Most business owners these days are looking for the best way to save budget dollars. Especially when there is a storefront involved that clients can see, it is important to use those dollars intelligently.
First step: Know what you need, and what you don’t. When it comes to cleaning, shopping for a company to maintain your storefront can be a dizzying and tiring experience.
One thing is guaranteed, if you don’t know what you are looking for, you will be paying money for things you probably don’t need, or not getting the service you thought you were paying for.
Here are 5 main items to consider when deciding between a janitorial service or commercial cleaners:
1. Timing.
Depending on the nature of your business, cleaning may be necessary, hourly, daily, weekly, or less often. Know what you need.
A janitorial service may be ready to supply you a permanent staff member for the more frequent schedules, whereas commercial companies specialize in infrequent, but large, jobs.
2. Maintenance.
Generally speaking, if maintenance is required, a janitor will point out the problem to you and refrain from cleaning the item or area until it is fixed. Commercial cleaners can be asked to take care of non-technical maintenance as part of the overall job, but will charge you for it.
If your company has a staff member assigned to oversee maintenance, ask for their input on how often this may be required and whether the extra cost is worth it.
3. Deep clean vs. appearances.
When hiring a cleaning service, it is important to list the areas or items that you want looking good at all times. Perhaps you have an office with a small number of staff, and only need floors washed/vacuumed and garbage emptied most of the time.
If that is the case, both a janitor service and a commercial cleaner will be able to do it, but will most likely have a different list of what is included in their basic service. Know what you want.
Do you want bathrooms sanitized and shiny? Do you want your windows cleaned on a regular schedule?
This is where you will see the differences between commercial and janitorial services.
4. Price.
As mentioned before, large commercial cleaning companies often have a pricing structure that is standard based on a service package and the area to be cleaned. There might be little room for flexibility or change, such as when the pandemic hit and many businesses were closed due to lockdown.
Smaller companies might have much more flexible pricing, and scheduling, but be cautious and get references before you commit.
5. Staffing.
Commercial cleaners often have a staff pool that are sent out based on needs and your business could be accessed by a large number of different people. Janitor services generally have a much smaller staff, and tend to assign the same people to a job, which can result in a much more consistent clean.