Tips on Hiring the Right Domestic Cleaning Services

 

Trying to find the right cleaning service to match your own needs in an, as yet unregulated industry, can be like dating with a view to marriage, you have to ‘kiss a lot of frogs before you meet your prince’ as the saying goes!

 

So how does one identify a ‘frog’ i.e. unsuitable cleaning service provider and how indeed can one meet their ‘prince’ i.e. perfect match?

 

Now obviously, I am going to be biased towards Ali’s Home Clean, it being my own and all that, but, as someone who has spent years researching this industry, I would like to put forth some general advice on how to eliminate some potentially unwise choices for your own perusal and then you can make a more educated choice for yourself and avoid some seemingly harmless but potentially purse threatening situations.

 

5 Tips on Hiring the Right Cleaning Services for You

 

 

1. REGISTERED AS SELF-EMPLOYED OR A COMPANY

 

Like Ali’s Home Clean, make sure your service provider is a TAX payer and not working ‘under the table’.  If your cleaner is working illegally there is all the risk associated with an untrained person plus YOU could be decided to be their employer if the Inland Revenue should get wind of it and thus liable for back payments of any tax and benefits you should have been paying as an ‘employer’.  Make very sure you cannot be considered to be employing someone directly, they must either be self-employed themselves or any cleaner they send to your home must be employed/hired by them NOT by you!  They should carry the responsibility themselves NOT you!  As warned previously, cheap can turn out to be VERY EXPENSIVE!!!

 

2. INSURANCE

 

Always make sure the cleaner or cleaning service you select is equipped with adequate public liability insurance, an 'uninsured' cleaner is an unprofessional and if they burn your house down, cause a gas explosion or a flood in your home – then what!!!???  Also consider that an unprofessional, untrained person is MORE likely to have an accident themselves for which they can hold you liable or cause damage/breakage than a trained professional, they also may not be aware of chemical content of the products they are using, therefore putting the materials of your home and both their and your health at risk! (Some combinations of cleaning chemical cause a reaction in the body not unlike drowning on one’s own body fluids – hire someone who knows about this)

 

To conclude this point, it is super-risky to hire an unprofessional, uninsured ‘cleaning lady/man’ to clean your home, even if it can seem the cheaper option – cheap can turn out to be VERY EXPENSIVE in the long run!

 

3. FRANCHISES

 

With points 1 and 2 in mind, one may be tempted to think ‘well I will get what I pay for, therefore I will go with the most expensive, trusted model’ i.e. the franchises we all see around and know the names of!  Now this is up to you and, yes, you could do worse (see above points!) there is a lot to be said for the reliability and responsibility of such a large machine as the cleaning franchise, as usually all the staff are employed directly by the company which can only be a good thing and they will be checked and trained to an extent but the drawback here is that, although VERY EXPENSIVE to pay for, the vast majority of the price goes towards the major league overheads such a large operation must carry.  The cleaners themselves are only trained to a very basic standard of so-so quality, which can be erratic as all staff will perform to their own personal best (variable) and liability can be huge for such companies therefore the most basic tasks only can be undertaken.  This is fair enough as such a model could not operate any other way, they do not profess to do much more than the basics in their cleans and no wrong is generally being done here, however it is my opinion that better value can be found elsewhere.

 

4. AGENCIES

 

Now we come to the ‘cleaning agency’ business model!  Now as a cleaning service business owner myself, I just do not understand the benefit to the customer with this model!  Why would someone pay a third party to hook them up with a self-employed cleaner, when they could find one themselves without paying that fee?  These agencies boast that they ‘DBS check (formally known as CBR check)’ the cleaners, well you can do that yourself easily, they also ‘insure’ the cleaners, well any self-employed cleaner who is LEGAL (see points 1 and 2) will be insured anyway!  You are not allowed to train a self-employed person nor provide them with tools according to the Inland Revenue, if you do you will be classed as their employer and liable for back pay of all costs covered earlier (in point 2) so what can these agencies legally offer that you couldn’t find yourself with a well-placed ad in local rag? I don’t know personally what they provide, except an invoice.

 

5. INDEPENDENT SERVICES

 

NOW your talking, look for a service that is not a franchise or an agency but an independent company who has customer service and quality in mind.  These services will be very keen to build and keep a local reputation of excellence and will never want to let you down, they will take pride in their work and train their staff to support these ideals, because they are FAR more likely to care on a personal level rather than just operating a huge business machine with no real time for individual customer communications.  The larger companies have all the branding and marketing at their disposal to get their name out there, customers are disposable, however to the smaller independent cleaning service, the customer is everything, their happiness is our happiness and we take pride to serve them with excellence!  This is not just an endorsement for my own cleaning services, all of the other independents I have had the pleasure of communicating with in my cleaning association memberships.  ALL share this attitude of CARING how our customers feel and nurturing those relationships the best way we can.

 

We are professionals at our jobs, we come fully equipped with all the products and equipment we need and we know how to get the best out of them to care for your home, you will not have the expense and headache of shopping for these and maintaining the vacuum etc.  It is all taken care of by people who care.

 

A small independent cleaning service is likely to train their staff effectively to be thorough and discreet in your home and more likely to give you the very best in customer service that they can, they are more likely to waive their fees/rules in individual circumstances and act with kindness, consideration and integrity, they are more likely to know their clients well and retain those same clients for years, even if they themselves are no longer cleaning any more, they will care very much about the standards the customer receives as, usually, a small independent company started the business with their customers’ need in mind, they care because they have walked a mile in their customers’ shoes and identified their needs, then set about fulfilling them in their service, they will listen and learn and, most importantly, they CARE how you feel.

 

Final Thoughts on Finding the Best Cleaning Services

 

So to wrap up – one of the best ways to find a good independent cleaning service is by word-of-mouth!  That is how most of our customers find us!  Ask your friends and neighbours who they use and if they would recommend them, if that service is fully-booked they will sometimes put you on a waiting list, I know we will if we cannot immediately accommodate a referral.  That way you know who is going to be in your home and that they will take care of you, and that is worth waiting for!

 

Ali’s Home Clean are always committed to raising the standards of the industry, which, to date, remains largely unregulated much to the frustration of dedicated professionals like ourselves.

 

We will continue to deliver exceptional cleaning standards, meeting and exceeding our clients’ expectations, plus take the time to explain to the client exactly what their money has purchased at the initial meeting, it is up to us as the cleaning professionals to effectively manage expectations and offer responsive and caring customer service with a human touch throughout each relationship with our clients and to do everything in our power to deliver our services with kindness and consideration.  Although we are cleaning services based in Portishead, we are expanding all the time and will consider other areas

 

Ali’s Home Clean – Experience the Difference!!!