We screwed up. Oh no! What do we do next? How do you bounce back when you make a mistake in house cleaning? You will make mistakes in house cleaning and in life, but you just have to learn from them. Today we will talk about how to learn from your mistakes and get better.
Listen: We Screwed Up Our First Cleaning Job
Watch: We Screwed Up Our First Cleaning Job
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.
We Screwed Up in Our Business
Whoa, we screwed up in our business, and now we look like fools. What do we do next? Somebody wrote in and asked this question today.
“My name is Selena. I recently started a small cleaning company. It’s just my mother and me. And so far, we were able to get one house that we cleaned. But unfortunately, we made some big mistakes. Everything was well done. We cleaned everything very well. It was a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, two-story home. But unfortunately, I guess, because it was our first cleaning, we were just a little nervous, we forgot to make up one of the beds. It wasn’t that messy. It wasn’t very obvious. And I guess we were just so worried about everything else, so we missed it when, and we should have gone back to check, which we didn’t.
The person, later on, messaged us and asked us why we didn’t make the bed. He wasn’t upset or anything. I called him, I apologized, and he was completely fine with it. He even booked us again for another cleaning, but I don’t know how to go about that. Should I offer him a discount for this cleaning that I’m doing again? Or what should I do? I honestly have no idea what I should do in a situation like this.”
Learn Something About Your Business Every Day
All right, I love the fact that you are in this situation. I know that sounds really counterintuitive, and you’re probably ready to punch me in the head. But the answer is this: I want you to learn something new about your business every single day. Now, you’re new to the business, you have one house, and you screwed up at the one house.
I love that because right now you feel horrible, and I don’t ever want you to lose that feeling. Okay, now, the cool thing is this, your customer brought it to your attention, and you’re going to fix it, and you will never forget to inspect your work again. This was a tough lesson to learn, and you learned it on your very first house, which I think is awesome.
If you learn something new about your business every day, when you go out into the field to deal with a customer, you’re going to be open-minded, and you’re going to say, “What can I learn from today’s situation? And what can I do so I’m not repeating errors from the past.”
Don’t Give a Discount When You Mess Up
Now, you asked me, “Do you give a discount?” The answer is no. Your payment for this lesson is that you were embarrassed. You feel bad, and you wish you could do a do-over, right? Okay, so the do-over is that the customer wasn’t mad. They didn’t ask for their money back. They didn’t ask for anything. In fact, they booked you again.
So they love your work. They love you as a person. They want you to come back. That’s awesome. All right. What I want you to do, though, is make a note, and you will do this all throughout the course of your career.
Whenever there’s a customer that says something like, “Oh, this didn’t quite meet my expectations for whatever reason,” you’re going to make a note. And you’re going to wonder, “Is this a legitimate excuse or reason or suggestion that we can use in our business?”
Do You Offer What Your Customer is Complaining About
If a customer says, “Well, the beds weren’t made,” you might ask yourself the question, “Does our company make beds as part of the house cleaning experience? Is that a daily chore, or is that a bi-weekly chore that we have agreed to do?” Right? You’re going to decide as you go what services you actually offer and what services you don’t.
Okay, then the next thing is, “Are we going to do this at some customer’s houses? Or are we going to do it at all the houses?” And so now you have new decisions to make.
And then you will decide who’s going to do that on the team. Is it going to be you or your mother? And so, you might break the jobs down to a specific person on your team. That person is responsible for making the beds.
A Checklist Can Help Keep You On Track
Then you might decide you want to have a checklist. The checklist will walk you through all the different things that you agree to with the customer. This is cool if you leave the checklist or the worksheet behind because then the customer will know at every clean exactly what you offer.
So they’re not calling you back going, “Well, is this part of your service?” or, “Do you include that sometimes,” or, “Is it included all the time,” or, “Do I have to pay extra for that?” or whatever. Right, it will help you clarify those things.
All right, then your satisfaction guarantee will be based on whatever it is the two of you agree to. And so when the customer calls and says, “Hey, a bed wasn’t made,” you both know exactly what happens next. There’s no wondering, “Well, do I give a discount? Do I just feel bad about it? Do I go back and make the bed?” What happens next? You will know because now you have a new policy in place.
Have a Learning Experience Every Day
I challenge you to do this every single day. Every day I have a new learning experience. I don’t mean screw up every day, but learn something every day, implement something every day. Build your business a little bit every day so that this never happens again.
And what that might mean for you is if you have a checklist. Before you leave that room, you check off the checklist on that room and you give yourself a once-over. You make sure you left no cleaning supplies, that you left no beds unmade, that you left nothing hiding under the bed, that you left no trash in the room, or whatever it is that you have decided and agreed to.
How to Let Your Customer Know a Room is Good
When you’re done, and you check off the room, you’re going to know it’s good. And how will the customer know that the room is good? And so, for us, we know we’re on camera. So after I’ve inspected a room and I look at the room, and I give it my seal of approval, I give myself a thumbs up, and I say, “That’s nice.”
The reason I say that is because I’m complimenting myself on the great job that I did. I deserve a few thumbs up and, “Hey, I did a good job.” Right? Also, it picks up on the cameras.
There will be people at work, and they’re watching you, and they’re like, “Whoa, they just gave themselves a thumbs up.” Okay, how do they feel about their cleaning service now? Well, a thumbs up, the house cleaner themselves gave it thumbs up. They’re proud of their work, right?
They’re not going to call you back and go, “Whoa, you missed something.” No. I saw you on the camera. You were proud of yourself. You gave yourself a thumbs up, right? People will show that to their friends, and their friends will go, “Whoa, I need a house cleaner that gives themself a thumbs up when they’re done.”
Remember the Feeling of Screwing Up
From here through the rest of the time that you are in the cleaning business, I want you to pay very close attention to this feeling you have right now, like, “I screwed up,” because those are the teaching moments that will absolutely revolutionize your business. When you feel like, ugh, I could have done better. Yay, that’s an awesome feeling.
When you go to the next house, I want you to do better. I want you to do better at every single house than you did before. I don’t mean to do more, I mean do better. Are my systems better? Is my process better? Is my cleaning better? Am I more efficient? Am I more articulate? Is the customer more satisfied with what I did? Is the customer clearer about my expectations and how we work together?
Every single thing you do in your business makes you a better business person. And so, I want you to take today’s feeling and have it make you better. And then that turns your business into something that people then will recommend to their friends and their neighbors.
Resources
Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity – https://amzn.to/3bVBEDc
The More You Do The Better You Feel: How to Overcome Procrastination – https://amzn.to/34i0OrJ
Do Better Work: Finding clarity, camaraderie, and progress in work and life – https://amzn.to/3fmMKn2
Great at Work: The Hidden Habits of Top Performers – https://amzn.to/3wDGhtx
Principles: Life and Work – https://amzn.to/3oS7OVs
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