry, that they are motivated and bothered to contact us.  We also want to reduce the possibility of them cancelling, wanting to cancel, or damaging their goodwill towards us

We need to provide the best service and so they get that from us and have no need to go elsewhere.

The bottom line is that customers will find out about things before we do and we need them to tell us.

Making customers complain

Customers tend not to complain as:

  1. It is effort
  2. They put it off as they have other things to do
  3. They fear a negative reaction to their complaint.

So a large part of quality control is making your customers feel comfortable to tell if there is a problem and to be bothered to do so.

I am sure you know restaurants, the waiter comes and asks if everything is okay.  The food is terrible and the people will never go back there, but it is easier to say yes it is and the customer does not want any aggravation from saying they are not happy.  The customer will just never go back there.

This happens a lot because the waiter does not really want to know if there are any problems and the customer feels they will not be able to sort it out there and then even if they say.

It can be such a big issue that customers just want to cancel as the easiest route out.  It is easier and they do not get the repercussions from complaining.

When they do cancel, they even make excuses that it is because they no longer want a cleaner anymore, they will do it themselves, their old cleaner has returned of any other issue.  This is normally because they do not want repercussions the cleaner or the cleaning company.

To resolve this:

1, Have chats with the customer and build up a relationship, they will then be happy and comfortable talking with you.  It becomes a pleasure talking with you and they are more likely to bother to tell you if they have any problems.   These chats from the moment the customer joins, to other regular times are all building up to making the customer feel comfortable to say if there is ever an issue in future.  They need to know that we want to know even about the smallest most trivial issue.

2, as parts of the chats, repeatedly say that you really want to know if there is a problem no matter how small or that you will improve.  The customer will then see that you will not respond with aggression, upset and so on, you will be pleased as you really want to know.  You will not make it a problem and will be thankful for the information.  This is hard to achieve as it is almost reprogramming the fears and experiences that customers may have had from elsewhere.

3, Make complaining a pleasant experience, because the customer enjoys spending time with you and so this is an excuse to do so.

Keeping in contact with your customers.

Always try to keep in contact with your customers as much as possible to help get complaints

You can give them a call and have a nice friendly chat about things and how the cleaner is doing.

An excellent way is to send out a how a monthly “how are we doing” email.

We also send them emails every month such as

Dear (Customer name)

We hope you are well. Please can you kindly tell us how things are going and if there is anything we could do better, no matter how small?

Best regards,

(name)

Wellman Clean

The email is short so they actually read it, we find that the longer the email, the more it will be ignored.

We find that changing the wording regularly means it will be read more.  Some of them also need to express that we really want to know about problems and why we want to know.

This also makes it easier and less time consuming for them to tell you problems.  These emails start for them the process of this happening.

We are already there and in contact and so it is not like they are having to start the process of complaining.  We have already started it for them.

Things that you can include in emails are
* Please call the agency if ever you would like us to allocate you a new cleaner, have a temporary one to cover your regular cleaner’s sickness or holidays.

* The better the direct feedback you give us, the better we can understand and serve your needs.

* We recommend contacting the agency directly if there are things you would like us to do, rather than asking the cleaner to tell us.

We really want you to be happy and find a major part of that is making you feel comfortable to tell us so if there is anything you are ever not totally satisfied with, no matter how small.

As your cleaning agency the worst thing for us to hear is “for the last few weeks the cleaner has been mediocre, or not great on a certain aspect of their cleaning” or any other issue. We really strive for you to receive great cleaning in every way.

Clients do of course normally find out about things before we do, if we were told earlier we would have been able to sort out the problem immediately.

Also we would love to know not just for you, but for the other customers who use the same cleaner:

We find that if a customer does not contact us quickly, the customer gets more annoyed and the problem does not get better. The customer is unhappy so leaves the agency, the cleaner and the agency loose the job when it could have easily been resolved at an earlier stage.

