Tag Archives: Cleaning Service

5 Reasons Retail Stores Need A Professional Cleaning Company

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Historically, store employees were largely responsible for taking care of the cleaning obligations everywhere! Yes, that’s right, even the bathrooms! Today, with everything going on with COVID-19 it is especially difficult and an unrealistic expectation to have store employees keep up with this. This makes it a crucial time now more than ever for retailers to look towards investing in outsourcing their cleaning services.


Now, pandemic and all things aside, there are going to be many other benefits to take advantage of by hiring a professional cleaning service. Below, we will go over the top 5 reasons – in our opinion – why retail stores should consider outsourcing to a professional cleaning company.


Improves Safety


There are going to be hundreds, if not thousands of customers strolling through your front doors on a daily basis, and with this comes thousands of bacteria, viruses and other types of contaminants floating through the air and on surfaces. Dust and dirt on top of all that make their way in as well, which makes things even worse. A way to help fix this and eliminate risk would be cleaning with commercial grade disinfectants. With a professional cleaning company, the cleaners would know exactly where to clean the most effectively that will have all of your surfaces free of any contaminants.


Welcoming Environment


What makes for a retail store to be inviting? A clean, presentable storefront! When everything is visibly clean and sparkling it will catch the eye of a passer byer. Customers are less likely to make repeat visits or even purchases at a place they don’t view as clean of visibly inviting or welcoming. With the expertise of professional cleaners and their equipment, there will be a consistent level of cleanliness that just wouldn’t be able to be provided by having your employees do the cleaning.


Saves You Money & Time


Here’s a good one. This one seems to be a common theme across the board. It saves you both money AND time! The more time your employees spend cleaning – something they probably were not hired to do – the less time they will have helping customers. The less attention to customers will be a domino effect to less purchases which will decrease your earnings over time. Now, hiring a professional cleaning company does come with a cost, but this will in most cases be mitigated or even eliminated with increased sales.


Reduces Sick Days


Circling back to the first topic we discussed about improving safety, by eliminating germs, viruses, bacteria etc., by regularly keeping up with this it will lower the risk level of employees attracting an illness. Thus, less sick days! This will ultimately lead to higher productivity with a larger portion of the workforce being available and not out on sick time. This will allow you to pay less in sick time and customer satisfaction increased!


More Service Offerings


Your employees are not trained cleaners so there is only so much they are able to accomplish with the task of cleaning and doing it affectively. Let’s face it, cleaning bathrooms, floors, dust is not the most desirable of jobs and can become tiresome. There are going to be jobs such as a strip and wax on a floor or deep window cleaning that your employees may not be equipped for and unable to handle. A professional cleaning company will provide you with service offerings that just simply would be too much to ask your employees to do.


In conclusion, outsourcing to a professional cleaning company would be a great solution to keeping your retail store appearing and operating the best it ever has been!

ATTENTION Property Managers! Here is Why You Should Outsource Your Cleaning

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Office managers, property managers, facilities managers all manage a property to some degree, and with that comes a ton of responsibility. It could be an office building, warehouse, or even a whole corporate complex. With anything, cleaning should be your top priority, and it’s ok to admit if this slips to the back of this giant list of things to do. Unfortunately, it is a more frequent occurrence than you’d expect. But, to face the harsh truth, nobody is going to want to occupy spaces that aren’t cleaned professionally or on a regular basis.


You want your space to look as good as possible so you can rent out the space as quickly as possible. You don’t or shouldn’t have to rely on tenants to do all the necessary cleaning for you. Below, are reasons why you need to keep your property cleaned and maintained.


Reputation


In today’s day in age, everybody uses the internet. This can be really good or really bad due to the sole fact that negative reviews tend to spread a whole lot faster than positive ones. You don’t want to make cleanliness the reason for a negative review. Nobody should have to clean a property to feel comfortable when they first arrive or to forget about who rented the property previously. If that is a common theme, then others will gain knowledge of this and will more than likely hurt your business.


Professionally Cleaned


There is a big difference when you compare the cleaning done by a professional service vs. getting an employee to do it. An employee will most likely take longer as well as miss some spots since they aren’t trained or in most cases hired to clean. It is difficult to expect tenants and their employees to completely clean up after themselves. Trust us! It will not happen mainly because of the differing views of what people view as “clean”. Try to avoid your tenants from being sour towards you right off the bat.


Save You Money!


Believe it or not, this will save you money AND time in the long run! This will help keep your property in the best shape possible, and the ability to rent out the property for years to come. If you keep your property in top shape with cleanliness, it will take longer to age and fewer problems to deal with. By keeping up with floors, furniture, office space, kitchens, bathrooms etc. you will decrease the likelihood of deterioration that would otherwise need repair costing you MONEY. So, not only will your property be in great shape, it will also increase your reputation.



