Below, we will go over some tips, from our experiences, to help you find a new cleaning company that is the best fit and value for your facility.
Tip #1: Don’t Oversaturate Your Search
What do I mean by this? Often times you want to give many companies the opportunity to bid for your business, but you leave yourself at risk since not every company is going to be the best fit for your facility. One example of this is you may be a large corporate office building that requires nightly cleaning along with a day porter during the day, and you may find yourself with companies bidding that specialize in medical facilities and retail stores. This may not be the best “marriage” between the two. Or, you are a very large facility and smaller janitorial companies may not have the capacity or resources to tackle a job like that.
Do some research beforehand to potentially eliminate some of this unnecessary hassle and do NOT send RFPs to a company that you know will not be able to handle the task at hand. This is a waste of their time and money and your time by reading it.
Tip #2: Keeping It Simple
RFPs are not everybody’s favorite to read since they can become a mess or a cluster of random pieces of information seemingly thrown together without any organization. While you want to give vendors/contractors as much information as you possibly can, as with anything there is a “too much”. Before just sending a mass request with a document from past RFPs make sure you are updating this and reading it over as most companies do change, adapt and grow from year to year. There may be added work from years past or different scopes of work needed. Make sure you are checking for outdated information. What information is needed for a vendor to create a good proposal. Some examples include:
Times of day the facility needs to be cleaned
How many people are in the facility
Square footage
Number of restrooms/kitchens etc.
Tip #3: Be Specific About Pain Points
Try to sit back and ask yourself a couple key questions. Are you unhappy with your current or previous janitorial company’s services? Is this switch in vendors solely cost related? Has the scope of work changed wherein the current servicer cannot get the job done? If there is one piece of advice, I can give you on this it’s be transparent. If you are honest with your issues, this will give vendors the opportunity to speak to these issues you are having and offer some solutions rather than just following the generic protocol. This will also give you a good look at their commitment to customer service as well as quality control.
If you follow these tips when creating your next RFP for janitorial services, this will create a significant connection with a distinguished and reputable janitorial vendor.