Sometimes the customer does not want to contact the agency to be nice to the cleaner, but of course it eventually results in the customer leaving the agency which is worse :

* The cleaner loses the job and has been denied the opportunity for retraining, or whatever could have solved the problem.

* If the problem would be resolved by the current cleaner being changed, the cleaner loses the job anyway, but also another would be replacement cleaner is denied the job as the customer has left the agency, so it does not help anyone.

*The loss of the customer also means the agency gets smaller so cannot re invest in growing the business which in turn provides jobs for more cleaners.

Also, if you are ever not happy with your cleaning consultant at the office there are feedback links on every page of our website that go straight to a feedback form. This goes straight through to senior management who investigate every issue.

We find putting all this in one email means it never gets read, so have to use the most important parts of it most and can use other bits later on.

The main thing is you are building up that you want to hear about issues and you are thankful for the feedback, so that they feel comfortable and even rewarded for saying.

Escalating problems

Customers also need a route to escalate complaints to if they are not happy with how their direct contact is headline it.  This is so that it can be resolved before they may decide to cancel.

Customers when they start and at regular times need to be told that if they are ever not happy with how someone assists them, the place where they can quickly and easily go to escalate the issue.

It is possible that they may not be happy with how the current person is dealing with their issue and want to escalate it to a higher level.  It needs to be quick and easy for them to do,

The aim is to try and get customers to do this instead of cancelling or writing a bad review somewhere

When they get to the feedback part of your website, it could start with something like:

In a continuous attempt to improve our service to you, we would be extremely grateful if you could give us any feedback.

Our aim is to give you the very best service and making customers comfortable to give us feedback is an essential part of that.

Please help us by being really frank because it is only by listening to what you say that we can improve our standards. If the service you received was good then we would love to hear about it, if it has not been up to scratch then we need to hear about it.

How to send out emails easily

We use a web program called “Mailchimp” and it seems to be one of the most popular mass email services. Probably in part because it is easy to use, comes with an amount of free emails each month and integrates with many software packages

With this program you are able to set up campaigns to specific customers such as area, size of company etc.  You can also send out offers and other things you will want your clients to know.

It is far simpler than sending out an email one at a time via your outlook. You can also set it up so your clients name is included so they do not feel it is a generic email and they feel special.

This is also good for you, as a happy client will normally not email you back. However you then have a record as proof you contacted the client, in case in future there is a problem and they say you never contacted them.

The big thing is not to put ‘Hi Customer’, but use the software to insert their name after their name.  We will have a separate article to show how to do this.

Small problems

We also want to encourage the client to tell us about the smallest possible trivial problems as:

1, this shows we really do care

2, It helps us to improve the service and be the best.  We also need to ensure that there is nothing that the client feels they could get better elsewhere.

3, A small problem could turn into a far bigger deal if left.  They also continually annoy your client until they explode and may even want to cancel.

If a client has a small problem with a cleaner such as forgetting to empty a particular bin or small marks on a window then it is better to find out as soon as possible so you can rectify the problem.  Your client is probably far too busy to contact you directly and the problem could get worse and worse and this makes the client angrier.

Remember you client is paying you so they will want to feel your presence either by phone calls or emails.

Don’t assume no news from a client means everything is going great, there could be a very small problem happening but the client is too busy to contact you directly.  Nipping it in the bud early will make your client very happy and will keep them for a far longer time.

Quoting for cleaning restaurants

Restaurants are one of the hardest clients to serve.

Here we are talking about just the areas where customers eat, toilets and the floors in the kitchen areas.  This article does not include cleaning the kitchen equipment which is normally a different speciality.

Many commercial cleaning companies will not clean restaurants because they are difficult to do for the price that can be charged.

How to quote for restaurants

We find that restaurants of the same size, take 25% more time than offices that also have toilets to clean.

Generally, offices without toilets to clean take 20% less time.  This happens when the toilets are situated in the communal building areas and so are cleaned by others.

In addition, you will probably need scrubber drier machines, which are expensive and not all cleaners have the experience to use them or even  the strength to carry them around such as upstairs if needed.