How Often Should I Clean My Floors?

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Throughout the years, we have received a lot of questions about how often floors should be cleaned in an office or facility setting. To answer this, there are several key factors to take into consideration that are going to affect the frequency of this. Hopefully by reading this it will help give you pointers for you determine an ideal frequency to have your floors cleaned.


Factors to Determine Frequency


Traffic
The frequency is largely dependent on how much traffic there is in each area of your office or facility. The most common used areas in your office are:
-Entryways and exits-Primary hallways -Main stairwells
These areas are going to need more frequent cleaning. You do not want clients or even potential clients to walk through a dirty office when they stop by to visit. With that, your office employees and team members do not want to walk through a dirty office with messy or beat-up floors. There are also going to be lower traffic areas that do not need to be touched as often, but the areas with the most frequency will dictate how often you will want to get your floors cleaned.


Activity
There may be areas that get a lot of activity but not a lot of foot traffic. Think of areas like kitchens or conference rooms. These areas will have people sitting in them but not necessarily a lot of walking around. These areas while not a lot of foot traffic are still prone to having scuff marks say from chairs, spilled beverages or food. This is what is called a high level of personnel activity that is going to lead to more frequent cleanings versus areas that do not have as much use.


Floor Mats/Matting
A determining factor that is also going to determine how often to sweep/clean your floors is the number of floor mats or “runners” located throughout the facility. Floor mats tend to keep floors relatively clean which will then reduce the cleaning work and frequency of the cleaning. You will typically find these located toward the front entryway and around the office with areas that have access to the outside as a place to wipe your feet when entering the office or facility. This lessens the chance of people entering tracking mud and dirt throughout the entire office.


Sealed/Unsealed Flooring
Knowing what your floors are made out of will help you also determine the frequency of having your floors cleaned. As an example, sealed floors offer far greater protection against things such as spills, scuffs, scratches etc. When you have unsealed floors, the floors will be much for susceptible to these types of damage that could lead to permanent damage over time. These types of floors will need to be maintained much more frequently versus sealed flooring.


As you can see, there are multiple different determining factors that come into play when trying to figure out how often you should have your floors maintained. There will be areas with much more frequency than other spaces, areas with more activity, and even the types of flooring. It is recommended to maintain your floors on a weekly basis and figure out what frequency works best for your office/facility. We get it, you simply don’t have the time to constantly maintain all of this on top of the other thousand tasks you need to worry about. This is why maintaining your floors professionally will behoove you in the long run with saving you both money and time!

Types of Services Offered By Janitorial Companies

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It seems like a pretty simple question and answer don’t you think? Well, that’s because it is, but this post will help you better understand some terminology used in the industry. You may come to realize that janitorial companies may be able to provide more services than you ever would consider.


As you look around the industry you will notice many companies refer to themselves as “building service contractors”, “commercial janitorial services”, “custodial services”, or even just “commercial cleaning services”. To put it simply, there is not much of a difference at all with these “labels” if you will. Mainly, it depends on who is asking for the services. For example, schools ask for “custodial services”, medical facilities ask for “housekeeping services”, commercial office buildings may ask for “cleaning services” or even “janitorial services” for manufacturing plants and warehouses. These are all interchangeable terms for the most part.

Services

Daily Service – Anything that involves ongoing, daily, routine care of the facility. These tasks are broken into four primary categories and usually outlined in the scope of work on the proposal document:

  • Trash removal
  • Routine floor care
  • Dusting and wiping surfaces
  • Restroom/breakroom services – this includes everything listed above, in addition to replenishing consumable products (toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, etc.)

Day Porter Service – This is most common with facilities that have a large number of daily users of the building. This includes employees, visitors, students, patients, etc. A Day Porter cleans and keeps things “tidy” in high use areas throughout the day. These spaces can be lobbies, common areas, restrooms or breakrooms, kitchens, cafeterias, outside areas.


Disinfecting Service – This has always been an important offering of janitorial companies with disinfecting high touch areas/surfaces to reduce the spread of viruses. It just so happens that COVID-19 has pushed this into the forefront of everyone’s minds.


Hard Surface Floor Restoration – Periodically, restoration services will be needed to protect and maintain certain floor surfaces. Some hard surface floors that need maintenance include but not limited to vinyl composite tile (VCT), ceramic tile, wood, concrete, terrazzo. Some of the terminology used for these restoration services are “strip and wax”, “recoating” or “deep scrubbing”.


