Our company takes part in many tenders for the daily maintenance of enterprises. We have calculated and sent commercial offers for hundreds of different objects from ordinary offices to business centers, from ordinary warehouses to logistics complexes, from small industries to large well-known manufacturers, for hotels, sports complexes, airports, etc.
The result was not always in our favor. The cleaning market, especially in the area of daily maintenance, is the market for hard dumping.
We have repeatedly encountered situations when a cleaning company, lowering the cost of its offer and eventually winning a tender, refused it, because really could not provide services, the costs of which do not cover the income.
Or a company that held a tender in a month refuses to choose a cheap contractor, because the level of cheap services did not meet the customer’s expectations.
Why is this happening and what are cleaning companies saving on?
1. Inventory
You’d be surprised how many companies are stuck in the age of mopping. Yes, yes, that wooden mop around which someone’s old T-shirt and an aluminum water bucket are wrapped. This is more common in the public sector. But how surprised we were to see this method of cleaning in a very large and well-known manufacturing enterprise. When you enter a workshop with modern expensive equipment, everything is provided with the latest technologies and the cleaning lady removes all this with an ordinary wooden mop! It is predictable that we did not win the tender because we always use modern cleaning equipment.
Good inventory is primarily about taking care of the staff. Modern mops are designed in such a way that it is not necessary to wash it, you do not need to bend over to remove the rag, rinse it in a tilted position in a bucket, make an effort to wring it out, bend over and put it back on the mop and start washing. And if one cleaning lady has 400-600m2 of cleaning, and in open spaces and more, how many bends – extensions – spins she will do. We do not even say that the time spent on cleaning increases significantly.
Modern cleaning equipment is a whole cleaning complex that you can create according to your needs. As a rule, it consists of a trolley on which special buckets of water (clean and dirty) are transported, equipped with a squeezing system for the mop, the mop itself, and a container for collecting garbage.
The mop has a special design that bends at any angle, which allows it to reach hard-to-reach places. Special mops are attached to the mop, the structure of threads or fabrics allows them to more effectively wash out dirt, even in crevices in the floor, they are easy to wring out and rinse out.
There are a lot of types of mops and mops, they are chosen for the tasks that they must perform.
When showing the cost of the inventory in the offer, I often ask the question why the price is overpriced and refer to the price of similar inventory on the same Outlet or Epicenter.
You need to understand the essential difference between professional equipment and equipment that we buy for personal use.
Professional equipment designed for frequent cleaning and for cleaning large areas.
We had a one-time experience to save money, and here the proverb “The miser pays twice” fully justified itself. As a result, we spent more than we saved. mops and mops for home cleaning could not withstand so much cleaning, they all had to be replaced.
2. Personnel
Cleaning personnel are no different from personnel in any other area. Every business owner understands that if he wants a good, responsible specialist, then his salary must be appropriate.
We fully train the staff, if necessary, we select for the specific requirements of our clients. There are options when knowledge of English is required, age requirements. We are flexible enough in this matter.
We promptly select a replacement, there are different situations, a person is sick or went on vacation.
We teach the use of equipment, equipment, cleaning techniques. All personnel are instructed on safety, rules of conduct at the facility.
We serve companies where the personnel undergo additional checks by the company’s internal security service. In addition to standard documents, when applying for a job, there are requirements when personnel must undergo a medical examination with the provision of a medical record, provide criminal records.
Therefore, we explain to the client why the work of an ordinary cleaner should also be adequately paid. Otherwise, it threatens us to become one of the number of companies that do not adhere to the client for a month, providing a low level of services.
This attitude towards personnel and their work is very effective and is proven by contracts that have been added for several years.
3. Soft skills
There are also skills that do not affect the price, but that do affect long-term cooperation.
From the experience of our company, the following can be distinguished: customer focus, flexibility and search for a solution in any situation.
Clients are our present and future. We build relationships so that contracts are renewed with pleasure. We adapt to the requirements of clients, delve into their specifics of work, always strive to get feedback on our work, what is good, what is bad. We are always ready to help and find a solution to a problem that may not be related to our direct responsibilities, but which are necessary for our customer.
Everything affects – the speed of response, the resolution of issues, the timely delivery of materials, even how our driver communicates with the company’s staff depends on the idea of us as a whole.
The work of a cleaning company, unfortunately, becomes noticeable only when the room is dirty. It is by the quality of cleaning that you can determine the level of the cleaning company.
When you enter the office, you are comfortable, clean, no one buzzes with a vacuum cleaner, no one asks to get up from the table. you need to do cleaning, all the things on the table and in their usual places, went into the toilet washed your hands with soap, wiped them with napkins, accidentally spilled coffee and after 5 minutes there was no trace of it – this is the level of cleaning that is not visible, but which most valuable.
