Questions to Ask When Hiring a House Cleaner
Before you hire a house cleaner it pays to ask a potential cleaning company some questions.
17/09/2018
So you've decided to hire a home cleaner to get some workload off your back and focus on doing other important things. But how do you know which company is best for your specific cleaning needs? Before you hire a house cleaner it pays to ask a potential cleaning company some questions about booking their service, their rate for any given time, and their policy for customer satisfaction.
To help you narrow down your options for home cleaners, we gather five questions to focus on when interviewing a home cleaning company. These questions will help you establish whether a potential cleaning company is the right one to hire:
How do you set your rates?
Each cleaning company has their own guidelines for setting the rates. Knowing the factors that influence those rates is vital to avoid paying more than necessary. You may find a company that charges an hourly rate, or one that determines their rates based on the number of cleaning personnel they send to your home. You can also find cleaning service providers that charge by the project.
During your consultation with a potential cleaning company, ask about their average rate for houses that are less than 1000 square meter, and verify whether they charge an additional fee for homes with pets. The rates are likely to change if you need detail cleaning for a three-storey house, as that will require the cleaning company to send more cleaners to your home.
Are you insured?
Proper insurance is vital to avoiding unwanted costs. What happens if something in your home is broken or damaged? An uninsured company may seem attractive at first as most of them offer relatively cheaper rates, but when something goes missing in your house or a cleaner accidentally breaks that precious flower vase you have, the company will not be able to afford paying for those damages. This leaves you with the responsibility to shoulder the cost of any repair and of replacing the items that were damaged during a cleaning appointment.
To ensure that a cleaning company carries liability insurance, verify their coverage through the company's insurance provider. Ideally, there should be a written policy in place regarding their procedures for dealing with damages and breakage inside the home of the customers.
How do you pre-screen your employees?
Reputable cleaning companies know the importance of their clients' safety, and will have a strict screening process for all potential cleaners. Ask about the company's hiring procedure, whether they check references, conduct criminal background checks on all applicants for the cleaning position, and whether they are willing to show you proof that they in fact have a rigorous hiring procedure. You should go for a company that not only performs background check before they employ people, but one that conducts random drug testing throughout the tenure of their employees.
One distinct advantage of hiring a company versus employing an independent cleaning personnel is that the responsibility to do background checks typically falls on the cleaning company, giving you one less thing to worry about.
What does your training program consist of?
Cleaning staff should be efficient in delivering the service that you require. As they say, any company is only as good as its employees, so when a cleaning company invests in employees' professional development, you know that you are dealing with a reputable organization.
Unfortunately, many new cleaners get very little training from cleaning companies that are only looking to get more people to get the job done. The best companies will have documented, and on-going training programs that allow them to ensure consistency in delivering top notch cleaning services.
Can you give me a list of the cleaning tasks to be performed?
This is an extremely important question, as different companies have different ideas of what cleaning tasks are included in a basic service. Will you clean the bathroom ceiling, disinfect kitchen surfaces, and handle trash throughout the home? Asking these questions will allow you to know exactly what you are paying for, which in turn lets you decide which company offers the best service for a competitive price. By getting written specification of the tasks that they will perform inside your home, you can save yourself some grief.