Not Your Normal House Cleaner Angela Brown Ask a House Cleaner

Not Your Normal House Cleaner

What if you get a maid who is not your normal house cleaner? And what if you are the boss who has to send in the replacement? What do you say to the customer? Do you tell them at all or just send somebody new?

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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.

Not Your Normal House Cleaner

Not Your Normal House Cleaner, Client and House CleanerNot your normal house cleaner. I’m going to send someone new today. It’s not your normal house cleaner. How do you navigate that situation?

Let’s suppose there’s a customer named Mrs. Wexler, and she has a house with lots of special needs. I say special needs because Mrs. Wexler is OCD.

So when you go to her house and you clean her house, she comes in and she says, “Oh by the way, when you put the bath mat back in front of the shower, can you match it up with these tiles?” Most house cleaners would say, “Oh, sure, no problem.” Then they would remember to match the bath mat with the tiles, the squares of the tiles.

What Happens if the Normal Cleaner Gets Sick?

Not Your Normal House Cleaner, Sick Man on PhoneOkay, so what happens if the normal house cleaner gets sick or goes on vacation or has friends and family in from out of town and they’re not able to clean Mrs. Wexler’s house. What happens?

What happens is you send in a replacement to clean the house for the day but the new house cleaner does not know that Mrs. Wexler needs the bath mat matched up against the tiles.

So when the job is over she walks in and lo and behold, the bath mat, although it’s clean and it’s in front of the shower, it’s in a skiwampus place. So she gets all bent out of shape and she thinks the cleaning is not good.

Set Up Other House Cleaners On Your Walkthrough

Not Your Normal House Cleaner, House Cleaner Holding SuppliesSo what do you do if you have to send in a house cleaner that is not the normal house cleaner? Great question. All right, so what we’re going to do first and foremost is on the walkthrough we’re going to set up the fact that one day there will be another house cleaner. Even if you are a solo house cleaner, I promise you it will benefit you to do this.

So when you go on the walkthrough with the customer I want you to say these words, “I’m growing and expanding my business and the day will come when I will have another person working with me.

Right now I am the person that will be cleaning your home but another person will be coming with me. I just wanted to give you a heads up so there are no surprises and I will let you know before the time comes before that day happens.” They go, “Oh okay.”

Prepare Them for the Possibility of Another Cleaner

Not Your Normal House Cleaner, Wiping CounterNow you have prepared them for the possibility that there may be another human inside their house at a later date with you under your supervision. Okay, so now that we have covered that, one of the things that we want to talk about is how do you keep track of the differences of each customer?

So there are different software programs that you can use, and what I recommend is every time that Mrs. Wexler says something like, “I need the bath mat matched up with the tiles,” that you take a picture of exactly how it’s supposed to look. “Mrs. Wexler, did you mean like this?” “Oh yes, that’s exactly how I want it to look.” Awesome, we’re good to go.

Take that photo with the note and put it inside the software that you use at your business. Because I promise you it will happen, in the event that you’re ever sick or you have a family emergency or you have friends and family from out of town and you can’t do the cleaning, those notes get transferred to the person that you send in to clean Mrs. Wexler’s house.

Taking Notes Helps New Cleaners Fit In

Not Your Normal House Cleaner, Walkthrough Man with ClipboardAre you still with me? Okay, follow me on this. Let’s say for example that we do have a new hire that we hire for the business and her name is Ramona, we’ll just make up a name, her name will be Ramona. But Ramona has not met Mrs. Wexler and she does not know Mrs. Wexler’s finicky little dog.

So what we’re going to do is we’re going to set up also on the walkthrough, even if you’re a solo cleaner, we’re going to set up on the walkthrough also hey listen we have maintenance and deep cleans in our company.

On the deep clean I’m probably going to bring someone else from my company to help me with that, so I will be doing the maintenance clean, they will be doing the deep clean and we’ll knock those two projects out at once. But, it also helps to take notes while you’re on the job.

Prepping Homeowners Helps You Train New Employees

Not Your Normal House Cleaner, Serious Woman in BathroomOkay, so now you’ve prepped Mrs. Wexler for what’s about to happen. I love doing this, it works out well. If you hire somebody new and you don’t have a full schedule for them, a good way to start them in the business and to get them active with the customers that you currently have is to assign them the deep cleans of the houses that you’re cleaning because we do regular deep cleans for our customers.

So while you are doing maintenance clean, you bring Ramona with you, and before you bring her, this is the week before or the cleaning before, you go back to Mrs. Wexler and you say, “Mrs. Wexler, do you remember how when I did my first walkthrough with you and I explained to you that somebody new will be coming with me?

