Do you know what to do before cleaning a house? If you’re a new house cleaner, there’s a lot going on when you enter a client’s home for the first time.
Taking on cleaning jobs with changing expectations will become confusing fast! That’s why professional house cleaning starts with job bidding and house cleaning walkthroughs.
If you’re not sure how to give job estimates for your cleaning services, look no further, we’re here to help.
Listen: House Cleaning – How to Know What to Do
Watch: House Cleaning – How to Know What to Do
Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.
How Do You Know What to Do When You Get to a Customer’s House?
House cleaning, how do you know what to do when you get to a customer’s house? Is that something that you have a conversation about them with as far as, “Oh, I want you to vacuum today and dust or mop, dust and vacuum or windows?” There are certain things that you do before the next thing.
What it starts out with is it starts with the walkthrough. There is a whole course that’s on the walkthrough, but here’s the short version. You’re going to go to a customer’s house and you’re going to give them a bid. There’s lots of software that you can attach to your website where the customer can get an estimate of the cost when you come to clean their house.
When you get to their house, you’re actually going to look with eyes at the house and you’re going to see is it as clean as they said it was, or is it messier? Is it going to take you longer? They said they had five bathrooms, but they have seven.
Use the Walkthrough to Give a Fair Price
You’re going to make sure that everything matches up. Once everything matches up, then you’re going to be able to give them a fair price. Now, the price is going to be based on what the two of you agreed to.
If you get to the customer’s house and you say, “Here’s what we always do when we’re on a walkthrough with our customer, these are the rooms that we clean in a house.” Then they might say, “Those rooms are not important to me. I don’t want you to go to the den. I don’t want you to go in the guest room,” and you start crossing stuff off your list.
If they did not include those in the estimate and you get to the walkthrough and you say, “Wait, there are three extra bedrooms here.” They’ll say, “I don’t want you to go in those,” okay, great. Now you know, they know you’re not going to do those extra three rooms.
Have a Conversation About No Trading Rooms
Now, you will need to stop and have a conversation and say, “If at any time you should have company that comes in from out of town and you want those rooms clean, please call a couple of days in advance. That way I’ll make sure that we put that on your schedule and we can get you a fair price for those rooms.”
What you’re telling them right up front is you’re not going to trade one room for another. The price you’re giving them right now is based on the rooms that you’re talking about right now. If they are crossing rooms off today. Then this room is always forever crossed off until they call the office and add it on to their bill. And then you can add extra time so you can clean those rooms before your company comes. How do you know what to do? You decide with the customer on the walkthrough.
Certain Things are Important to Every Homeowner
Now, there are certain things that are important to every homeowner. Every customer is different. If you’re willing to do those certain things, like for example, one customer may have brass fixtures in their bathroom that requires a special polishing. It’s going to come down to what the customer’s preference is and it may take you a little bit longer.
You’re going to make notes on your worksheet as you walk through with the customer and that’s how you will know what to do at that customer’s house.
If you do not have a worksheet, go to SavvyCleaner.com/worksheets and you can download a copy of there, tweak it and make it your own.
Take Your Worksheet to Every Single Cleaning
Now, that you have a worksheet, take it with you at every single cleaning for this reason. When you take the worksheet at every cleaning, what you’re doing is you’re inspecting your own work with the checklist as you leave the customer’s house. You clean a room, you inspect it. As you inspect it, you clean your way out of the room not to go in it again.
Nobody goes in it after you go in it and the customer sees it and they’re like, “Oh, she cleaned and passed off this room.” That’s how you know what to do. It’s on your worksheet. This means you don’t reinvent the wheel every time. Do not allow your customers to give you a new checklist every single time.
Make sure that whatever you’re promising is on the worksheet and that you agree to that on the walkthrough because that’s the price that you’re giving them.
Change the Price as the Job Changes
If they start changing things around, you have to start changing your price around, and then it gets confusing. Because what if they only had so much money in their budget. Then they changed a few things around and you changed your pricing around, then they’re like, “Oh, that’s too much money.”
Now, you’re negotiating on the price at every cleaning. You’re negotiating on the tasks at every cleaning and that becomes exhausting for both of you. So be very clear right upfront about exactly what it is you’re going to cover on that walkthrough.
That way there are no surprises. Make it very clear from day one, here’s what I’m capable of doing, here’s what I do, here is what I do not do. Once you’re very clear about what you don’t do, the customer will then hire other people to do what you don’t do. Once that’s on your worksheet, that becomes your master worksheet and you follow that at every cleaning for the price that you gave them.
Resources
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