This is because

No need to read the rest of this articfe as many people will not want to know all this, but these are the reasons why:

  • restaurants take longer to clean
  • restaurants are harder to clean
  • commercial cleaning companies cannot charge so much

As a result many commercial cleaning companies will not clean restaurants

1, Cleaning needs to be done more often:

In an office, every set period, such as weekly, carpeted areas need to be vacuumed.

In addition, the cleaners should look at the entire carpet every day and vacuum particularly dirty areas. This in the trade is called spot cleaning, as the cleaners just clean where they spot dirt.

Likewise, every set period, such as weekly, hard floor areas should be swept and then mopped.

However, in a restaurant, cleaning is necessary more often because areas involving food preparation and consumption must be scrupulously clean and disinfected at all times. This requires a minimum of at least daily cleaning and disinfecting.

2, Cooking processes

The big problem here is the accumulation of oil, especially where food is fried.  Consequently, a fried chicken restaurant is potentially the worst case scenario.

Even if the cooking area has excellent ventilation oil still escapes and gets into the air, from the intensive and long cooking processes.

Oil will then cake itself onto the walls and coagulate into dust that needs to be removed.

So even regular dusting needs

  • a cloth with degreaser chemical
  • then the degreaser must be removed with a wet cloth.

This restaurant light fitting demonstrates all too clearly how the cooking oil in the air mixes with the airborne dust leaving a sticky coating.

See the difference after degreasing and a wipe with a wet cloth.

Sadly many cleaning companies often forget the second stage of removing degreaser with a cloth gently soaked in water.  By not removing the sticky degreaser combined with oil, dirt continues to adhere to it from any dusty or dirty items with which it come into contact.

Basically in the same way that degreaser helps remove dirt from an object, if left on an item it them helps do the reverse.  It takes dirt from the air and puts it on the object that was cleaned.

Also it is not good for the environment and is harmful to people, if chemicals are left on items that have been cleaned

3, Unpleasantness

Staff cleaning a restaurant have to deal with more waste.  Having to clean vomit out of a toilet and other unpleasantness means that restaurant jobs have a higher turnover than cleaning a nice pristine and smart office.

4, Client already has a similar specialism

Please stay with us on this one, it may seem theoretical, but we find it is an important point.

World trade works best when the buyer and seller have vastly different skills. The buyer does not know about medicine and the seller who is a doctor does.  Each party is getting something they cannot do for themselves.

In a smart office the customer does not want to get involved with cleaning and often does not have access to cleaners.  They really value a company that can do and take care of this for them as it is very different from what their main business.

Restaurants, on the other hand, employ staff with similar skills, so they can more easily do it for themselves.  As a result, although they may hire you in order to avoid their having to do it, there is not the same value.

5, The restaurant trade is a hard gig

Restaurants prepare food, but without the mechanised advantages of large factory production lines, are hugely labour intensive.

Restaurant personnel work hard and long hours, even the higher skilled chefs work hard and do massive hours.

So by cleaning restaurants, the cleaning business is in the catering business with it’s long hours and low margins.  Very different from top end smart offices.

6, There are more hard floors

If a  vacuum scrubber drier machine is not used, these hard floors take longer than vacuuming a carpet.

First, a hard floor has to be swept or vacuumed to remove loose material,  then mopped with detergent and then a last time with water.

7, Foodstuff

Food generally, leads to sticky hands that increase smudging on surfaces, and food on the floor and general dirt.

8, The toilets are harder to clean

Users of restaurant toilets tend to leave them in more of a mess than with offices.

This is because

  • They are used more often as customers tend to use the restautant and go to the toilet
  • Strangers come in off the street just to use the toilets
  • In more down market, open later at night, or with high foot flow restaurants, people leave them in more of a mess.
  • Office toilets are used more by people that work in that office and so are part of the office community, restaurants are used by strangers who are not.

So that concludes the reasons what we have found so far, about why restaurants are harder to clean, take longer and can be less profitable.  So many commercial cleaning companies will not touch them.

