Cleaning domestic space is a tiresome and daily business. For a normal household where both the parents work and children are off to school, regular housework becomes a chore that one would rather circumvent.
Thankfully, there are several cleaning services in the market to choose from, and you must be aware of what your needs are and the kind of services you wish to opt for.
Listed below are four key steps that help you decide and zero in on the right help.
Step 1 – Identify Your Requirements
Determine the areas of your home/office that you would like to be spruced up. Do you need just the windows done, or the entire house vacuumed? Are the carpets, rugs and curtains supposed to be cleaned as well? Do your bathrooms need attention? Are you looking for a standard mopping, dusting kind of cleaning or more in depth – drawers, cupboards and storage areas? All these questions need to be answered, and you need to list down your requirements in order to choose the right cleaning personnel suitable for the task.
Step 2 – Check Credentials and Background
References can be of immeasurable help in hunting down the right kind of services. Ask your neighbours, family or friends to share their experiences, if they have used any such service in the past or whether they know of any such people you can call upon. Referrals are a sure shot way of avoiding pitfalls when hiring the professionals needed for the job. And, people are normally quite happy to offer advice if they have had a good experience with a particular vendor/supplier. You can also check on their rates, kind of staff, and the time taken from a past customer who has undergone the experience first-hand. Cut short, do not ever underestimate the power of a good reference.
Step 3 – Request a Site Visit
Once you have finalised what you need, contact the appropriate agency or a bunch of them, requesting them to visit your premises and present a quote with all other details – including the number of personnel they will engage, the time of visit, staff description, etc. Usually, most service providers conduct these preliminary inspections and tasks before commencing work on the site to get a hands-on feel of the nature of work ahead. Clients should usually opt for a flat fee payment system and not time-based fluctuating rates, as there are chances of workmen slowing down their work deliberately to beef up the final billing.
Step 4 – Always Hire a Company and Not an Individual
There are certain advantages to hiring an established company and not going the individual worker route. First of all, the organisation you hire would be registered and insured, thereby helping address any untold accidents or theft taking place in midst of a service. In case of individual service providers, you are not sure of their education, training and skills. A company is responsible for its staff and the quality of work delivered. Ensure the people who come to your premises are bonafide with legal status, correct identification, and have no criminal records. Ask the company to provide you their details in advance.