If you Google ‘How to clean a house’, you will get about 2,720,000,000 results in just under 0.73 seconds. If only cleaning a property could be as quick!
Google again how many cleaning providers there are in the UK, and you will see an array of information. The key statistics to showcase here are that the British Cleaning Council (BCC) reports that the cleaning industry ‘employs 1.63 million people and contributes £54.5 billion to the UK economy every year’
To help put that into context; this figure is greater than the economic contributions of both the food and drink manufacturing industries and agriculture combined (£28 billion and £10.4 billion respectively).
That is a LOT of cleaning!
Cleaning Sectors
This sector is not just made up of the odd house clean or office wipe over; there are four main sub-sectors that include:
- Cleaning activities – domestic and commercial cleaning, general cleaning of buildings and offices
- Facilities management – commercial management of real estate, renting and leasing machinery and equipment, facilities support
- Landscape service activities – care and maintenance of parks, schools, commercial properties etc.
- Waste and resource management – waste collection, treatment, and disposal
And with all the cleaning and maintenance each sector manages; the need to evidence your activities is more important than ever. Capturing information to identify and inform on broken, damaged or missing items; confirm when jobs are complete, how can cleaners keep customers up to date and engaged with their clients?
Enter InventoryBase
Cleaning Service Inspection Templates
Having a readable, itemised and professional cleaning report that indicates every aspect of the property clean is important to evidence issues and levels of cleanliness completed by the operative both whilst still at the property or at the end of the working day.
Evidence based cleaning is not a new concept, but how the information is captured and conveyed has come a long way from written instructions issued in the morning meeting either at the cleaning companies office or on site.
Paper schedules are outdated, and can easily lead to mistakes being made when instructions are either not clear or have not been conveyed correctly. At the very least, it leads to duplication of work or tasks.
Enabling the cleaner to manage their daily tasks list such as weekly house cleans, pre and end of tenancy cleans and deep cleans via the InventoryBase platform and app allows them to be notified the day before via automated task list emails. They can then accept or decline the jobs (if self employed contractors), and then instantly see what properties are due to be cleaned and the types of tasks to be carried out.
With pre-set templates already available via the Template Library; lists and functions are clear and straightforward using either Yes/No questions. You can also set out more detailed/complicated tasks by compiling your own template using the editor facility that account users have access to.
Paper is simply not efficient. It is impractical, costly to produce and store paper documents and contributes massively to our carbon footprint – a single sheet of paper produces roughly .0092 lbs of CO2. 500 sheets produces 4.59 lbs of CO2. According to a European survey, an average office worker uses 10,000 printed pages per year.
So to put it bluntly; this is a cost both to your pocket and the environment that neither should have to bear.
Efficiency in Cleaning Management
InventoryBase knows that efficiency is key to any business, so our ‘Custom Workflows’ allows the account owner to automate jobs and enable seamless communication between contractors and team members. They can accept and confirm appointments automatically, add detailed pictorial or video evidence, assign issues and responsibility and once a job is complete, send the report to the client at the touch of a button.
With management overview of all completed reports and workflows; InventoryBase is an integral part of your cleaning business.
One of the bigger issues that we have found when taking feedback from customers is that they want to improve the efficiency of their cleaners and overall business. This will have a positive impact on both their operatives and customer retention, and, in turn, increase revenue.
Being transparent and offering your customers instant reports and information helps cement the working relationship, builds customer confidence in your services as well as providing invaluable information on tasks completed.
This has a positive effect on the cleaners and sub-contractors empowering them to deliver high quality work and develop a real sense of achievement as each task is completed, all communicated seamlessly to the client.
Technology in Cleaning
The benefits of using an app is that technology is continually evolving, meaning that reports can be tailored to the client and enable real time views of the cleaners performance including identifying training needs via on and off–site staff appraisals.
In addition; the booking system can help you automate administrative and management tasks enabling you to become more efficient and effective as a business. These include:
- Live dashboard
- Drag and drop diaries
- Individual client logins
- Inspection app (Android / Apple)
- Template builder and library
- Interactive reports (date and timed pictures)
- Digital signatures
- Invoicing & payments
One of the key drivers in any business is to increase margins and profitability. InventoryBase with inbuilt invoicing, integrations with apps such as QuickBooks, Dropbox, Fixflo, SM Professional means that we scale with you as your business grows.
Customer satisfaction is key to any business. With the right staff, processes and technology to enable and empower your business and staff, you may not be able to ‘clean the house in 1 second’ but you will be more cost efficient, quality driven and productive.