Cleaning-Success.com

Why You Can't Ignore Dissatisfied Customers In Your Cleaning Business

I just read an article about customer churn rate in a magazine called Upsize.

"According to the 2010 Harris Interactive Customer Experience Impact Report, 86 percent of consumers quit doing buiness with a company because of a bad customer experience, up from 59 percent just four years ago."

Wow, that's quite a statistic, isn't it?  Your customer churn rate affects your revenue, which in turn affects how much you're able to  spend to gain new customers. So if you're not paying attention to what customers really think about your cleaning service, I hope this gets you to start.

"In addition, 60 percent of consumers will often or always pay more for a better experience, even in a negative economy."  So isn't it worth it to make sure every customer is getting the best possible experience every time their home is cleaned? You bet it is!

The article goes on to say, "The White House Office of Consumer Affairs notes that a dissatisfied customer will tell between nine and 15 people about a bad experience. Their comments often happen online." So if you aren't monitoring comments about your business online, now would be a good time to start.

But don't use social media monitoring alone. Although it's important, there are other ways to solicit feedback about your service -- surveys, comment cards, client focus groups, client interviews and online monitoring. Be pro-active when it comes to getting feedback about your service -- don't wait for your customer to send you unsolicited feedback because it won't paint a true picture of what is happening in your business.

It doesn't matter so much how you gather customer feedback, it's important that you recognize how critical it is when it comes to retaining your customers. When you listen pro-actively and respond quickly to your customers, you'll not only outshine your competition, you'll have happy, satisfied customers!

Why Do Commercial Cleaning Clients Cancel Accounts?

Losing a commercial cleaning account is never a fun experience, but it is your job as the owner to figure out what went wrong.

There are many reasons commercial cleaning clients cancel accounts:

• performance is sub par
• lack of communication
• theft
• client went out of business
• client is relocating outside your area
• client is going to in-house cleaning
• client is going with another cleaning company for personal reasons

These are just a few of the reasons you may lose a client. There are some things you can do nothing about, such as a client going out of business or relocating outside your area. But there is something you can do about sub par performance and lack of communication.

First, review your quality control procedures if performance is the issue. Make sure all employees understand the cleaning specifications, and make sure the supervisors are following up according to your standard. Clients have little patience for a cleaning company that offers subpar service.

You need to make a concerted effort to communicate with your clients. If lack of communication is the reason for losing the account, it could be that your client just wanted to hear from you more often. Communicating with your clients regularly is often more important to them than the quality of the service; especially if you resolve concerns immediately.

If you address the reasons you lost the account and take steps to correct the problem, cancellations should be a rare occurrence. If you lost the account due to no fault of your own, stay in touch with the former client. You may be able to win them back over time.

What are some of the reasons you've lost accounts? What did you do to win them back?

7 Steps For Handling Client Complaints In Your Commercial Cleaning Company

All commercial cleaning companies get complaints, but not all handle them completely or to their client's satisfaction. In order to ensure both complete follow-through and client satisfaction, follow these 10 steps.

1. Acknowledge the complaint and listen to the client. Focus on understanding the complaint instead of defending your company or your employee.
2. Do not argue with the customer or become defensive.
3. Set up a face-to-face meeting with the client that same day and be on time. Inspect the area of complaint.
4. In your own words, summarize your understanding of the complaint to make sure you are on the same page as the client.
5. Tell the client what you will do to remedy the problem. If you are not sure how to make the client happy, then ask them what you can do to remedy the problem.
6. Take care of the problem the same day, regardless of the short-term cost. The long-term relationship is more important.
7. Report back to the client when the problem has been solved to make sure he or she is satisfied.

Once the client is satisfied, analyze the situation to determine what caused the complaint. Was it a system problem or an employee problem? If it's a system problem, then make a change to the system so it doesn't happen again. If it's an employee problem, re-training may be in order. Decide on the correct course of action to divert any future complaints.

Who Is Responsible For Sales In Your Home Cleaning Company?

If you asked an employee at your company what they do they'd probably say something like, "I clean homes", or "I do the bookkeeping", or "I answer the phones".

What if they responded, "I'm in sales and service"? Do you think your sales would increase? If everyone felt individually responsible for increasing sales, then you bet your sales would increase! So how do you get your employees to recognize sales opportunities that are right under their noses every day? Here are a few tips:

1. Make sure they understand who your ideal client really is. Just because you clean homes doesn't mean you clean just ANY home! You may target certain neighborhoods, types of homes, or income levels. If your employees understand who your ideal client is, they're much more likely to recommend your company to the right person when opportunities arise.
2. Make sure your employees know all the services you provide. If an employee sees a spot on a carpet, they should know that you provide carpet spotting services and should recommend it to the client.
3. Make sure they know if you're currently offering any specials so they can let your clients know about this week's "window washing coupon".
4. Customer service "Wow" moments. There are many ways to "wow" your clients. One idea is to get your office staff involved with service after the sale by sending your client a photo of themselves and thanking them for the opportunity to serve them every day. This creates loyalty from your clients, which means you can grow your business faster.
5. Brainstorm ideas with your employees to come up with ways they can help increase sales with little effort. 
6. Study other companies with a customer service oriented culture. Zappos is a great example because every employee feels a responsibility to increase sales by providing expert customer service.

