Recently, I was watching television when a Burger King commercial came on depicting a picture-perfect Whopper. It just looked so good, the fire grilled beef patty, crisp leaf lettuce, juicy tomatoes, tart and crunchy pickles, onions, creamy mayonnaise and ketchup all between two soft sesame seed buns, a little piece of fast food heaven. Watching it made me want to jump right off the couch, into my car and drive straight to the nearest Burger King right then and there. After I managed to calm down and talk myself out of an extra 1200 calories and 50 grams of fat, I started to think. I asked myself the question: if that’s what a great burger looks like, what exactly does great janitorial service look like?
Great janitorial service doesn't have a perfectly shaped bun with deep red tomato slices hanging over a juicy chargrilled hamburger. Nor does it make my taste buds perk up and my mouth water at the very site. In fact, perfect janitorial service is more of a feeling than a picture. What kind of feelings do I associate with great janitorial service? It is the feeling of walking into a clean, fresh work environment first thing in the morning. It is the feeling of arriving at the office and feeling ready to go because my surroundings are neat and free of distracting clutter and soil. It might also be the feeling a facilities manager has when they know everything is taken care of and secure in their building at night, when they cannot be there themselves.
Still, the problem with feelings is that it can be difficult to show someone how good it feels until they personally experience it for themselves. So all we can do is make reasonable assurances by being CIMS certified, carefully recruiting and training our staff and being available to support our customers when they need us. As for new customers, it can be challenging to help them understand just what a difference great janitorial service can make. Certainly after the new customer joins us, they get it. They understand what a difference it makes when they have the feelings of security and satisfaction that come from hiring a great janitorial service to do what they do best.
Sometimes it sure seems that there are a lot of bad feelings surrounding the janitorial industry. Much of it is based on customer experiences with subpar companies who lack professionalism and act more like a staffing agency then a professional janitorial services provider. So here at Stathakis, we work to show our customers that we have the systems in place to short-circuit cleaning and janitorial issues, service issues, personnel issues and more. We work hard to create the kind of customer responsiveness that insures our customers have a positive experience and guards us against the negative feelings that might plague other less professional janitorial companies.
But in the end, it is going to take many more companies in our industry elevating the work that they do in order to upgrade the overall image of our industry. By embracing organizations like ISSA, BSCAI and others, we can work to create positive connections with our customers that are truly possible when you offer the Whopper of janitorial services--great leaders, great employees and concrete systems that work.
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