Okay, well I’ve hired a girl, her name is Ramona, she is amazing, you’re going to love her, she’s super cool, and she’s going to be helping me with the deep clean that we have scheduled for you in two weeks, is that okay?” She says, “Yes, that’s okay.” Great.

Your Other Cleaner Can Do the Deep Clean While You Do a Maintenance Clean

Not Your Normal House Cleaner, Two House CleanersSo now you bring Ramona with you, Ramona does the deep clean while you do the maintenance clean. But while you’re cleaning at the same time, now Ramona is getting to know Mrs. Wexler in the comfort of knowing that everything that she normally likes on a normal schedule is being done.

But the deep clean stuff is also being done by somebody also approved by your company that she’s kind of easing into. So it’s not like you just dropped Ramona off and you left and you’re not there, so it’s kind of a get to know you period.

Prep Your Employee for the Homeowner Too

Not Your Normal House Cleaner, Happy House Cleaner Holding SuppliesThe first thing that I want to say after we know we’re going to bring Ramona in is I want to prep Ramona for Mrs. Wexler. So Mrs. Wexler to us might be high maintenance because she says things like, “Can you put the bath mat and match it up with the tiles?” In our heads, we’re like, “Oh come on, really?

But we don’t want to say that to Ramona because if we make Mrs. Wexler look high maintenance when Ramona comes to Mrs. Wexler’s house she’s going to be expecting high maintenance, and so she’s going to have an attitude and she’s going to have a preconceived notion of how to treat Mrs. Wexler.

So I want to set it up so that Ramona is looking at Mrs. Wexler as the best customer on earth.

Prep the Homeowner and the Employee the Same Way

Not Your Normal House Cleaner, Smiling Woman in HomeNow, we prepped Mrs. Wexler by saying Ramona was the best house cleaner, so we’re going to do the same thing to Ramona. We’re going to say, “Ramona, we’re going to go do a deep clean on Mrs. Wexler’s house. She’s such a fantastic customer, I am super excited that you get the chance to meet her and her amazing little dog Toto.”

She’s going to say, “Oh that’s so cool, let’s go meet Mrs. Wexler and Toto.” So when she shows up to Mrs. Wexler’s house, instead of expecting a high maintenance customer who’s going to nitpick and who’s going to be micromanaging the job, she’s expecting this amazing, fun, elder woman who has lots of spunk and energy, so she has great expectations.

Your Employee Will Have a Good Impression of the Customer

Not Your Normal House Cleaner, Excited House Cleaner in HomeIn the event that Mrs. Wexler is finicky and she’s high maintenance, Ramona will think, well, maybe I caught her on a bad day because I heard she was an amazing customer. So she’ll kind of let that slide. And she creates her own opinion and her own feelings about Mrs. Wexler that are not tainted by the previous cleaner. Right?

And because we told Mrs. Wexler that Ramona is amazing and we are super delighted that she’s joining us and that she’s a fantastic house cleaner.

Now, Mrs. Wexler has an opportunity to build that relationship from scratch with positive expectations.

Allow Your Cleaner to Get to Know the Client Just in Case

Not Your Normal House Cleaner, Confused House Cleaner in HomeNow there’s an opportunity for Ramona to get to know Mrs. Wexler, get to know her house, get to know her dog Toto, and then in the event… here’s where it gets beautiful, in the event that you have to call her and say, Mrs. Wexler, “I’ve had a family emergency or I caught COVID and I have to quarantine, I can’t come to your cleaning, I’m going to send Ramona over to your house this time to do the maintenance clean, not your normal house cleaner, I’m sending in a replacement.”

This is not a cold replacement, this is not someone that she’s never met, she’s going to be wondering if this person going to steal my stuff, is this person going to know how I like things? She’s going to think that because Ramona is part of the company.

But Ramona, being savvy, goes into the notes that we’ve kept track of on the customer file. And she sees the picture and she’s like, “Whoa, you’ve got to match the bath mat up? Okay. Whoa, you’ve got to fold the toilet paper that way?.” But she has those notes on her phone. So she’s cleaning the house, she double checks, got the bath mat, got the shower curtain, got the… And she marks it off as she goes.

Avoid Callbacks By Prepping the Customer for Not Their Normal Cleaner

Not Your Normal House Cleaner, House Cleaner Looking at PhoneNow when she leaves, Mrs. Wexler comes in, and instead of complaining, instead of doing a callback, instead of feeling like well that’s not my normal cleaner, I want the person that always cleans my house.

And instead of causing a fuss she’s like whoa, I love this company, they sent in a replacement that did an amazing job, that met all my expectations, she knows she’s high maintenance, this is fantastic. Right? And now she’s going to tell her friends about you and your company.

So that my friends is how you deal with not the normal cleaner when you have to replace yourself or you have to send someone in to replace another house cleaner.

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