HOW TO MANAGE A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A CLEANING BUSINESS OWNER
How to prioritize your day for MAXIMUM success
When you own a Cleaning Business there are so many things you have to do like answer the phone, do booking, marketing, hire cleaners, manage teams, handle complaints, track your finances, follow-ups and you have to be on top of your social media constantly as it becomes a must in our digital world. Although social media can be considered as a plus it’s actually one of the most important parts to run a smooth and successful Business and it adds on to your daily to-do list. A typical day can go CRAZY. Get to know your priorities and learn how to manage your time wisely. When you cannot hire someone to be in the office that means you have to do the work yourself in order to do that you have to have good time management skills.
A typical day in my life as a Cleaning Business owner goes like this:
Going to the office at 9:00 AM, for example, there are 20 missed calls and there are some cleaners that haven't shown up to their location. There are already people ready to book a bunch of emails and direct messages on all my leads platforms!
So you ask yourself this question:
What do I do when there's a million and one things to be taken care of in a short period of time?
What I learned over the years and that has worked for me is to start with the clients that the cleaners didn’t show up to, which is priority #1. The reason why this should be the first thing that you should take care of because you don’t want mad customers. Make sure you call them immediately, apologize, reschedule, and offer a discount. Then the next step is to call the cleaners and see why they weren't able to show up. Use these steps if there was a “no show”.
Now if the client canceled last minute, I would tell my cleaners to wait on standby. Remember the 20 voicemails that you haven't answered yet, this is the time where you listen to all of them first. At least 1 of them would want a cleaning ASAP so I would send my stand-by cleaners to the location. MAKE SURE YOU LISTEN TO ALL THE VOICEMAILS FIRST AND REPLY FROM MOST URGENT TO LEAST URGENT.
When everything has calmed down and everything is running smoothly, your priority #2 is to start checking texts or inbox messages. ANSWER “HOT LEADS” MESSAGES ASAP or they would go look somewhere else for a cleaning appointment.
Now priority #3 is to fill up your schedule and have appointments closer together rather than be all spaced out within the week. TRY to keep your cleaners constantly busy, even if you have to tell the clients “I'm fully booked.'' If your cleaners are not constantly busy, they might leave and go find jobs somewhere else. Start booking your most reliable cleaners then work your way down the list.
Priority #4 is to answer any concerns or questions customers left. Check ALL your platforms where customers could inbox you. Your response time rating is very critical, customers love fast and reliable services if you take too long to respond to customers they become impatient and go look somewhere else.
This is VERY important, make a voicemail message with a set time schedule for company example: 9:00AM-5:00PM, or 10:00AM-6:00PM.
MAKE sure your customers and cleaners are aware of the schedule so they won't call you after hours.
Worst comes to worst the only after-hours messages you should be receiving is from your cleaners stating that they are sick or they are unable to work the next day due to an emergency. The purpose of a time schedule is to not overwhelm yourself and to not mix your personal life with your business life. Again make sure you communicate your schedule with your customers and cleaners.
As the day goes by you answer calls, check emails, and handle complaints or comments.
To save yourself stress train your cleaners to be independent. If you don’t train your teams to be self-reliant on every detail, for example, “where to park”. It will push back your priorities like marketing, answering calls, booking, and dealing with the upcoming request. THAT doesn’t mean they should not communicate with the office and make them aware of any situation that occurs, like if they feel unsafe or they have an issue regarding payment. The teams need to know how to communicate properly to the office concerning emergencies.
Knowing your priorities make you more organized and time-efficient.
Priority #5 is your follow-ups especially to new customers. If they are satisfied, make sure to let them know to leave you a review. If they have a complaint then you could call the cleaners and see what happened and offer the customer a touch-up and quickly fix the problem rather than waking up to a negative review.
Next, priority #6 is to make confirmation calls to the customers of next-day appointments. Make sure time, date, the address is correct don't forget to inform them of your office hours if they have any questions or concerns before you close out the day.
Schedule 1 day a week specifically for on-site estimates ONLY for commercial buildings not for regular house calls.
Again, check any emails, reply to comments, post on any of your social media accounts. If you don’t have time every day for your social media, schedule your posts.
A question people frequently ask me is:
When do I hire another person in the office?
When you start becoming overwhelmed and you build up so many clients that you need an extra brain to help manage the business. Or even if you start forgetting to ask key things during booking, you know it’s time. Hire office help even for part-time to divide the workload.
REMEMBER to stay organized and stay consistent.