Carpet Restoration – Just like hard surface flooring above, carpeted flooring surfaces also require periodic work. I know what you may be thinking right off the bat. No, carpet shampooing is NOT what is performed by commercial cleaning companies. Instead, carpets are normally cleaned through processes such as encapsulation, bonnet cleaning or even dry carpet cleaning.


Window Cleaning – For the most part, the cleaning of entryway doors and interior glass (office partitions, etc.) is all part of the daily services. However, the cleaning of exterior windows (inside and outside) are usually listed as a separate service. There is a specific deionizing cleaning system that eliminates water spots when it comes to exterior windows.


In conclusion, when you are in your search to outsource your cleaning services, make certain you are inquiring about a detailed list of service offerings as well as coming up with a plan for scheduling these project-based services.

Tell-Tale Signs That It Might Be Time To Change Your Cleaning Company

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When it comes to finding the right cleaning service for your office space, you want to make sure you get the best quality of cleaning you deserve! Too many times do we all fall under the trap of a good first impression, however when the work begins the service seemingly falls off to the point of wondering if they even show up. And to top it all off you are more than likely stuck and locked in with some sort of contractual agreement with what seems like is forever and a day. This is seen to happen far too often when a cleaning company starts cutting corners because they either underestimated time to complete the scope of work and/or they estimated wages due to “low-balling” the price initially leading to additional difficulty in finding higher quality staff.
Here are just a few tell-tale signs that your cleaning company no longer is making you a priority and that it may be time to make a change:
Slow Reactions to Calls, Service Issues or Complaints There will be times where things are missed or an issue occurs. It happens. We are all human beings and human error is bound to happen. However, when issues or complaints do happen your service contractor should be prompt in their response time. If the issues are happening more frequently or you just straight up are not receiving timely correspondence, this could be a tell-tale sign that your cleaning company may be stretched too thin. Not to mention it could be a red flag that there may be deeper problems within the respective company itself. Ask yourself when was the last time you received proactive communication from your cleaning service?
Staff Is Starting To Complain More Than Usual The whole purpose of outsourcing your cleaning is to (let’s face it) make your job AND life a whole lot easier. The goal here is to not be bothered by mundane cleaning issues. If you are starting to get bombarded with comments from employees in regards to the toilet paper running out, no paper towels, if your office ACTUALLY GETS DUSTED, etc. then it may be a warning sign that your cleaning company is no longer dedicated to you.
Unrecognizable Faces Cleaning Your Space Each office, warehouse, facility is not ever one in the same and with this come specific nuances that must be handled appropriately. This is something that will be figured out by a dedicated contractor and its staff that is assigned to the task at hand. As with anything else, there will be some turnover expected since the cleaning services industry specifically has a high turnover rate of nearly 200%. If this is happening fairly often, this could point to a possible HR issue within the company with the inability to keep its employees. Not to mention it will cost YOU in the quality of service provided and could lead to a potential security issue.
Your Primary Contact Changes Often This is probably going to be the greatest tell-tale sign of all that there are some lingering issues with your current cleaning service provider. You have absolutely no idea who is in charge or who to call if you need to get in contact with the company. As just previously noted, turnover is higher in this industry, but in the manager-level positions this is a sign that there may be trouble ahead. This is an indicator of a troubled and unhealthy culture lying within the company.
If some or all of these problems persist, then it may be time to start preparing for a change. Develop a game plan and set a list of expectations not only for the next service contractor to walk through your doors but for yourself and your business’s safety in mind.


BCS Facilities Group can help you with cleaning of your commercial or industrial facility. We strive to build and grow a world class service organization.

Top 5 Cleaning Myths You NEED to Stop Believing

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It seems that today more than ever we are bombarded with different so called “hacks” that help create some form of short cut for even the simplest of things. Cleaning being one of the most popular out there! Whether you are clicking on a random article on the front page of Yahoo, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter you name it it’s on there. Now, most of these are meant to be for a “that’s pretty cool I might give that a try!” type of response and I’m sure we’ve all tried at least one of these so-called hacks at one point in time.
Read on as today I will be putting on my fancy “myth buster” hat to debunk some of these outrageous myths on cleaning that could be doing you more of a disservice than actually helping. Because who wants to live by taking short cuts in life am I right?

