Is It Time For a Change?
You have decided it is time to change your office cleaning services so you set out to get some bids. You might get everything from a quote based solely on square footage without knowing much else about your facility to an office cleaning quote that draws on many completely unrelated areas to create an even more unrelated price point. All these odd and sometimes misleading quotes can stem from a lack of experience. You might also see janitorial companies that intentionally lowball your building to seem more competitive only to tack on hidden fees and upcharges to make their money back later. You need clear commercial cleaning rates. Obscure pricing and confusing office cleaning quotes can make it difficult to plan, prepare and get the services you need for your facility.
What You Can Do to Help Your Prospective Cleaning Company
The first step to an accurate office cleaning bid is good information. This means providing accurate and relevant information about your facility. For instance:
- Providing not only the square footage of your building, but break it down by floor type as different floors require different levels and types of service which can drastically change pricing.
- Accurately detailing the number of restrooms.
- Knowing roughly how much traffic different parts of your facility get and on which days of the week they get them. This influences how much service each section needs and will help fine tune your bid.
- Estimating the amount of consumables like toilet paper, soap and trash liners you go through either daily or weekly depending on your building will also help your prospective commercial cleaning service provide a more accurate quote and come better prepared to service your building.
These pieces of information help your prospective office cleaning service better construct a bid that actually reflects the needs of your facility instead of being a shot in the dark.
Avoid Office Cleaning Companies That Don’t Do a Site Visit
Another important aspect of getting an accurately priced bid is doing a site inspection. Without a detailed look at your building, how can any company be expected to create an accurate bid? A major red flag is any company that doesn’t conduct a site visit because they feel it to be unimportant. Not only does such a visit gives them a good feel for the place they will be working, it gives them the opportunity to ask questions, provide information about the way they want to handle certain areas and allows you to cover some of the smaller details about the inner workings of your building. At the end of the day, a site inspection is the best way to optimize your budget and identify price saving points to your commercial cleaning costs early.
Slashed Budgets Don’t Have to Spell Disaster
A reduced cleaning budget can make it seem like effective office cleaning is out of reach. All too often we see companies that are trying to work with severely reduced budgets trying to cobble together some semblance of a cleaning program. While a less than optimal budget isn’t ideal, it can be worked with, especially if you partner with an experienced, efficient office cleaning service. It all comes down to identifying where it makes sense to cut services and where it doesn’t. In order to do this, you need to partner with a professional cleaning service that knows exactly what needs to be done and what tasks can be done less often without sacrificing the quality of your cleaning. It is possible to build an effective cleaning plan around your budget but it happens more easily with larger cleaning companies that can take advantage of buying power and business volume.
Don’t Ignore Your Pain Points
In the same vein as site inspections and saving money, pain points are important to be clear on when it comes to your potential office cleaning service partner. If you had issues with your last office cleaning service, you need to communicate those issues to your new cleaning service, after all, that's part of why you switched! Pinning down especially problematic issues before they spiral out of control is key to keeping everything running smoothly. Why wait for the problem to arise when you can preemptively address it?
Use the ISSA’s CIMS Certification as Your Starting Point
We know it can be difficult to get the service you need at a reasonable price, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible and you definitely shouldn’t give up. Not every office cleaning service provider can do what it takes, but with the right experience and resources it can be done. A combination of decades of experience, innovation, careful planning and well executed follow through can make all the difference when it comes to the quality and value of your office cleaning. It may seem like an uphill battle to find an office cleaning company like this; fortunately for you, someone has already done it. The ISSA’s CIMS and CIMS-GB certification is a robust and rigorous industry accreditation program that helps people on the lookout for a new cleaning service identify those office cleaning companies poised to deliver effective service with real value. Any janitorial company that has met these high standards has already set themselves apart from the crowd and can be an excellent place to start your search. Not every CIMS certified company is going to be right for you, but they are sure to be consistent, responsive and the best bang for your buck.
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