Office Cleaning Franchises & Janitorial Contracting Agencies – Beware of them!
How many times have you searched online for a local service or company, only to be bombarded with links to national companies that only appear to be local? It can be impossible to tell the difference between contacting a business in your local area, or a national company located on the other side of the country. Most unsuspecting businesses that are looking for a local office cleaning company have learned the hard way that office cleaning franchises are more often than not, bad news. Here’s a breakdown of how it works:
The initial presentation to the business seeking office cleaning services
After a business (customer) submits a request for an office cleaning estimate, a representative from the national franchise will contact them and setup an appointment for a site visit. The customer is not always aware that they are dealing with a national cleaning franchise. When a representative from the franchise arrives for the walk-through, the presentation and sales pitch can be quite compelling and prices are generally much lower than a local office cleaning company can offer. The customer is excited to have found such a bargain and picks the franchise company which almost always has the lowest price.
What the customer probably doesn’t know is that the national franchise will not be using their own employees to do the cleaning. Instead they will be more or less selling the cleaning contract to a local contractor who may or may not be qualified to clean your facilities, which we will go over in a few moments.
How can the franchise afford to charge such a low price and still earn a profit?
This is because rather than providing the customer with the best office cleaning experience possible, the national franchise is more interested in selling cleaning franchise rights to local individuals that are saving up to start their own cleaning businesses (franchisee-cleaners). These cleaning franchises are sold anywhere from $2500 to $25,000, which is usually payable up front by the franchisee-cleaner to the national franchise.
The franchisee-cleaners typically have very little business education or experience and often get into complex contracts that they do not understand. In addition to the franchise fees, the franchisee-cleaner must pay the national franchise in advance, 3 months of the value of the customer’s invoice for all contracts assigned to them. Or as an alternative they can clean the facilities for 3 months for free. On top of all this, the franchisee-cleaner is hit with monthly royalty, insurance, advertising, accounting and other fees that are deducted from their pay. These fees can easily add up to half of the promised monthly income to the franchisee-cleaner, who almost never realizes this until it’s too late.
Also since the national franchise retains billing control and rights over the cleaning contract, they may at their discretion, re-assign the contract to a different franchisee-cleaner at any time. This means the franchise is able to go through the whole process again with a new franchisee-cleaner, charging all same fees again on the same cleaning contract.
The true reality of the office cleaning franchise
Office cleaning franchises and agencies can be earning a fairly small percentage of potentially tens of thousands of contracts with businesses all over the country and throughout the world. Even though the percentages earned are small, it still amounts to extremely large amounts of profit for the national franchise. They are also collecting a fortune in franchise and other fees from the franchisee-cleaners. Since the goal of the national franchise is to always sell more and more office cleaning franchises, they will only invest a minimal amount of time actually servicing the existing customers (you, if you are the business owner) and implementing quality control.
The franchisee-cleaners run their own businesses and as such the national franchise’s responsibilities regarding the actual day to day cleanings are non-existent. The national franchise will generally only get involved if the customer is trying to cancel their cleaning services. Bottom line is, the national franchise never loses. They always make a profit. All costs are always covered by the customer and the franchisee-cleaner.
So who is this person cleaning my office?
The national franchise may already have an arrangement with a franchisee-cleaner in the area, however it is not unusual for them to start looking for a new person as soon as a new contract is obtained. They do this by advertising on Craigslist and other sites, hoping to locate a cleaner who will become the “franchisee-cleaner” for each location. Often times the people answering these ads have little or no previous office cleaning experience and are not properly screened, trained or supervised on the job. They are lured in with promises of owning their own cleaning business and having financial freedom.
Another case against a large cleaning franchise can be found here
How does all this affect the customer in the end?
Many of these franchisee-cleaners have ended up owing such a large amount to the national franchise that there is not even enough left over to cover the labor for the job. At this point the franchisee-cleaner will begin to rush through the job and cut as many corners as possible in an attempt to make it worth their time. Since the cleaners weren’t properly screened, trained or supervised in the first place, service levels fluctuate wildly and that is when the office cleaning nightmare for the customer truly begins.
What can the customer do?
We have encountered many of our current clients in the aftermath of an office cleaning franchise fiasco. At this stage, they are literally pulling their hair out and at the point of desperately trying to find another office cleaning company. At the same time, they are trying to get out of the contract they signed with the national franchise and beginning to find out that it might not be that easy.
Most national franchises are very large and have iron-clad and very strict contracts as well as large legal departments. The customer usually has the option to give a 30 day notice of termination of service, but only after the national franchise has had the opportunity to come in and try to “make it right”. This can drag the process on much longer than 30 days and the situation is almost never made right. In the meantime, the customer is the one who suffers.
Find a legitimate local office cleaning company
If you’re in the market for a new office cleaning service to clean your business and offices, beware of the office cleaning franchises and agencies that are pretending to be local companies. Ask a lot of questions and find out more about where they are located and if they can provide local references from other businesses in town. Also make sure to inquire about the screening, training and supervision processes regarding the office cleaners. These simple steps will help to avoid joining a long list of businesses that have fallen into the office cleaning franchise trap.
For more information on local office cleaning, click here
