Commercial Cleaning Services

If you own or operate a business, then one of the many things that you are responsible for is keeping your work space clean.  Keeping a commercial space clean means everything from dusting and vacuuming, to cleaning bathrooms, changing light bulbs, and other general building maintenance.  Hiring a commercial cleaning service is the best way to handle this responsibility.  Commercial cleaning services are essential to making sure your office or other workspace stays safe for your employees and patrons, runs smoothly, and is a pleasant place to work.  Once you have decided to hire a commercial cleaning company, you should look for several criteria to make sure you are getting the best services for your money.  Once you know what to look for, you will be able to make an informed and responsible decision of behalf of your business and your employees.

Commercial and industrial cleaning services are varied and important. Of course they do the basic daily cleaning activities such as dusting and vacuuming, but they also do much more. The commercial cleaners often are responsible for taking out the trash and replacing trash can liners. They might clean windows and polish items around the office like plaques or awards. Something that was surprising to me was the fact that commercial cleaning services often take care of things like changing light bulbs or small maintenance problems like broken doorstops or squeaky doors. In addition, they might do small landscaping tasks like picking up trash or making sure outdoor trashcans or ashtrays are clean and empty or building maintenance like roof or gutter cleaning.

One of the most important jobs done by the commercial cleaning service is keep the bathrooms clean.  Not only do the wipe down all the surfaces and clean out the toilets, but they are also responsible for refilling toilet paper, paper towels, soaps, etc.  Another important thing that the professionals take care of are commercial carpet cleaning services or other floor polishing services.  Clean floors are a nice way to make a good first impression.  If a potential customer or client walks in to your office to and stained carpets or dingy tile floors, they might get a bad impression of your business.  Sparkling floors are a good way to show your success.  If your business is specialized like a restaurant or if you have a kitchen in your office, the commercial cleaning service will also take care of degreasing kitchen equipment and cleaning other appliances.

Even though they offer all of these services, why should you pay commercial cleaning services prices rather than just have your employees take care of the cleaning projects in house?  There are several, but one of the most important company moral.  The moral is affected in two ways.  The first is that asking your employees to clean toilets or take out their own trash can be demeaning and distasteful.  Not that cleaning is a demeaning job, but most people feel that when they are hired to be an accountant or engineer, then they should not be expected to do the work of a janitor.  The other way that hiring a commercial cleaning service can affect moral is that a clean workplace in generally a happier workplace than one that is dirty.  If you expect your employees to do the cleaning themselves, then things will get put off and your office will get dirty very quickly.  People are less productive and more uncomfortable in a messy workspace than if their office is clean.  Finally, you do not want to ask your employees to clean because they should be concentrating on growing your business.

There are other reasons you might want to hire a commercial cleaning crew.  First, if your establishment is clean and inviting, it will keep your customers coming back.  In addition, there are sanitation regulations and permits to consider.  Some businesses, such as restaurants, have inspections by the health department to make sure they are running cleanly.  In addition, you need to think about the safety of your employees and customers.  If there are bacteria floating around your bathrooms or kitchens, you could cause severe illnesses.  Along those same lines, commercial cleaning professionals know what kind of chemicals to use in order to minimize the possible adverse effects on the general population.  Some harsh chemicals can cause respiratory problems for people with allergies.  Professionals should know what is safe to use in public places.

If you have decided to hire a professional commercial cleaning service then there are several things you can look for to make sure you are getting a quality service.  First, you want to ensure the safety of your business information as well as any personal information and belongings of your employees.  Therefore, you should make sure that the cleaning service does background checks on all of their employees and ask them to tell you in detail about their security procedures so that you know where any keys to your business are at all times and who has access to them.  In this same vein, you can ask how long they have been in business and for local references.

How long they have been in business will also tell you how well equipped and experiences they are.  The longer a company has been around, the more equipment and better personnel they are likely to have.  You also want to make sure that they are insured in case there are any accidents or damages while they are working in your office.  Make sure that they are willing to give you a copy of their insurance certificate and name you as an additional insured if applicable.

Finally, you want to make sure that you will have an opportunity to give feedback on their work.  One popular method is for the cleaning crew to leave a checklist of everything they did during the night with room for you to make comments about their work.  Then you leave the comments behind the next time they come in so that they can react to what you had to say.  Another method would be to fax your comments to a central office so that the commercial cleaning service management can tell the employees how they are doing.  No matter what the procedure, it is very important that you have the ability to tell the cleaning service how they are doing compared to your expectations.

Of course, hiring someone else to clean your office will cost you some amount of money.  The cost of a commercial cleaning service depends on the size of your office as well as how often you have the service come in.  For example, you costs will be less if you only have someone come in weekly rather than daily.  The commercial cleaning services rates need to be able to cover the hourly rates of the people who do the cleaning, insurance, the cost of cleaning supplies, waste disposal, and the overhead costs of any cleaning equipment.  The typical procedure is that you sign a contract for a six or twelve month period with a monthly rate.  Some commercial cleaning services will give you a thirty or sixty day trial period where you can cancel the contract at no cost if you are not satisfied with their services.  In addition to the basic services and rates, commercial cleaning companies often have a la carte services like carpet cleaning or floor polishing that you can pay for on an as needed basis.