Office Cleaning Services to Make Your Company Sparkle: Key Questions to Ask

The importance of a clean and orderly office space in which to work cannot be overstated. For this reason, many businesses choose to hire an outside source to clean their offices and business areas after hours. Many professional office cleaning services can meet the needs of offices and businesses both large and small. However, hiring a professional office cleaning service is not something that should be done casually. Before a professional service is hired to clean an office space, it is important that the person doing the hiring sit down with one or more representatives from the cleaning company in order to ask important questions to determine if the cleaning service is a fit for their office or business.

1. How much does this service cost, and how is it charged?

This is one of the most basic questions to ask when hiring any sort of service team to perform a task. While there are many professional office cleaning services available, that does not mean that they all charge the same price or charge it in the same way. Some teams that engage in more thorough cleaning will have a higher price rate, while others keep their prices at a mid-level range. Independent contractors often charge less than large professional cleaning businesses since no one is taking a cut of the overhead being made while cleaning. Additionally, some professional cleaning services will charge by the hour for each individual on the cleaning team. Other services prefer to charge a flat fee per day based on the square footage of the space which must be cleaned and have a set amount of time that they will work. Finding both a rate and a pricing style that works for the office or business that needs to be cleaned is key to hiring the best professional office cleaning service.

2. What specific services are provided by this cleaning service?

While this may seem like an obvious question that answers itself, it is one that is important to ask. Some professional office cleaning crews do only the most basic tasks such as vacuuming and dusting the office as well as emptying trash bins, but others do more complex tasks like washing windows, cleaning computer screens and keyboards, cleaning office equipment and organizing inventory and supplies. Office cleaning services that engage in these more complex tasks cost more money because they require a specific skill set and more time to complete. Some of these tasks may be negotiable even with a cleaning service that did not offer them initially as long as more money is put on the table. If a business or office does not require especially complex cleaning routines, hiring a crew that specializes in deep cleaning is an unnecessary expense that can be foregone.

3. What companies has the cleaning service worked for in the past? Can they provide references?

While a trusted name in professional office cleaning does speak for itself, it does not mean that a business owner or office manager should not ask questions about the company and the individuals who comprise the cleaning team. Finding out what companies and offices the cleaning team has worked with in the past helps to back up any claims being made by the cleaning service about their skill and professionalism. When contacting these references, inquiries should be made about their productivity and level of skill. References for individual members of a team will help to weed out potential troublemakers who might slack off, steal or cause other issues. When paying for a service, it is important to make sure that the people providing the service are able and trustworthy, especially when they are being left alone with expensive office equipment that can easily be stolen or damaged.

4. At what hours is the cleaning service available?

If a cleaning service is reasonably priced, provides the cleaning skills necessary to maintain the business or office, and offers both corporate and individual references that check out, the only thing left is to determine what is the best time for them to clean a business or office space is. Having a professional office cleaning team milling about while employees are trying to work is distracting and can easily take away from productivity. It is much more reasonable to have the cleaning crew come after hours when very few people or none at all are in the building. For an office or business that closes at a standard time such as five or six pm, this is not at all difficult. However, for an office that closes late, such as 11 pm or midnight, it is imperative to find a cleaning crew that works late hours. This service is possible to find, but it may cost a bit extra depending on the hours necessary.