The True Cost of Contract Cleaning Services

Posted by Glenn Cleaning, September 03, 2021

When we encounter new potential clients and hand them our detailed, comprehensive proposal document, it’s not uncommon for them to leaf on through right to the page with their price estimate. 

And who can blame them? We all want to know exactly how much a new product or service will set us back right away, whether it’s in the professional sphere or in our personal life. 

That being said, there is a lot of context you need to know about in order to accurately gauge how good a deal you’re being presented with when handed a contract cleaning quote.

That is exactly what we aim to offer for you in the guide below. We’ll go over a number of factors that will have an impact on the pricing of your proposal as well as some things you should keep in mind when on the hunt for a new cleaning contractor for your premises.

7 Things that have an impact on your contract cleaning quote

1. Office cleaner & support staff wages

The wages paid to your cleaners and the hours they spend cleaning your site will be the biggest single cost contributing to your quote. On top of this, there are also the wages of the staff at your cleaning company who support your cleaning operatives, such as account managers and regional managers.

There are many cleaning companies out there willing to cut corners when it comes to paying their cleaning staff, but as we’ve covered on our blog in the past, this is not a great idea for anyone involved. Inadequate pay often leads to poor job satisfaction and staff retention rates, which means it won’t be easy for you to get a consistent quality commercial cleaning service. 

A cleaning company like Glenn who pays their employees well will be able to hire and retain people who genuinely enjoy what they do, leading to better consistency and overall cleaning result. 

We are also big believers in the real Living Wage scheme and always provide our prospective clients with both a living wage and a non-living wage quote, explaining the benefits of the former but leaving the decision ultimately to them.

2. The size, layout & materials of your premises

How your premises are laid out and the materials of your surfaces will both have an impact on the kind of cleaning service you need and how many hours and cleaners it’ll take to deliver it.

First off, there’s a big difference between cleaning an office made up of small cubicles and compact meeting rooms when compared to large, open areas like lobbies. The more densely packed your premises, the longer it’ll take for your cleaners to make the rounds on your premises. 

Naturally, the number of restrooms and windows needing cleaned will also have their impact on your quote.

Similarly, whether your premises consist of a single, centralised hub or a number of smaller centres will have an impact on how long it’ll take to deliver your commercial cleaning services. 

If your cleaning crew has to tackle multiple buildings across something like a school campus, your cleaning company will need to factor in time needed for walking between these locations and setting up everything your cleaners need at multiple locations.

Finally, the materials used on your premises will also need to be assessed – hard flooring will need to be sweeped and mopped, while carpeting only requires vacuuming on a regular basis as well as a periodic deep cleaning.

3. How many people use your premises & what your organisation does

As you can imagine, the amount of footfall your premises sees will have an impact on how much cleaning they’ll require. An office with a small staff will require much less cleaning than a busy retail store.

What the people using your premises do will also have its impact. Naturally, stationary office workers will make less mess than young kids at a primary school, for example.

So as you can see, depending on your industry, your cleaning requirements and how many hours and cleaners are needed to reach them will vary. Schools and medical facilities will typically require a good deal of disinfection, while manufacturing facilities often have more dirt and dust produced and can therefore need more frequent cleaning.

4. Your expectations

Different people may have different ideas of what “clean” means and what quality of service they’ll settle for. 

As the old adage goes, you get what you pay for. A suspiciously low quote means corners are cut somewhere, and invariably, this will affect the quality of your office cleaning services. So if you want a stellar cleaning result, you’re not going to be happy if you go with the lowest quote you can find.

Similarly, if you try to haggle down the price of your proposed cleaning services by bringing down the number of cleaners or hours spent onsite, your cleaning result won’t be as high.

5. Cleaning technology & products

A professional cleaning contractor will use top-of-the-line products and keep on top of developments in their industry in order to carry out their work as efficiently and effectively as possible.

This includes making use of things such as robotic vacuums and scrubber driers where feasible as well as things like chemical dosing solutions and aqueous ozone.

Another thing that may be added to your cleaning proposal is a charge for a range of consumable items your cleaning company can provide for you, such as toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap and hygiene products. 

Having your cleaning company be responsible for supplying these items means less stress on your end as they’ll make sure your stock levels stay good and can buy the products at an affordable wholesale price.

6. Training & other operational costs

A cleaning company that believes in delivering a first-class service every time needs to invest in its staff and equipment in order to do so.