Billing Customers Correctly

Billing customers correctly

This may sound unimportant, but it almost destroyed us in 2001.

It is something that seemed like nothing, but is actually quite hard to do and hit us hard when it went wrong.

Cleaning may look like an easy business, but finding cleaners for each job, cleaners not turning up, customers changing their cleaning hours and requests all the time, cleaners wanting to change their working hours and so on mean that things change a lot and change fast.

It is a hard thing to do as things are coming at the office all the time. So it is also hard on top of this to notarise their hours and get the billing correct.

Things are easy when the company is starting but only once things have fallen apart, did we realise we had to learn how to do this.

We wondered why we were going bankrupt.  After two weeks of serious concerns, the accountant went through our profit and loss statement and noticed that our invoices to clients were not enough more than what we were paying cleaners.

This may all seem obvious, but we have found that cleaning companies often start of well, but then often start to fail as they grow because their systems are not in place.

This is often why cleaning companies fail, a person starts them as they know how to clean, but they fail as they do not know how to run, organise and administrate a business.

 

So we researched how other companies do their billing and what they had learned.

 

1, Mistakes cannot be afforded

Commercial cleaning is a high volume, low margin business.  The average commercial cleaning company makes 2.5% net profit after turnover.  So basically 2.5% profit after all its costs.

Getting the billing wrong by having paid cleaners and then not billing the customer by 2.5% means no profit, more than that means making a loss.

There is no margin for errors.

 

2, Make sure you do not have to remember anything

Cleaning hours and times change a lot, customers change their demands and you will never remember everything that happened in the past as it gets so complicated.

Make sure your systems are perfect so you can rely on them and not have to remember anything.

The more you have to remember the harder things get.

 

3, Double entry leads to mistakes.

When a customer changes their hours, a cleaner does not turn up so you have to reduce their bill for that hour.  Make sure you only have to write it in one place.

The most urgent thing is to sort out the cleaning, so first put it in the cleaner’s schedule.

Then billing is created from the cleaners schedules.  If your billing is not totally aligned with cleaning hours such as price per job, this information is still needed before invoices are created.

This is also how most automated systems work as well.

 

4, Do it now

When a customer changes their billing, make the change in the schedule now, or make a note in you’re to do list which you can cross off once it is done.

Leaving it until later means that things get forgotten, or not always remembered correctly once time has passed.  Please remember point 1 above.

 

5, Get it double checked

A second person needs to double check the bills are correct compared to payroll.  If you bill in advance then this needs to be done later after the payroll has been done.

If the person checking never says there is a mistake, they are pretending to do it, but never are.  They are just signing it off without checking it.  Even in the best accounting practices, bank ledgers for transactions between banks there are mistakes.

If you made a mistake, be open with the client that it came up from double checking.  Reassure them that you do this to ensure there are not mistakes and of course apologise.

 

6, Cleaners will often complain if they are underpaid.

Customers will not complain if they are under billed.

So make sure that you can follow that the invoices are created from cleaner payroll.

So then if the cleaner complains their pay is too low, can tell that the customer invoice was too low.

Also make sure that that the period the cleaner is paid for is the same as the billing period, so can easily check the profit margin between what paid cleaner and billed customer.

Amazingly though only some of your cleaners will see that they have been underpaid, or even check properly, so do not rely on this.

 

In the past before more automated systems, cleaner, plumbers and so on had to bring in their timesheets that they had written.  This was an important tool for customer billing.

It was so important that without it the company could not send out the bills. To ensure staff brought them in on time, they did not get paid on time if their timesheet did not come in on time.  They also would not get paid until they brought it in.

7, Good systems are:

  • Transparent
  • Simple
  • Easy to follow to double check
  • Easy to add up to get statistics on e.g. how much profit made from each client

 

 

By the way.

Always make sure to take off a clean from the bill if a clean never happened, that is a massive way to loose customer trust if they notice.  We believe trust is one of your biggest assets for long term customer retention.

