Cleaning services, whether residential or commercial, vary in their pricing and quality of their work. What matter in the process of you hiring a cleaning service or an independent cleaning lady is your experience from estimates and booking, to having a clean house, and everything in between. If you have hired a cleaning service or a cleaning lady for the first time, here are several tips to assess your experience and decide whether the cleaning lady did her job properly and ethically. Even though you may be disappointed with some of the elements of your experience, having these tips will help you to understand whether the cleaning service was up to parr and whether you can trust to hire them again and improve what they did wrong the first time around.
What is a cleaning service?
Generally speaking, a cleaning service is a service offered by a company or an individual to clean your residential or commercial premises. To better distinguish it from solely window or carpet cleaning, the cleaning services are also often referred to as ‘maid services’. As a rule, common cleaning services offer things like regular house cleaning in Toronto – and commercial cleaning services, such as restaurant, garages, and office cleaning. Commercial and residential cleaning services often offer a range in the scope of work their cleaning ladies perform – i.e. post-construction cleaning or deep cleaning services in Toronto (see https://mastermaid.ca/professional-deep-cleaning-toronto/). Cleaning service can and often will send several staff/cleaning ladies for a larger job, ranging from 4 to 10 hours of a lady cleaning.
Signs of a good cleaning company start with a professional looking website, to competitive pricing, to good feedback on the quality of their work. Your first encounter with the company says a thousand words about what to expect during the cleaning process. Although the saying ‘don’t judge the book by its cover’ applies to many scenarios, your initial experience with things like a telephone call or booking process will likely be representative of the level of professionalism on the behalf of the cleaning company and their staff. So look out for that!
Signs of a bad cleaning company will also be prominent from the first steps of your experience – their lack of flexibility in timing, unwillingness to meet your needs in special requests, rude or pushy representative and inability to answer simple questions.
Professionalism is a number one factor that you should expect from a cleaning company. House cleaning services lady will likely carry out the company’s level of professionalism. Cleaning service is not a cheap thrill, and to make sure you get your money’s worth, look out for the signs and things that will or will not meet your expectations.
Who is a cleaning lady?
A cleaning lady is either an independent cleaning person, or a staff member of a cleaning service. While you may find that independent cleaning ladies may be lower in fees they charge for cleaning services, you are taking risks such as liability (independent cleaning ladies commonly don’t have insurance for damaged property), confidentiality (disclosing alarm codes, door codes and lockbox numbers), and refund policies if you are unhappy with the services. For more information about the difference between a cleaning lady and a cleaning service, see https://mastermaid.ca/pros-and-cons-of-hiring-a-housekeeper-vs-cleaning-service/.
Cleaning lady etiquette will always depend on the individual. Things that may seem like common sense may not always be individually or culturally relevant to all people – such things as touching/moving personal belongings or throwing things into the garbage without permission can range depending on the house cleaning lady. However, a reputable cleaning service will always demand a certain level of etiquette to be adhered to by their staff. Similar with your expectations from a cleaning service, you should expect a certain level of professionalism, integrity and communication from your local cleaning lady.
10 signs of a good cleaning lady
Whether your cleaning staff is independent or hired through a cleaning service, these signs will always be a measure of a good cleaning lady:
- Neatness. It will show in her clothes and appearance, and it will show in her treatment of your home.
- Organization. Her equipment, tools and products are well organized, and she knows where her belongings are.
- She is prompt and punctual. Commonly a cleaning service will give you a window of time they will show up and deliver their services. A good cleaning lady will not only arrive within that window, but will also give you heads up about her ETA.
- Rushing. A good cleaning lady will refuse to be rushed if it will effect the quality of her work.
- Communication. They say it’s key. If a cleaning lady is uncertain about something, she will ask.
- Tidy and organized working process. She follows a process, instructions or a to-do list in a logical and orga