Cleaning Specialist or Generalist: Which is Better for Your Facility?
Keeping a facility clean is no small feat. Everything from carpet, flooring, and upholstery to bathrooms, windows and the exterior must be cleaned regularly to keep your business looking sharp.
With so much cleaning to do in a commercial facility, it often takes a lot of people and vendors to get the job done. The question is – how do you manage the workload? Do you hire one or two companies to clean and maintain your facility or do you hire specialists who handle individual pieces of the work?
It’s the age-old question of working with a team of cleaning generalists or a variety of cleaning specialists.
There’s no one right answer. There are pros and cons to both options. The question you must ask yourself is this – which option is right for your facility?
We’ll help you take a look.
Why hire general cleaning vendors
Virtually every building works with a janitorial company to handle waste removal, bathroom cleaning, vacuuming, mopping and dusting.
And one of the biggest reasons companies use janitorial companies for extra cleaning and maintenance projects is that it is convenient. The janitorial team is already on site. You already have a relationship with the company. And it’s one person to work with for a variety of needs.
It can often be simpler to have one point of contact for all of your cleaning and maintenance needs than dealing with multiple different vendors.
The benefit of hiring cleaning specialists for your building
1. Better service & expertise
When you hire a cleaning specialist – whether it’s carpet and floor cleaning or window washing – you get a team who is highly skilled in that particular area.
Think of it like this – you don’t go to your primary care physician or a general practitioner if you have a heart condition. You see a cardiologist who specializes in dealing with issues relative to the heart.
While commercial cleaning companies aren’t in the business of saving lives, the analogy is similar. General cleaning and maintenance providers can do a lot of things well. But, a cleaning specialist is far more educated and invested in the one service they offer. That may mean the company has better equipment and technology and staff who has a deeper experience in their area of expertise.
For instance, we specialize in cleaning carpets, flooring, and upholstery. That’s it. As a result, we’ve invested in technology to make carpet and floor cleaning better. Plus, our team of experts has a lot of knowledge about how to clean and maintain your floors. That’s not often the case with a general commercial cleaning company.
Let me give you an example. Recently, we talked to a client who had a janitorial company strip their VCT flooring. A paperclip got stuck in the machine’s pad scratching the entire floor. Now, the floor is ruined and has to be replaced. A floor-cleaning specialist would know to watch out for this kind of thing and would have saved the company from having to replace their flooring.
2. Long-term cost savings.
Oftentimes, general commercial cleaning companies are focused on getting the job done in the here and now. They fix the problem and move on to the next item on their list.
Specialists often focus on protecting your long-term investment by helping you better maintain your facility and prevent you from making unnecessary capital expenditures.
For example, with our carpet maintenance program, we were able to save a client more than $41,000 by extending the life of their carpet an extra five years. Our approach prevented the client from replacing the carpet as soon as projected.
Working with a cleaning or maintenance specialist can help you protect the investments throughout your building so you don’t have to replace them as frequently.
Should You Hire a Cleaning Specialist or Generalist?
So, which one is right for your building?
The answer is likely both. Every commercial facility needs basic cleaning services that a janitorial company can provide. But, you might consider bringing in specialists to handle more specific commercial cleaning needs.
What do you think? What has worked best for your facility?