What do customers want from a house cleaning company (2024)

Have you ever found yourself asking, "what do clients want from my cleaning company?" If you own a house cleaning business it's likely you've thought about this when a customer seems to want more from you than what you both agreed to. Delivering what customers want doesn't have to be as difficult as you may think. In this post, you'll learn how to position your house cleaning services to give customers what they want.

House cleaning customers want quality work

One of the first things your clients want is quality work. Make this the foundation of your house cleaning services. If you are providing subpar service, you run the risk of losing customers and gaining a poor reputation.

As a part of your reputation management strategy, be sure to focus on providing the best service possible to your clients. Doing so can help you gain a good reputation for your cleaning business. This can lead to positive word of mouth that can help expand your business.

Attention to detail is another way to show customers that you provide quality service. Often we hear stories of cleaning clients switching to a different company because the little things keep getting overlooked.

This could be things like not dusting the tops of picture frames or leaving water spots on bathroom mirrors. These may seem insignificant to your cleaning technicians, but they are important to your clients.

Some homeowners even leave "traps" or areas left intentionally dirty to see if your cleaning technicians miss things. A common example of this is putting crumbs on the floor at the bottom of the cabinets or along the baseboards to see if they are cleaned up. If your cleaning technicians frequently miss cleaning areas like this it could cause your clients to hire a different cleaning service.

You also want to pay attention to special requests or how clients like certain areas of their house cleaned. If you consistently make the extra effort to clean as your clients wish, (within reason of course), you can keep your customers satisfied.

Customers want flexibility in your house cleaning services

Your clients want flexibility. People don't like paying for services beyond what they need, and they also like being able to pay for services on their terms.

Of course, your flexibility can only go so far, as you have a business to run, but consider making parts of your service flexible where possible. For example, maybe you always schedule cleaning on a specific day and time. Do you allow your clients to easily change their cleaning schedule?

Maybe you offer additional services like window washing or carpet cleaning. Do you work with your clients to determine how often these services should be done?

If a client has a reasonable cleaning request, every so often, try to accommodate them if it will take just a few minutes of added time. Just be careful of "scope creep", which is when clients start asking for more and more service without paying for it.

Customers want trustworthy, courteous, and well-trained employees

Other important aspects of what customers are looking for, has to do with your cleaning technicians and office personnel. Your role as the owner of the cleaning business is important, but your employees act as the face of your company. This applies to both cleaning technicians and office employees who have contact with your clients.

How customers and potential customers interact with employees can help you attract house cleaning clientsor repel them. The first thing people want from a cleaning company's staff is trustworthiness.

When a customer decides to hire a house cleaning service, they are trusting complete strangers to work their home. Most people are not going to hire a company they feel they can't trust.

We'll explain more on how to deal with this in the marketing section of this post, but one way to build trust is by having high standards for hiring employees and performing extensive background checks on employees you hire.

Since your employees may interact with clients and potential clients, you want them to be courteous and well trained. If your staff is courteous it can help build trust with existing clients, and potential customers could be more likely to take a chance on hiring you.

Customers want quick responses and good communication

Yet another factor that customers want from a cleaning company is good communication. It may seem surprising, but we often hear that a company earned a new client simply because they were the only company that answered the phone when they called.

Unfortunately, a lot of cleaning companies drop the ball when it comes to quick response times and good communication. You might have a smaller company and don't yet have a customer service team. And maybe you don't yet have someone that can fully dedicate their time to the phones. Or maybe you are slow to respond to emails. Regardless, it is an area you should focus on and make an effort to get better.

Most residential cleaning companies offer some sort of Guarantee. If you offer a guarantee, make sure you honor it to the letter. If you promise to come back within 24 hours to fix a problem, make sure you follow through.

Good customer service and responsiveness is a big factor for why someone will do business with you or not. This also includes following up with potential customers.

We often see cleaning businesses struggling to convert leads because they only follow up once or don't follow up at all. You can also include reaching out to existing clients after their service as a part of your follow up process.

Good communication makes potential customers happy and more likely to do business with you. It can also increase sales and lead to new referral customers.

Using your marketing plan to show you offer what customers want from a house cleaning company

Now that you have a better idea of what customers want from a cleaning company, you need to show them you have what they are looking for. You can do this through your website and marketing efforts.Many cleaning companies miss this marketing secret. It's one thing to have a trustworthy company, great employees, and provide quality service, but if no one knows about it, it doesn't matter.

First, use real photos of your employees and avoid using stock photos. By using real photos people can see who they are letting into their home. This increases trust in your company.

Another trust builder is to feature customer reviews and testimonials on your website and in your marketing. Talking about the quality of your service is important, but having a 3rd party review does more to build trust and credibility for your business.

