If one of your pending tasks is hiring a janitorial service, you will need a quick lesson on making the right choice. There is a huge diversity of cleaning services. Some do residential. Some do commercial. Some do industrial, and some do specialty jobs like medical offices and restaurants. One of the other factors is that some are small services with a few accounts and others are large services with hundreds of accounts. It is not as easy as picking up the Yellow pages and selecting an attractive ad.
As you might imagine, there is good and bad about both of these types of services. The small janitorial firms tend to be less expensive and frankly need your business more than the larger firms. Larger firms have a track record and are less likely to go out of business due to economic hazards. Smaller firms can deliver quality of service like the larger firms, but larger firms have greater resources in equipment and manpower. Larger firms use more advanced equipment to cover the job quicker which makes them price competitive.
There is no perfect company. Large or small, you are going to encounter some cleaning services that do not have the right attitude about customer care, and it will show up not long after the contract has been signed. They know that you do not want to go back to the beginning to hire another firm or the hassle of firing them. Therefore, you are going to see the low bids are more often firms who must cut costs internally to turn a profit from these low bids. While it is an industry standard, hiring based on low bid is probably the best way to insure that you will have trouble from your cleaning service. I wonder if the lowest and highest bid should be kicked out before you start your consideration.
The debate over small versus large janitorial services will never be resolved. Big cleaning services have more to offer, and small cleaning services will often be more price competitive while promising to bring superior cleaning effort. Large or small, quality is the prime issue, and it is one of the hardest issues to discover as you look over the proposals that you will receive. Advertising, by the way, is not about telling the truth, but impressing the customer with their promise.
The classic way of choosing a janitorial service is to prepare an RFP (Request for Proposal) or collect a variety of quotes for the job. The RFP is a prepared report that details the job, expectations, and requirements so that everyone is bidding on a equal footing. Quotes generally ask the service to do the job using standard processes. Both methods collect final pricing to determine who will be considered for the contract. Unfortunately, this reduces the task to the “low bid” mentality that frankly sends the wrong signal to the competing firms. Most people aren’t looking for cut-rate service, but the best service for the money.
Ask yourself what you really want from a janitorial service. Most people have not thought this through, and as a result, they have often been aggravated and disappointed in the janitorial service they get. I have prepared a report that I feel is an absolute necessity for anyone to read prior to hiring a service or putting out an RFP. This report can be found at www.greenjanitor.net. This is a brief and to-the-point information resource that even provides a sample RFP for those who want to do it right the first time.
The lagging question that is becoming a more important issue is that your janitorial service should be providing a bona fide Green program for your office. More and more cities and states are pressing for companies to “Go Green.” Here’s a clue. It starts with a Green janitorial service. My report at www.greenjanitor.net will explain how to get your building GCI Green Building certified as well. If you really want to find a good janitorial service, do your homework first, and you will eliminate a lot of headaches later.
