Across all industries, record numbers of Americans have been quitting their jobs and the cleaning industry is no exception. It can be difficult to retain talented cleaning staff, which makes it hard to grow your business and even maintain services for your current clients.
Traditionally, the knee jerk for business owners would be to raise rates to combat the impact this would have on the bottom line. Instead of jumping right to that solution, there may be some other solutions to help combat the revenue that can be lost when maid services do not have enough cleaners to attend to the demand from the customers.
Re-Think Traditional Scheduling
The traditional scheduling structure is to provide a specific day and time to your customers for then they can expect their home or business to be cleaned. While this is mostly beneficial to customers to arrange when to possibly be away – it can be detrimental to a cleaning business.
For example: one of your cleaners has a cleaning at 10:00 a.m. and then the next cleaning is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. They finish the first cleaning at 12:00, eat a quick lunch and are ready for the next house but it is only 12:30. They end up sitting in the street outside the house wasting valuable time until the 1:00 cleaning.
Why not think outside the box and instead of offering a specific time, maybe have clients use your maid scheduling software to set a specific day instead? This way, your cleaners can receive a list of houses to get cleaned on a specific day leaving space for extra clients, if needed. This can be attractive for cleaners who are paid via percentage pay.
Premium Add-Ons
Instead of raising regular rates, you may want to consider offering Premium Add-Ons to your cleaning services. Customers can schedule a regular cleaning via your maid service software and then be given options for add-ons. Some ideas for what to offer at an additional cost:
- Specific cleaning time instead of just a day of the week
- Kitchen appliance cleaning: oven, refrigerator, etc.
- Dryer lint trap cleaning
- Garage cleaning and organizing
- Dish washing services
Many of these tasks will add very little time to the cleaning and add value to the bottom line. Knowing these services can be added on will be attractive as well to staff that are paid via percentage pay.
Communication is Key
When it comes to retaining customers and employees through these uncertain times, communication is key. Let customers know why you are having to make these changes – be transparent about the need to retain cleaning staff and that is why things may be changing. Let customers know this is your attempt to maintain the cost to clean their homes and not raise prices.
You may also want to revise employment listings to let applicants know up-front what steps you as a cleaning business are taking to take care of your employees. When your cleaning staff feels appreciated and cared for, you will gain a loyal work force, which provides stability for your bottom line.
Let MaidEasy help you increase your bottom line!
You can utilize MaidEasy Software to make it easier for customers to schedule and add on premium services through our maid scheduling software. And make it easier for employees to track their pay with our cleaning service payroll management services. Let MaidEasy take the guesswork out of running the business so that you can focus on serving your customer’s needs. Contact us today to set up a free trial in 4 easy steps!