 

Software

Once a business gets larger we find it is more economic to use software to mechanise as many processes as possible.  We have found that most specialist cleaning company software works the way we have found works best as put in this article.  You may also find this article also a good way to ensure you choose and set up your software to ensure that it does these things.

Ian Taylor

Debt Collection

How to cope with non paying customers

One of the main reasons that new companies go bust, is that they get a customer and think that is it.  They do not realise the added cost and overhead of having to remind customers to pay and do debt collection work.

Many customers will actively see how long they can string out not paying and some will never pay.

The clients who do not ever pay will be quickly discovered and you can stop serving them.  If you keep your clients for a long time, the short period that had the non-paying customers were with you, will be relatively small in the scheme of things.

For example, a non-paying customer may have been with you for 2 months, but the good customers stay with you for 10 years or more.  So the non-paying customer in the long term is a relatively small issue.

The main rules for debt collection

  1. Provide a great service: a sign of bad debts can be that customers do not want to pay as they are not receiving an excellent If you provide an outstanding service, the clients will not want to lose you as they will probably get a worse office cleaning service elsewhere.

However other customers may not pay, due to other issues and in those cases, direct debit or recurring credit card payments might be a better option for these clients.

The others just take advantage:

  1. Regularly chase customers: These customers often only pay when they are continuously reminded and will pay the suppliers that are the most of a nuisance with their reminders. Eventually they will pay as they will get fed up receiving calls from you as you will have become such a nuisance and it is quicker and easier just to pay
  2. When a customer says they will pay, ask them to give a date when they will pay. Send them an email confirming your conversation and the data they said they will pay by.   Iif this is not your usual contact then we recommend also taking their name, also send an email confirmation:  Then if they do not pay by that date, call them immediately as any waiting around shows that you are slack and some will take further
  3. Never be rude: Say that you have to chase because other customers cannot subsidise their cleaning, but being rude gives them an excuse not to pay.
  4. Make your invoices and letters Clearer: Customers can use this reason as a reason not to pay
  5. If a customer’s seems trouble: There are about 3% of customers that are more hassle than they are worth, this is not getting a customer, it is just letting a criminal steal your stuff. We recommend doing like you would any thief. which is not give them an opportunity to steal more from you.
  6. Customers must pay for the cost of debt collection: After reminder after reminder, if the customer does nothing.  Make sure in your terms customers have to pay the cost of debt collection.  Courts may not like penalties, so best to have charges for letters and calls in line with other debt collection companies plus removal of discounts for payments not being on time.   Please look at our terms and copy the wording in here

We recommend putting in your terms and conditions something like this

All payments must be paid when due, and all prices include a discount of 25% which is subject to payment being made within the due time. If such payment is not received when due, the full price becomes payable, and any expenses incurred by the Agency in recovery of the balance shall be chargeable to You.

Correspondence from the Agency to You regarding the recovery of outstanding balance will be charged in line with other professional institutions, these charges are available from the Agency on request.’

Then we recommend having a price list that can send to clients on request, or if they start to build up these costs from not paying.  The invoices you send them should also say the costs they have built up and costs they will build up if for further communication services.

Debt collection is a very hard thing to do to your office cleaning customers, however sometimes you are left with no other choice.  

Everything must be done to avoid the situation such as by listening and being very sensitive in regards to possible reason for the delay. The majority of you clients will pay within a couple of weeks the invoice has been sent.   Do be careful to first see what you can do to help such as payment terms or something.  Firmer debt collection is only needed if that first has not worked. 

Provide a good service so that customers pay

                Debt collection can sometimes be be avoided if you are nice and pleasant from the very beginning with your new office cleaning clients from the first enquiry to the time they place the order.

This is where the initial contact must be smooth, fast and very professional. So if you do call them about late invoices your customers are aware of how professional you have been from the beginning of the office cleaning contract.