We also suggest including an About section on your website. This section can highlight various aspects of your company story. Talk about why you care about cleaning or how your company gives back to the community.

In addition to highlighting info about your business, you also should cover information on your staff. This should highlight aspects of your hiring practices, background checks you perform, and the extensive employee training you provide.

Some other things that build trust are highlighting safety precautions your company has such as an infection control policy.

Customers want a house cleaning company that provides solutions to their problems

Despite what you might think, most people don't care about the features of your services as much as it seems. In reality, they mostly care about the benefits they receive from hiring you.

Often we see house cleaning companies only talking about the various features they offer like bathroom cleaning, kitchen cleaning, vacuuming, etc. Certainly, it is important to know that but you need to focus on the benefits behind the features of your service.

For example, instead of a client having to buy their own cleaning supplies or spending their time cleaning their home, you could solve that problem. Most people would rather be doing many other things besides cleaning and you can give them their time back.

Another option could be highlighting the stress relief of having someone else do the cleaning around the house. People are stressed out and overworked and the last thing they want is to work some more and clean when they get home. A benefit of your house cleaning services could be that it eliminates that problem and provides the benefit of stress relief.

Focus on benefits not just features and it could give them a reason to hire you.

Customers want a full-service house cleaning company

Does your house cleaning business provide a variety of services? Your house cleaning business may only provide general cleaning services and that's great, but if you offer more options even better.

For example, your house cleaning business may also clean windows, carpets, clean floors, tile, and more. The benefit of offering additional services like carpet cleaning or window cleaning is that you can be a one-stop-shop for customers.

If people are taking the time to hire a cleaning service, chances are they don't want to have to hire several at the same time. Most people would like to save time and money by hiring one cleaning service to handle all of their cleaning needs.

Not only could you attract additional new customers by providing several services, but you could also increase the average value per customer by offering these additional services.

If you aren't sure where to start expanding your cleaning business check out this post on Adding Carpet Cleaning to Your Residential Cleaning Business.

Most people want to work with a professional-looking house cleaning company

We talked earlier about building trust with clients and making them feel comfortable before they hire you and as a means of keeping them as your clients. One way to establish this trust is to make sure your company and cleaning technicians are professional looking.

If you don't already have a dress code for your cleaning business, we recommend establishing one. Sometimes cleaning companies don't have a dress code and cleaning technicians show up in regular street clothes.

Most people are already somewhat hesitant to let strangers in their homes, and this is especially true if your cleaning technicians aren't in uniform. Also, if you can afford it we recommend having company-branded cars that your cleaning technicians use when traveling to clients. It makes your company stand out and can work as free advertising as your cleaning technicians drive to their cleaning appointments and park in neighborhoods where your clients live.

Another part of looking professional is having clean supplies and equipment. It doesn't give a good impression if your cleaning technicians bring a bunch of dirty mops and sponges and other cleaning supplies into a client's home.

In most cases, we recommend using a cleaning supplies caddy to help carry your supplies efficiently while also looking professional. Give your best impression by having a professional look for your cleaning business.

Accurate and simple house cleaning quotes

While the price isn't the only factor customers are looking for when they choose a cleaning company, it is an important one. These days it is relatively easy for people to request quotes online from a variety of cleaning companies.

Cleaning prospects want to get a general idea of what your price is likely to be as fast as possible. That way they can see if your services are in their price range.

If you are providing a quick, online quote for house cleaning services, it doesn't mean that your quote has to be 100% accurate, but if you can get someone a quote quickly and that is a close reflection of your actual price, it can lead to more conversions.

Once a prospect has contacted you, you have their interest. From there you can focus on selling them on the benefits of hiring you vs the competition. Optimize yourcleaning business marketing strategytohighlight more of your core difference and benefits to potential customers as well.

When people can quickly trust your company, know the benefits of hiring you over the competition, and can get an accurate quote fast, they are more likely to convert into new house cleaning clients.

Conclusion

It may seem overwhelming to try and figure out what customers want from a cleaning company. However, the reality is that with a few adjustments you'll have exactly what customers are looking for.

Start by providing excellent service, and a well trained courteous staff. Provide accurate quotes and estimates for your services quickly. and maintain a good communication flow with potential and existing customers.

In addition to that, build in trust factors to your website and marketing like real photos and positive reviews. Make sure your company promotions are benefits-focused and don't highlight features alone. Give your customers what they want by solving their problems.

Offer the services your customers want all under one umbrella by becoming a full-service cleaning company as soon as possible. Also, make sure to give your best impression to customers by maintaining a professional look.

When you combine all of these factors together you get a recipe for success. Doing so will give customers exactly what they want from a house cleaning company. Implement these tips to help you generate more leads, sales, and to help keep your customers longer.