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 doesn'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.