The reason the office cleaning customers have to pay on time, is that the amount and effort that the Wellman office cleaning team put into getting the right suitable office cleaners for clients. The other reason is keep the cash flow running so the office cleaning team have money to purchase all the office cleaning products and equipment so the cleaner never runs out and to be able to do the best office clean every time

Justify to clients why they need to do this, so there is a reason

It’s not just the client who has not paid their office cleaning invoice for months that suffers. The whole of the office cleaning jobs for the company may suffer as the knock on effect of a few clients who do not pay on time, as the Wellman clean office cleaning team will be spending more time chasing payments rather than trying to get new office cleaning jobs or chasing for new office cleaning quotes.

Even bigger than that is that funds only come from customers, so other customers would have to subsidise the customers who do not pay.

                The initial email that you send them will state that the invoice is overdue, how much is due and they can either update their account or we can take the details over the phone. Also the email may state that we are not aware of any issues in regards to non-payment and would be grateful if it would be settled sooner rather than later. Also a text is a good idea to send after the email as another reminder for clients to send overdue payments.

The debt collection process involves a lot of telephone calls. You then need to make if formal by sending them an email stating the facts when the money was due and how many times you spoke to them about it. This is to avoid client making excuse that they did not know. The majority of clients will end up paying, however you may get some who won’t.

When the emails and voice calls fail then it is time to notify them very politely that the cleaner will be stopped as the office cleaning insurance will not be covered if the office cleaning invoice is not paid. It is always wise then to give them a deadline when it should be paid by or we stop the cleaner if the invoice is not paid by the deadline date set.

                This is when you have to start sending letters via email.

Standard email

Subject: Wellman Clean invoice

Dear (name),

We hope that you are well and are happy with the service you are receiving.

As always if there is anything you are unhappy with no matter how small, please do tell us?  We really want to know so that we can sort it out for you.  Please also find attached your invoice,

Kind Regards,

Wellman Clean

Due in 7 days

Subject: Wellman Clean invoice due in 7 days

Dear (name),

We hope that you are well and are happy with the service you are receiving.  Just a friendly reminder which we hope will be of help, that your invoice is due in 7 days.   As always if there is anything you are unhappy with no matter how small, please do tell us?  We really want to know so that we can sort it out for you.

Please also find attached your invoice,

Kind Regards,

Wellman Clean

1.5 weeks over due
Subject: Last invoice 1.5 week overdue

Dear (name),

We hope that you are well and are happy with the service you are receiving.  As always if there is anything you are unhappy with no matter how small, please do tell us?  We really want to know so that we can sort it out for you.  Please also find attached your June invoice plus please kindly note that your last is now 1.5 weeks overdue,

Kind Regards,

Wellman Clean

3 weeks overdue

Version 1
Subject: Sadly if payments are not up to date in 7 days’ time, we will have to stop cleaning

Dear (name),

We hope that you are well and are happy with the service you are receiving.  Sadly 1 of your invoices are outstanding and on the 21st it will be 2 invoices. Please can you kindly let us know your situation so that we can understand accordingly?

Sadly if not up to date in 7 days time, without further information we will have to start the process of stopping cleaning on 21st May 2016 until payments are up to date.

Please note that in order to keep cleaning on that date, it needs all due invoices to have been paid by then, not just some of them.

Our credit terms are 21 days, your invoices are now 21 days overdue = 42 days since due.

As always if there is anything you are unhappy with no matter how small, please do tell us?

We really want to know so that we can sort it out for you,

Kind Regards,

Wellman Clean

Version 2

Sadly if payments are not up to date by the end of the month we will have to stop cleaning

Dear (name),

We hope that you are well and are happy with the service you are receiving. Sadly 1 of your invoices are outstanding and on the 21st it will be 2 invoices. Please can you kindly let us know your situation so that we can understand accordingly?

Sadly if not up to date by the end of the month, without further information we will have to stop cleaning your premises until payments are up to date.

Please note that in order to keep cleaning on that date, it needs all due invoices to have been paid by then, not just some of them.

