Your business is growing and evolving and your needs are expanding—which means it’s probably time to think about hiring a commercial building cleaning service to ensure your building always looks its best.
Whether you are getting too busy to manage all the cleaning tasks on your own, you have new offices, you are moving into bigger offices, or you just built your first building, you require the services of a professional, dependable commercial cleaning company to manage your ever-changing needs.
Hiring a reputable cleaning company to keep your office clean and healthy for your employees and your clients is among the most important decisions you’ll make. Here are the top five qualities your commercial cleaning company must have.
Commercial Cleaning Quality #1: Insurance and Bonding
One of the first questions you should ask a commercial cleaning company is whether or not they have insurance. If their answer is no, your answer should also be no. For any business, your cleaning company will clean areas full of high-value items—computers, printers, furniture, televisions, and more—and accidents happen. They must be bonded and insured to protect you from paying for those accidents out of pocket.
When a cleaning company is bonded, that means that you are protected if something goes wrong. If items are missing or damaged, the bond provider pays for damages and reimbursements, which means both your facility and the cleaning company are both protected.
A bond is also a good sign that the cleaning company is willing to invest in their organization; they’re as invested in your long-term success as they are in their own, which means they care about the “long haul.” Chances are, it’s a sign that they understand the value of providing excellent service for many years to come.
Unfortunately, theft can also sometimes become an issue when hiring a cleaning service—even if the agency conducts thorough background checks on all their employees. If your commercial cleaning company should happen to hire a less-than-ethical employee who steals expensive equipment or other secure or confidential information or goods from your office, you’ll be reimbursed fully for the missing items and the cleaning company won’t have to endanger their business to repay you.
Commercial Cleaning Quality #2: Free Estimates and Proposals
When you’re considering a commercial cleaning company, they should ask you for a date and time they can come and do a walk-through of your building to create a free, detailed estimate for their services. They should take measurements, make detailed notes, and ask a variety of questions regarding your expectations of their work.
Finally, the company should give you a free estimate and proposal, including a prospective schedule, included services, and an itemized specifications list that they believe will be best for your business. If any part of this doesn’t work for you, they should be willing to consider making necessary adjustments to fit your needs and budget.
Conducting a walk-through and communicating with you about your expectations reduces the chances that you could end up with the unpleasant surprise of a sky-high cleaning bill or work that’s below your expectations.
Commercial Cleaning Quality #3: Employee Status
If you choose to work with a commercial cleaning company that outsources their workers, it’s important to do a little digging into their employees’ and subcontractors’ legal status as members of their company. This may affect the company’s bonding and insurance. Outsourced workers, or independent contractors, are not employees; if something were to happen, your organization could be liable instead of the cleaning company.
Some companies find it easier to outsource. While this is entirely legal, many businesses do not follow the Internal Revenue Service’s guidelines for hiring and working with independent contractors. The reality is, many of these companies are operating illegally because in the eyes of the government, these “independent contractors” are actually being treated as employees.
Additionally, a cleaning company that outsources their employees might not have conducted background checks and screening on those employees. If that’s the case, they will know very little about who they are letting into your building—usually after hours when few to no employees are to observe them. This also means the employees will not have training that’s been approved by your commercial cleaning company. It’s far better to hire a cleaning company that only uses their own employees.
Commercial Cleaning Quality #4: Tools and Equipment
When a commercial cleaning company comes to do the building walk-through, talk to them about the different tools and equipment they use to clean commercial buildings. Some questions to consider when evaluating a cleaning company are:
- Do they have a color-coded microfiber cloth system to prevent cross-contamination between different areas of your building? If not, they may be using the same cleaning cloths and equipment to clean your employee break rooms and restroom.
- Do they adhere to the appropriate contact time listed on each cleaning product’s label to properly disinfect and sanitize your facility? If not, they may be leaving illness-causing bacteria behind when they clean your building.
- Do they use the backpack vacuums with HEPA filters or do they use normal push vacuums? If not, they may be decreasing the air quality in your building and contributing to the spread of germs.
- What kind of cleaning products do they use and are they approved by Green Seal or Green Guard? If not, they may be introducing harmful chemicals into your workspace.
Your cleaning company’s goal should be aligned with your own: to have the cleanest, healthiest environment possible for your building. It’s important to ask the necessary questions to determine if the company is capable of achieving that goal.
Commercial Cleaning Quality #5: Reputation
There are multiple places to find more information about the cleaning company you are considering using for your building or offices. Yelp is a good tool to find unfiltered reviews of a company, and Google reviews are also helpful.
Going to the Better Business Bureau is always a good idea. If a company has had complaints filed against them, you want to know. You can find other sources of valuable consumer reviews to find out more about the cleaning company you are considering, including:
- Business.com
- Angie’s List
- ConsumerAffairs
- Expresit
- Glassdoor
- Judy’s Book
- Manta
- MerchantCircle
- VendOp
When you need commercial cleaning services, it’s important to find a company you can trust— an agency that’s willing to customize its services to your needs and collaborate with you when you need additional help.
At All Building Cleaning Corp, not only do we tailor our services to your building, schedule, and budget, but we offer a whole host of services, including:
- Commercial window cleaning service
- Commercial floor maintenance and cleaning
- Commercial office cleaning
Across a multitude of industries including residential properties, auto dealerships, financial institutions, office buildings, and more, we work hard to ensure that our clients can trust us, and are always 100% satisfied with our work.
We’ll happily share information about our bonding and insurance, as well as testimonials from tried-and-true clients, and do everything in our power to provide you with an exceptionally clean building, including using state of the art equipment and cleaning methods to keep your building as safe and healthy as possible.
For 20 years, All Building Cleaning Corp has been Southeast Florida’s choice for quality, reliability, and experience in their commercial cleaning company. Request a free quote today to discuss your cleaning project and learn more about how we can help.
