Optimize Customer Satisfaction Of Your Commercial Cleaning and Janitorial Services

Businesses in the commercial cleaning and janitorial services industry know all to well how tricky it can be to keep your customers happy. Janitorial services are often scheduled for when a facility is relatively empty, so customers don’t always know the level of effort, care, and consideration cleaning teams exert to keep a facility clean and sanitary.

Unfortunately, when customers don’t see professional cleaning being done first-hand they tend to question the validity and thoroughness of their cleaners. This can lead to undeserved scrutiny of cleaning teams by their clients and eventually erode the business relationship.

“The nature of the cleaning industry makes it far too easy for janitorial customers to doubt their cleaning providers’ efforts. Without the right checks and solutions in place to alleviate customer insecurities and justify the amount they’re spending on cleaning services, cleaning professionals will always have an uphill battle to create meaningful client relationships.” 

– Mark Candow, Business Developments, Optisolve®

To avoid this cycle of mistrust from starting in the first place, cleaning businesses can implement processes that allow customers to clearly see the cleaning work being done in their facility. One way is by using software solutions designed for monitoring cleaning efforts and its effectiveness, which we will discuss in this blog.

Reasons Why Customers Become Dissatisfied with Janitorial Services

Before we dig into how new technological solutions can help your cleaning business impress and please your customers better, let’s take a look at why your customers could become unhappy in the first place.

Lack of Visibility of Services

As mentioned before, when clients don’t see the effort and time a team puts into cleaning a facility, it can be easy for them to assume minimal or poor quality services were performed. As a result, they may start having doubts about the service’s value.

Inconsistent Cleaning Standards

Customers want consistent results when it comes to the cleanliness and health of their buildings. If cleaning standards and processes aren’t consistent and staff are following different cleaning protocols, customers may become frustrated and gain a sense of disorganization about their cleaning company.

Lack of Quality Assurance Program

Quality assurance programs give facility operators assurances that their building is being cleaned to the level agreed upon between them and their janitorial provider. If a commercial cleaning company doesn’t have quality assurance protocols in place, it will be difficult to maintain a high-level of trust and confidence from their customers.

Want to know more about cleaning validation and why it’s crucial for your quality assurance program? Read our blog: What is Cleaning Validation? Cleaning Verification vs. Cleaning Validation Cleaning Validation and Workforce Satisfaction

High Employee Turnover

The cleaning industry has a notoriously high employee turnover rate. However, if regular changes in employees leads to low-quality services and long training phases, your customers may choose to find a company with better staff retention rates.

Poor Communication

Communication is key for a business to thrive and the cleaning industry is no exception. Being able to communicate clearly, effectively, and deliver information in real-time can help cleaning teams stay in the good graces of their customers.

High Prices

It costs a lot of money to operate a facility. With the cost of utilities, maintenance needs, capital expenditures, and personnel to consider, it’s easy for a building’s budget to get out of hand. In that case, if a cleaning company isn’t competitively priced, it’s likely their clients will source more cost-effective options.

How Can Software Solutions Improve Customer Service Engagements for Commercial Cleaning Teams?

Improve Communication with Real-Time Reporting and Visibility

Advanced janitorial software gives everyone involved in a project real-time visibility of cleaning efforts, processes, and more. This information can ease tensions between a cleaning company and their clients as it can be used to clearly demonstrate:

• When cleaners were working in a facility 
• What locations were cleaned      
• What cleaning processes were used 
• The effectiveness of their cleaning efforts
• And more

The real-time visibility allows facility managers to access information pertinent to the cleaning efforts happening in their building whenever they want, from wherever they want. Or, for cleaning companies whose customers don’t need such a high-degree of visibility, they can use the software to quickly and easily generate reports that show their efforts if requested.

Optisolve® is enhancing the cleaning processes for a facility with over 750,000 sq.ft of surfaces! How did we do it? Read our case study to learn more. Click Here

Control Prices with Improved Efficiencies

Costs are rising, that’s no secret. However, customers are not interested in paying companies more, even when the price of cleaning supplies and labor costs skyrocket. When push comes to shove, customers are more likely to seek out a different company than pay higher prices. This forces cleaning companies to choose between profit margins or losing business all together.

Software solutions can help make that burden a little easier. Cleaning validation software, such as SAVI™ by Optisolve®, give janitorial companies insight into inefficiencies that are costing them precious time and money each month. Ways that SAVI™ can make operations more streamlined include:

• Identify inefficient cleaning processes
• Shorten on-boarding and new hire training times
• Identify ways to reduce the amount of cleaning products being used
• Minimize the cleaning times without sacrificing quality
• Lower the cost of paper needed for paper record keeping
• Save on the labour time needed to track and record paper checklists into a tangible report

Build Trust with Effective Quality Assurance Program

Being able to prove your team has cleaned a facility is equally as important as the cleaning itself. In order to build trust with your customers, you need a quality assurance program that instills confidence in your company and your team. Janitorial validation software can do just that.

Janitorial validation software gives cleaning professionals an effective way to truly prove to customers that their team’s cleaning efforts are effective. The information gained also gives you insight into what’s working, what isn’t, and helps identify opportunities for improvement. 

A quality assurance program backed by cleaning validation software also makes compliance with customer and industry standards a breeze.

Demonstrate Cleaning Efforts with Surface Imaging Technology

Despite you and your team’s best efforts, your clients may still question how effective your processes are at preventing the spread of harmful pathogens in their buildings. Surface imaging technology solutions can provide the insight you need to calm your clients’ concerns.

Pathfinder™, a GBAC Star registered cleaning solution lets you see exactly how clean a surface is. This tool is key for truly showing customers contamination levels on a surface before and after a cleaning treatment. 

Not only does this give customers visual evidence of your efforts, it gives staff an easy, accurate way to conduct site assessments and evaluate their cleaning efforts.

Impress Your Janitorial Customers with Advanced Digital Assessment Solutions

It’s time to develop customer relationships that take your cleaning business to the next level. With digital solutions at your side that make tracking and evaluating every cleaning effort your team makes, customers will have the insight they need to feel confident in your team’s efforts (and no doubt boost your positive cleaning review scores too!)

At Optisolve®, we’ve been part of the janitorial industry for decades and we know how challenging it can be to keep customers happy while meeting your bottom line. That’s one of the reasons why we’ve leveraged today’s technology to create software solutions that add visibility into cleaning efforts and streamline cleaning validation practices.

To learn more about our products, and how we can help you improve your customer experience delivery practices, connect with our team.