Our credit terms are 21 days, your invoices are now 21 days overdue = 45 days since due.

As always if there is anything you are unhappy with no matter how small, please do tell us?

We really want to know so that we can sort it out for you,

Kind Regards,

Wellman Clean

 Will stop cleaning in 7 days

Subject: sadly will have to stop cleaning on (date) if outstanding invoices still unpaid

Hi (name),

I hope you are well.  Just to confirm that I spoke with Dana just now who confirmed that we would receive payment by Tuesday.

I am so sorry to say this, but we have requested payment a number of times and it is now 3 months of invoices.  If payment is not there by Tuesday we will have to stop the cleaner until payment is made.  We really do not want to do it, but credit cost means we have made a loss as is explained below and we cannot afford to go on further.  We of course have had to pay the cleaner and other cleaner management costs.

Normally we stop after 1.5 months but you have a good credit history with us and are a valued customer so we have of course done our best and pushed the boat out on this occasion..

Our payments terms are 21 days and it is now almost 3 months, once transaction gets to 1.5 months late we start running into a loss due to the cost of borrowing money as is explained below.

The following is standard practice in the commercial cleaning industry, basically customers want the best price possible and always compare outsourcing to having a cleaner themselves.   If a company employed the cleaner themselves then they would have to pay them at the end of each month.

So the customer pays the company when it needs to pay the cleaner, or indeed when the customer would need to pay the cleaner if they were employing the cleaner directly.  This is to get a price for having a cleaner and not also paying borrowing credit costs.

If the customer pays after when the cleaner was paid, there is then be another service which is credit, this would make the service less comparable with having a cleaner directly because there is that second layer of cost that of course has to be passed onto the customer, which is about 2% as the money needs to be borrowed so the cleaner can be paid.  The banking industry refers to this as invoice factoring.   This makes the service more expensive than if the customer employed the cleaner directly as there is more to the service.

So it is designed that the invoice goes out at the start of the month, the cleaner is paid at the end of the month and the customer pays in time for the money to be in the commercial cleaning companies bank  account when this happens.  As a result the customer is not using bank borrowing and credit. We say by the 21st as we our side need to ensure the money is there and so on.

In practice though some customers do not pay until the end of the month or just until the start of the month after.  That is fine and we do not ex gratia remove their discount for payment on time.  However if it goes towards the 21st of the second month, then we are having to borrow money for 2 invoices and the contract goes into a loss making position.

So if a customer takes 1 month and another three weeks to pay then, sadly we have to stop cleaning until payment is up to date.  In practice we only remove the discount for payment on time if the debt goes do a debt collection situation.

You are a special customer so we have let it go on longer, but this has been a loss making exercise, the company makes 2.5% net profit on turnover as cleaning is a high labour cost low margin business.  You are very welcome to come into our office to see our accounts.    So this credit cost pushes things into the red.

Best regards,

Wellman Clean

Day that stopping cleaning

Dear (name),

Just to confirm our conversation just now.  Sadly the funds are not in our account and it is now 3 invoices that are outstanding.   We have also sent 4 reminders requesting payment.

Sadly we cannot wait any longer, we need the funds in our account by 3pm today as the money is borrowed to pay invoices that are not paid within the due date.  I will call again in 1 hour unless you have called beforehand and to confirm that sadly we are not able to provide any more cleaning until all due invoices are paid,

Best regards,

Wellman Clean

First Letter

The first letter they receive should be another copy of the normal invoice due and friendly reminder that it is due in 7 days.  We recommend ensuring that this is sent as a service to them and not to be patronising or pushy.  The letter should be formal with the office cleaner client’s name, address and the date. It should also have a reference number so it can be logged. A nice pleasant letter just to remind them that the invoice is due and they have exceeded the trading terms for the amount due. 

Second Letter

The second letter they receive should state that their account is now overdue

Third letter

We have a statutory right under late payment of Commercial Debts Regulations 2013 to add interest and late payment compensation to the sum outstanding. On the letter should state the new amount due to the interest added on. They should also be reminded when we sent them the first letter and this is the second chasing letter.

