As
a business owner, you may be asked to receive a quote for cleaning your facility at some point in time. You may or may not
be in the market right then, however for what ever reason, you agree.
What questions
will be asked?
How much information should you reveal?
What should you expect?
Below are some basic questions
any reputable janitorial company will need to know in order to give you a competitive bid.
1. How many days a week will your business require cleaning?
Most companies
offer services 1,2,3, or 5 nights a week. If they want your business, they will be flexible enough to meet your needs. However,
the frequency is totally up to the customer.
Don't be afraid to tell the cleaning company want you want.
If they baulk, or try to get you to fit into their schedule, tell them " no thanks" and stand your ground.
2. What day(s) and time will the cleaning be done?
The day(s)
that you want service should be decided up front. Don't tell the cleaning company " it doesn't matter",
because some will treat you like it dosen't matter.
One week you will get your cleaning done on Monday
and Thursday. the next week it might be Monday and Tuesday. Can you see how in both cases they serviced your building twice
a week?
However how much good did it do you, your employees and your customers for them to come in two nights
in a row?
3. Which areas of your facility are to be cleaned?
You should have exact details as to which areas you want serviced, and where it is and is not necessary, so there are
no misunderstandings, as to what was to be cleaned and what was not.
4. How
many restrooms will be cleaned?
Restrooms typically account for less than 5% of the total
cleanable square footage of a building however, they account for about 95% of all cleaning complaints.
This
is especially true in facilities that have a larger number of female employees and customers. Since women use the restroom
more often than men and women are usually neater than men.
5.Who buys, the restroom
and break-room paper supplies and refill-ables, as well as trash can liners?
Next to labor
issues, this is the single biggest problem for cleaning companies. Paper costs can change so much and so often that in order
to be profitable, cleaning companies try to avoid buying paper at all cost.
What costs $20/a case today, could
cost $25-$30/a case next week. Now multiply that out by 30-40 cases per month and you will see why companies never want to
include the cost of paper products in their monthly bid.
However the best way for this to be handled is to
have the cleaning company bill you for actual cost (plus their predetermined markup) for the paper that is used in your building,that
is if you are not taking care of this yourself.
6.How many employees and
customers are in the building?
This needs to be discussed so that the cleaning company can
project the average "wear and tear" your building faces between cleanings.
For example, if you have two buildings
that are exactly the same square footage, and have the same number of restrooms and are cleaned the same number of days per
week, a novice might think that they should be paying the same amount of money for janitorial service.
However,
if building "A" is a law office with 10 employees and limited outside traffic, and building "B"
is a telemarketing center, with dozens of job hunters coming and going everyday, then building "B" should pay more.
7. What are the problems you are facing now?
It needs to be
said that too many cleaning companies bid on accounts when they don't know what they are up against. If a company does
not ask you what cleaning issues you are facing, then they probably haven't been " seasoned" long enough, and
you should reject their bid.
Why? Let me give you an example, company "A" is a business office.
They are in a building that is adjacent to an open field. Every day, dust blows into their offices, covering their floors,
desks, and other areas, leaving a thin layer of dirt.
Their current company based their quote on the square
footage of the building, not taking into account the open field. Now they can't adequately clean the building in the amount
of time it was quoted for. So instead of spending more time in the building, and getting it clean, they just stay busy for
the amount of time that the salesman said it should take to clean, and then leave.
Use
common sense, these tips, and the business savvy that's gotten this far in life, and you'll be fine when it comes
to receiving a bid from your next janitorial or office cleaning company.
