When you hire a commercial cleaning company or cleaning service for your business, you probably believe that they will oversee or perform the actual cleaning of your site and have an inspection process to ensure quality. For reputable commercial cleaning companies, that is exactly what happens and you have nothing to worry about.
Sale of cleaning contracts
Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Have you ever heard of a commercial cleaning or janitorial company that sells their clients’ contracts? Probably not, unless you’ve experienced this problem yourself and received a poor cleaning along with no one who seems responsible. There are a growing number of “commercial cleaning companies” marketing to new and established commercial customers without ever doing or even cleaning a county. They get the client to sign a contract and then sell the cleaning contract for a significant profit, usually by a factor of 3: 1.
Contract buyers are often smaller, generally less sophisticated, cleaning companies without the infrastructure to market their own cleaning services or startups hoping to launch their own business. Barely able to cover their overhead, many of these small businesses cannot recoup their investment in their contract until at least a year and probably more before they start making a (very small) profit. The company you thought you hired to clean up your workspace generally completes this type of “outsourcing” without full disclosure.
These “franchise” companies often do not have a cleaning team of their own, a quality control system, or a real interest in your business, but they do have one interest: the money. Let’s say that as a business owner, you unknowingly sign one of these contracts. Then after a couple of months and several phone calls later, a whole new team comes in to do the cleaning. What happened? The first selling company has put in place its cancellation clause that terminates the crew that was there and then resells its contract to another crew and the cycle continues.
Misrepresentation and other issues
So what is the problem with this scenario? Well, several things. Why would a commercial cleaning company want to sell a contract? The first answer is money. They don’t care about your business at all, no matter how convincing they may seem. Your business is simply a means to an end. Their monthly contract is for $ 1,000 and they sell it for $ 3,000, a profit of $ 24,000 in 12 months. And you’re not their only victim – they sell hundreds and even thousands of these contracts without everyone using a vacuum cleaner.
Second, the company that sold you the office cleaning services is misrepresenting what it offers. You are literally handing over the keys to your livelihood to someone who is cheating on you from the start. Some of those who have been scammed would go so far as to call these people scammers since they go so far as to promote “franchises” that promise huge returns on investment in contracts. See examples of what happens to contract buyers and cleaning franchisees.
If you want to avoid this type of experience and hire a reputable commercial cleaning company, be sure to speak with the company’s current and former clients, check their status with the Better Business Bureau, and be careful about signing long-term contracts.