Vinegar is an Effective and Appropriate Cleaner for All Surfaces This one is a popular one that I have been seeing float around the internet and this is a huge NO! While vinegar may be able to help with certain tasks like removing grime on certain surfaces, it is not appropriate for everything. It can cause damage or corrosion to metal, glass or even certain ceramic and stone surfaces due to the acidic acid in the vinegar. It can strip the wax on the wax floors and even unseal tile grout over time. Pete He, PhD, the chief scientist and co-founder of Dirty Labs also notes that the EPA does not recognize vinegar as an antimicrobial agent for sanitization or disinfecting.
Using Newspaper to Clean Windows and Mirrors Another NO! This myth used to have some validity to it as newspapers used to be made with thicker paper than what they’re made with today. The thinner newspapers today will quickly deteriorate when they are wet and leave spots on your glass mirrors or windows. As if we all want to see last week’s headlines on the window when we want to take that much needed break from work and stare out the window wishing we were outside instead of inside.
Baking Soda to Remove Odors From Carpets Don’t hold your breathe on this one if you think baking soda can help you out with this. Yes, it seems like it comes in handy a lot for us all and has many uses but not for this. And yes, even myself included have done this before so guilty as charged but it’s a lazy way out. While it can absorb unwanted odors, it does not attack the main source of the odor and only masks the smell for a brief period. Just get your carpets cleaned once a year people!
Bleach Cleans Everything I know this one may anger a lot of people but the truth must come out and you can always count on me to have all of your backs! Yes, on its own it can be good for spot stain removal but still needs some sort of surfactant to lift the actual dirt out. And check this out, according to Caroline from Winc, bleach “degrades the layers of a surface, making them more susceptible to bleach resistant superbugs which breed when bleach is overused or used as a sole cleaning agent”. I am just going to leave that one there for all of you. Just use disinfectants that are less harmful.
Using Coca-Cola to Clean Your Toilets As with just about every single myth listed above including this one it may seem like an interesting cost-effective idea, it may not be the smartest. The sugar contained in the soda is actually very harmful as it attracts more bacteria. You vinegar folks this may be your moment as a good alternative to this with your toilet bowl is actually vinegar!
Any of you out there have any other fun cleaning myths that have been debunked? Or just myths in general? Please provide in the comments below and let us know!

Top 3 Benefits of Hiring a Professional Cleaning Company

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Let’s face it, we all have busy schedules. It’s just part of life. But, what the most annoying part about it all is when we’re busy and are preoccupied with other “bigger and better things” we tend to push certain tasks into the back of our minds or simply just brush it off for a later date. Now, will these tasks be completed? Who knows, right? One big task that gets pushed aside more often than most might admit is cleaning. There are the simple solutions such as hiring one or two internal employees to do it to keep it maintained, or you just brush it off completely piling up your to-do list saying “I’ll get to it eventually”. If you’re uncertain about hiring a professional commercial cleaning service, keep on reading and we will go over some of the key and crucial benefits of hiring a commercial cleaning service.
There is Higher Quality and Standards A professional cleaning company will make your space as clean as possible since they likely have a higher standard of “clean” as you do. The cleaners are professionally trained and certified to offer the best quality of service. Professionals know exactly where to look and no more constantly look at dust on baseboards! Life is hectic and we get that! Nobody has the time to set aside for a deep clean of your work space. So why not get that peace of mind that your work space has been thoroughly cleaned by people who, you know, clean for a living. There is no such thing as “out of sight, out of mind”.
Not to mention, most of the supplies used will be better. No offense. Cleaners use cleansers and equipment that are not always widely available to the general public. It is just a better way all around to improve the image of your business by leaving it tidy, clean and polished. This will lead to motivated employees, which we touched base on in a previous blog post. And the sky’s the limit when you have a happy work environment!

It Gives You Less Stress As stated up top, our lives are all hectic. Our to-do lists are probably all at least a mile long at this point so why not make life just a little bit easier on yourself? I am sure that cleaning tends to fall to the bottom of that list because NOBODY loves to clean. What if you had an unexpected business client or impromptu meeting at your office or work setting? You would hope for the best appearance possible and to avoid that unnecessary embarrassment of cob webs stringing across the walls and ceiling! Gross! And definitely a turn off to anybody.
This will all allow you to focus on your other objectives that need to be completed with more undivided attention. Not to mention it gives you the peace of mind and makes you just feel more comfortable and secure.
It’s Cost Effective The cost of spending nowadays can add up quick! Supplies, and equipment of all sorts can get very expensive. Not to mention the labor costs you would have to pay an employee to do the job itself. Why not get rid of at least one of these costs? With a professional commercial company, you only pay for the service! Hiring an external cleaning company will be a long-term cost-effective solution.
Gone are the worries of vetting employees, and worrying about salaries or benefits. Now, you’ve eliminated time, money and stress off of your plate!

Convinced yet? What’s stopping you from enjoying these benefits and then some? So, the next time you want to inquire about booking a professional commercial cleaning service or simply just looking, make sure to look for these benefits so you are doing what’s best for you and your business. Please feel free to check out our services page and schedule an appointment today for your business’s needs!