Are you being nickel and dimed to death by your cleaning company?
Have you ever agreed to buy something at “one low price” and before you finished checking out you were somehow paying nearly twice as much as you first agreed too? One of the worst these days is getting that “great deal” on a plane ticket only to get charged $50 per bag when checking in for your flight. Ouch! We all have an experience like this and this could be true of your commercial cleaning service here in Oregon. What started out seemingly like a reasonably priced product or service can quickly morph from a good deal to a not so good deal when the deal closes and the seller looks for ways to recoup an artificially low price.
In the world of commercial janitorial cleaning companies in Oregon there are many bargain basement outfits running around giving you bids that seem too good to be true and you know what? They are! This kind of marketing and sales approach isn’t good for you or the industry. As a buyer, you are cheated out of the right to make an informed decision and fairly assess your options in the marketplace. You’re led to believe you are getting something that you’re not and the service leaves your facility unacceptably dirty. As a competitive Oregon commercial cleaning company, trying to fairly price your product or service and transparently present it to potential customers, you are understandably disadvantaged.
In the commercial cleaning industry, prices continue to be at an all-time low. Many, Oregon janitorial companies are offering prices so low that they are quickly broke and out of business and their customers are left looking for other companies to clean but eventually you have to pay a reasonable price for a quality service. Further, many Facility Managers who choose the bargain cleaning company start out feeling like they are getting a great value for the money, only to find that their cleaning service is recouping the low initial cost in other ways. It is still true that “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Many Facility Managers are paying for things they thought were covered in their monthly contract. When they complain about service issues, their contractor magically comes up with a billable solution to that particular problem. The Facilities Manager starts to get further and further away from what he/she thought was good value.
Whatever your specific situation, there are a few things you can do to protect yourself from being overcharged, get consistency from your cleaning service and still get a good return on your cleaning dollar:
1. Read The Contact Carefully
Make sure that your cleaning contract contains a cleaning specification that outlines all the different types of services the cleaning company plans to deliver under the contact with the cleaning frequencies of all cleaning services to be performed each week, month and year.
2. Make Sure Contract And Monthly Invoicing Match
If your Oregon based cleaning company invoices in a broad fashion without explanation, or lists several services lumped together into one sum/line item, we suggest that you demand a better explanation before payment. This kind of muddled billing can cause big issues and even bigger extra costs.
3. When Your Building Or Services Change, Make Sure To Amend The Original Contract
Here again, it is easy to add on additional services or square footage and tell the cleaning company to just add it on to your monthly amount. However, without proper documentation there could be some confusion down the road on what is and what is not included as part of the contract.
In the end, the most important thing you can do for your facility is to make sure you are paying a fair price for agreed upon services. Further, it is very important to make sure that all of the details of your cleaning contract are properly documented. It must be in writing or it didn’t happen and probably won’t happen. If you are having problems with your current Oregon commercial cleaning contractor please don’t hesitate to give us a call for a free evaluation and estimate!