Commercial and offices
How to choose a commercial cleaning company
Most businesses collect three quotes and pick the middle one. Here is a better process, and it starts before you contact anybody.
Hygiene Maids of Fort Worth7 min readUpdated
Write the scope before you ask for prices
If you send three companies a request for a price on "cleaning our office three times a week," you will get three numbers attached to three different amounts of work, and you will have no way to compare them.
Write down what you want done and how often, task by task. It does not have to be perfect — a provider worth hiring will suggest changes. But starting from your grid rather than theirs means the quotes you get back are genuinely comparable.
At minimum, specify: which areas are in scope, which tasks happen every visit, which happen weekly, which happen monthly, what hours cleaning can take place, and who supplies consumables.
A process that works
Draft the frequency grid
Areas down one side, tasks and frequencies across. See what is included in commercial cleaning for a starting structure.
Insist on a walk-through
Any provider quoting without seeing the building is guessing. Floor type, restroom count, entry condition and traffic pattern do not appear on a floor plan.
Compare scope first, price second
Line up the three proposals against your grid. Cross off anything a provider excluded, then compare what is left. The cheapest quote is frequently the one missing the most.
What to ask, and what a good answer sounds like
- "Can you provide a certificate of insurance naming our landlord?" — Yes, promptly, without a fuss. Many buildings require it before admitting a vendor.
- "Are your cleaners background-checked and are they employees or subcontractors?" — A clear answer either way, with an explanation of who carries insurance and employment obligations.
- "What is explicitly excluded from this scope?" — A specific list. Anyone who says nothing is excluded has not read their own proposal.
- "Who is our point of contact and how do we escalate?" — A named person, not a general inbox.
- "What happens if a crew is unavailable?" — Cover, using notes on the account. Not "that does not happen."
- "How do we change the scope later?" — In writing, as an amendment. Verbal additions are how scopes drift.
- "How do you handle keys, alarm codes and after-hours access?" — A documented process rather than an informal one.
Warning signs in a proposal
- A price with no scope attached. The single biggest red flag.
- A scope with no frequencies. Task lists without frequencies are unenforceable.
- No exclusions named. Every honest commercial scope has boundaries.
- A long lock-in for a service that has not started. Reasonable notice is fair; a multi-year term before anyone has proved anything is not.
- Claims to cover specialist work. If one company offers hood cleaning, clinical disinfection, floor refinishing and pest control alongside general cleaning, ask which of those they subcontract and to whom.
- A quote produced without a walk-through. It will be revised upward later, or it will be delivered short.
Set up how you will judge it before it starts
Agree in advance what a monthly review looks like: who walks the building, against what list, and how issues get logged. It takes twenty minutes to set up and it turns a vague sense of dissatisfaction into a specific, fixable item.
It also makes the relationship easier for both sides. Cleaners would far rather be told about a recurring miss than discover the account is being retendered.
Questions
Common questions
- How many quotes should we get?
- Two or three, all against the same written scope. More than that produces diminishing returns and a lot of walk-throughs.
- Should we choose the cheapest?
- Only after normalizing the scope. The cheapest proposal is frequently the one that excluded the most, and the gap shows up three months in as work you thought was included.
- How long should a commercial contract be?
- Long enough for a provider to invest in learning your building; short enough that you are not stuck. Reasonable termination notice matters more than the headline term.
- Do we need to specify products?
- Generally no, but do specify surfaces that need particular care — natural stone, specialist flooring, sensitive equipment — and ask what will be used on them.
Send us your scope
Or ask us to draft one after a walk-through. Either way, the scope comes before the number.