Do you agree that everyone in your company is responsible for sales? Share your thoughts by clicking on the Comments link below.

Dealing With Cleaning Customer Complaints

A cleaning business owner wrote the following in response to a Tip of the Week article called "Do You Dread Cleaning Customer Phone Calls?"

We have a little over 100 customers in our company and I dread those complaint calls. We fortunately get very few and there is a reason for this. We deal with the same employee problems and quality problems as other companies.

While this info may not be profound it may help some of you. Here's what we do to prevent these calls:

1. We start with good training.

2. New employees require a lot of initial supervision until they are capable of working on their own. Additionally, a supervisor just visiting a site, unannounced, while the employee is working, tells the employee that a supervisor is liable to stop by any night at any time. This goes a long way in not only "keeping them on their toes" but also letting them know we care about them and are available as support for them at any time.

3. We use a checklist/communication log at every site. The employee puts her initials next to every task performed on the list. There is also a communications section for the employee to leave messages for the client and, more importantly, for the client to communicate with the employee and our supervisors. Many minor issues are addressed and resolved right here before they become complaints.

4. Our office Administrator calls our clients on a regular basis, usually about once per month, and solicits their feedback. The most important question we ask our clients is "Are we meeting your expectations?". We also make ourselves available for walk-through evaluations with our clients at their request or convenience.

5. Of course, our supervisors perform periodic written evaluations on each site as well. Typically, once per month. Each site is different; some require more evaluating than others.

6. All feedback is documented and discrepancies are addressed. Discrepancies are addressed IMMEDIATELY, not the next time we service the client; even if it means going to the site immediately.

7. Quarterly we send and email survey of our performance to each client. Again, the most important question on the survey is "Are we meeting your expectations?". 

What do YOU do to deal with customer complaints? Post your comments by clicking on the Comments link below.

Do Your Cleaning Clients Consider You "Referrable"?

In a recent survey at MyHouseCleaningBiz.com, 50% of the respondents said that most of their business came from referrals and word of mouth. Yet when I talk to cleaning business owners, most don't have a "system" for getting referrals. So how are they doing it? They're simply more "referrable".

What qualities should you possess to become more referrable? Here are the top four:

1. Trustworthy. People do business with people they trust. If you and your employees demonstrate trustworthiness to your clients, chances are they will refer you to their friends and family. They would never consider referring you if they didn't feel you were trustworthy.
2. Treat your employees as you treat your customers. We always tell our employees how important our customers are to us, but did you ever stop to consider that your employees treat your customers the way you treat THEM? Think about that the next time your behavior isn't what you'd like your customers to see. Chances are, your employees are mirroring your behavior to your customers.
3. Create "buzz" about your company. Companies that are "referrable" are good at generating buzz about their business, especially if it concerns great customer service. People who receive exceptional service and are rewarded with WOW moments, love to talk about it. So what are you doing to WOW your customers?
4. Giver's gain philosophy. When networking, stop thinking about what you can sell or how many customers you can gain by attending this function. Instead, focus on what you can do to help other people - what can you GIVE them to help their business? People who live by this philosophy have all the referrals they can handle.

Do You Think Up Solutions Under Pressure?

I can't tell you how many times cleaning business owners tell us about a situation they had with a customer where they had to think up a solution under pressure. In other words, they didn't know how to handle the situation or what to say, so they simply said whatever came to mind to solve the problem quickly.

What happens next is that the cleaning business owner says to himself, "I need to create a policy about that!" Here is an example -- a customer that continually asks for more services. To the customer it's just a small request that will only take a few minutes. But as these requests keep adding up, you can feel the profit draining from this account. If you're not prepared for this question, you might agree to do the extra service, but kick yourself for not being prepared with a better solution.

In this example, think about how you should respond to these repeated requests so you are prepared the next time this comes up. For example, you might say, "Yes, I'd be happy to do that for you. Just let me figure out how much time it will take and I'll come up with your new price." Then go get your calculator! (Even if you don't need the calculator, it gets the point across). If the customer was just trying to get free work out of you they'll probably say "never mind". But if it's a service they really want, they'll pay the extra amount.

In this situation, make it clear that this is a service that was not factored into your original price, but you'd be happy to accomodate them from now on at this new rate. This will usually put an end to the repeated requests for additional "free" service.

What other examples can you think of that have you coming up with solutions under pressure? Click on the Comments link below to post your thoughts.