Also state the date will have to stop cleaning until payment is made.

Normally just stating the date you will stop the cleaning until payment is made payment is enough for the payment to be made.

Forth Letter & final chasing letter

The fifth letter should remind them when the second letter was sent and their account is still overdue. It should still be respectable and still state that they have exceeded the trading terms and we would be very grateful to receive the outstanding amount before certain days. You should state how many days the money should be sent to us by. This will be the new amount with added interest.

Also say that we have a statutory right under late payment of Commercial Debts Regulations 2013 to add interest and late payment compensation to the sum outstanding. On the letter should state the new amount due to the interest added on. They should also be reminded when we sent them the first letter and this is the second chasing letter.

We recommend also saying the amounts of money that he debt collection has cost them and will cost them if they do not pay.

So it says how much will be due extra by what date if they have not paid

E.g. 2 reminder phone calls = £15

2  letter = £10

Removal of discount for payment time = £50

What the new total will be with these costs

So the person sees that the cost of not paying is theirs.

These costs must be the real cost to the company including the company costs, however the company should not make a profit on top of these.  It is just the costs so that other customers are not having to pay more to subside this customer.

Fifth Letter, legal action may be taken

The sixth letter should be a warning that it will be the last letter before legal action is taken, however only do this if you are planning to take the client to court. You can send them a letter stating that despite several  attempts  that we have tried to get the amount owing and have had no luck, it has left us with no choice but to take legal action unless the invoice is not cleared by a certain date. You should also write on there that if the payment has been made within the last 24 hours then to accept our sincere apologies.

Even more effective is to write out county court form, send it to client and tell them the date you will be sending it to court.

Client can then tell you are serious as you have put the work in, all you have to do is put it in the post.

 

Gurvinder Ranshi

Commercial Cleaning – Overview

The best type of commercial cleaning is when the customer doesn’t notice what you have done because everything is the usual clean and tidy.

Most customers want the cleaner to come early in the morning or in the evening when they are not around and they are not in the way.

Customers want to come to work and just get on with their requirements, go to the kitchen and make drinks or prepare food, throw things away in empty bins and generally carry on with their requirements.

If they notice something such as bins not emptied or things not washed in the kitchen then this is a major problem.

We are there to make their work lives easier and so they can carry on with the actual work they are paid for.

If they had time to do such things then they wouldn’t be using a commercial cleaning company.

Things to remember:

1, Always make sure the cleaner arrives on time and cleans for the correct amount of hours. If they are ill then give plenty of notice so a replacement can go.

2, Make sure the cleaner can do the cleaning in the amount of time allocated, you don’t want them rushing, cutting corners and making mistakes.  You may need to speak to the customer about being more specific on which areas to clean or increase the hours.

However balance this with the fact that most customers want the cheapest price and things are really price competitive out there.  There may even be jobs that you do not want to touch as you know it is not possible to satisfy them as they want both a low price and amazing cleaning.

3, Ensure the cleaners gives you plenty of notice when running low on cleaning products.  Customers do not want to know that bins couldn’t be emptied or washing up not done because the cleaner had run out of bin bags or washing up liquid.  You will end up rushing to purchase items from the shops at retail price rather than from your supplier at cost price and slashing your profit.

You want to ensure you are not doing a delivery more than once a month and that you can do it when it’s easiest for you around other things.  Making sure the delivery can be done any time in the month and so your workload is spread around the month is important. As a result we recommend ensuring there are enough cleaning materials there for almost 2 months.  Please see our stock control guide for more details.

4, if the cleaner breaks anything then make sure they inform you so you can notify the customer, you don’t want them to discover this themselves.

Also make sure the cleaner adheres to the rules the customer has given.  If they don’t want the desks cleaned due to important documents being on them then make sure they do this, all windows are shut, alarms are turned and all doors are locked correctly when leaving.

A good cleaning specification that you have gone through the cleaner will really be of benefit.