Staff training is an added expense for your cleaning company that’ll allow them to provide you with a first-class service. After all, a knowledgeable staff is a productive one able to provide you with an efficient and comprehensive cleaning service.

In addition to this, your prospective cleaning company may be making investments in the form of acquiring things like quality assurance as well as time and attendance monitoring software. Products like these help to support your cleaning company’s delivery of a quality service.

7. Profit margin

Finally, like any business, your cleaning company needs to make a profit in order to keep them operational and growing. When a cleaning company is able to turn a profit after paying their staff, they can make further investments into their business, such as training.

A cleaning company who forgoes a decent profit in order to offer lower quotes to clients will likely not be around for very long as this business model becomes unsustainable.

A word on higher quotes

Once you start shopping around for a new company to take over your contract cleaning services, you may find that the quotes you receive are higher than what you pay for your current cleaning routine. 

But remember, you’re looking for a new services provider for a reason. Low prices and high quality don’t go together, and a deal that seems too good to be true means corners are being cut somewhere.

A poor cleaning service reflects badly on your business and can even put your staff and customers at risk. Whether it’s due to low wages, high staff turnover due bad company culture or poor management, a cleaning company cutting corners will easily end up affecting things on your end, too.

Just think: do you really want to spend your days chasing up your account manager and dealing with complaints from your staff and visitors? 

The importance of a site visit

In order to give you the most accurate quote possible, your prospective cleaning contractor should carry out a site visit on your premises. 

This will allow them to more accurately estimate the number of cleaning operatives and hours needed to clean your premises, plus things like additional cleaning gear they’ll need to buy and any additional services that you could benefit from.

Additionally, it’ll allow them to get a better understanding of where you are with your current cleaning services provider and what’s needed to get you where you want to be. This might mean a especially thorough deep clean right at the start of your contract.

In a nutshell, the more information you’re able to provide your prospective cleaning company with, the more accurate the quote you receive from them will be.

What to look for in contract cleaning proposals

Once you have a cleaning proposal or two in front of you, here are a few things you’ll want to consider before making your decision. If information on these things isn’t included in your quote, they’re worth asking your potential cleaning company to make sure everyone’s on the same page. 

• The level of detail – Transparency is important for any business relationship. The more detail you have, the more accurately you can decide whether the quote meets your needs and whether the price quoted to you is fair and reasonable.
• Flexibility – Your cleaning service should work around you, and not the other way around. Will you be able to change the time your cleaners come in on any given day on short notice? How about shifting your cleaning schedule on a more regular basis?
• Additional services – Following from the previous point, there may be times where you’ll need your janitorial services provider to go the extra mile for you. This might be because you need a deep disinfecting service on a short notice or cleaning up after something like flooding.
• Your contacts – Who is it you’ll be dealing with when you pick up the phone? What is their job description and how long have they been in their role? These are questions that will allow you to understand what kind of customer service you can expect from your potential cleaning services provider. 
• An organisational chart – One that lays out in detail who’s responsible for what can also be helpful. The last thing you want is a cleaning company who, when faced with criticism, keeps passing the blame to someone else.

What makes Glenn Cleaning & Support Services unique

Here at Glenn Cleaning & Support Services we believe in providing a first-class cleaning service at a price that’s fair for everyone. We believe that in order to make your contract cleaning as pleasant and seamless as possible, we need to invest in our people and in our tools.

This means we offer all our staff ample training and development opportunities as well as fair pay. By investing in our people, we invest in our business continuity and our ability to provide our clients with a consistently high level of service. 

What this means for you is that the quote you receive from us may not be the lowest one you could possibly find – but we can confidently say it’ll be well-researched, detailed and expertly tailored to your exact specifications. 

We put a lot of effort into our client proposals because we want all of our client relationships to be built on mutual trust and clear communication, and that is something we strive to foster from the get-go.

Working with Glenn

Before your cleaning operatives even set foot on your premises for the first time, we’ll already have put in around thirty hours of work getting everything in order, from hiring and training cleaners to setting up management of your contract. The number of hours spent on “behind the scenes”  work only increases once your contract cleaning services are up and running.

Once we start work for you, we’ll quickly be able to demonstrate to you why we quoted the number of hours to you we did using our staff check-in software. This tool records our cleaning operatives entering your site and how long they spend there so you’re always aware of the work we carry out for you.

This, coupled with our state of the art quality monitoring system means you’ll always have a clear image of the quality of the cleaning service we provide for you.

Interested in finding out more? Get in touch with us today.