The Customer Service Target Market Support Assistance Concept

Consultants in the cleaning industry are often asked for suggestions on how to improve customer service. Gary Clipperton, president of National Pro Clean, had the following suggestions in response to such questions.

Account retention is tied directly to good customer service. Whenever service is not up to par, don’t be surprised if you encounter some defection. Here are some goals you must work on to keep clients happy:

 • Provide all workers with a detailed cleaning task checklist. The scope of work should state with clarity the what, where, when, how, and a description of the desired outcome.

 • Establish equity in your workloading by using industry-accepted standards for cleaning activities. This should ensure adequate hours are allocated to perform all assigned cleaning tasks.

 • Provide a thorough training program for all processes, and stress the importance of quality oriented cleaning. Maintaining the safety and health of facility occupants and visitors is of prime importance.

 • Train and stress the importance of self-inspections and self-correction for all cleaning problems. Diagnostic and troubleshooting skills are invaluable for everyone in the cleaning operation. Train new hires on-the-job each day with written or mobile procedures.

 • Allow staff to interact with management to resolve challenges and propose improvements. Make projects a team effort and go to bat for employees when they are overwhelmed.

 • Empower the cleaning staff so they accept ownership and continuously improve performance.

 • Determine if a skill deficiency exists and establish, when possible, a fool-proof sequence of cleaning steps.

 • Keep workers sharp with ongoing skill maintenance training, so they don’t forget the required procedures. Assess skill deficiency by determining if the worker wasn’t adequately trained, forgot how to perform the task, or might be incapable of performing the task.

 • Implement and maintain a process to accurately measure and fairly rate an employee’s quality and performance. Then provide adequate feedback.

 • Curtail low morale, improve the working pace, and find ways to reduce a lack of focus, carelessness, uncooperativeness or absenteeism.

 • Implement programs and techniques to compliment and reward excellence to boost job satisfaction.