Selecting a Cleaning Service

A cleaning service can be a great thing to have at your disposal, particularly if you are looking for ways to cut down the time you spend doing your own cleaning. However, selecting a cleaning service can often be a hassle that is a nightmare all its own. Many people may think that you can simply open up a phone book, pick out a company and call them up to get things rolling. Speaking very generally, this is one method you can use to pick out a cleaning service, though you are playing the odds on whether or not it is trustworthy or a good one. Here are some guidelines that you can use to make selecting a cleaning service an easier task.

• Finding a service. Begin making a list of potential cleaning services. This list can be made from names that friends and family gives you, that you find online, or even that you pull from the phone book. Begin contacting these services, and start gathering some more information, such as whether they work in your neighborhood, if they can give you any references, and so on. Be sure that you also check with the local Better Business Bureau before you make any final choices to see if there are any complaints against the company.
• Understand the billing. When you are talking to the cleaning services, ask how they do their billing. Do they charge by the hour, and if so at what rate? Are there special services that they offer at a fixed rate per visit? Make sure that you understand their billing as much as possible before you make your final decision.
• What are their limits? There are some things or chores that cleaning services will not do. For example, some cleaning services will not touch laundry at all, while others will do that but refuse to work on any windows. Other services require that you have your home cleaned to at least a minimum standard before they will begin doing any work. Make sure that you understand what these limitations are before you hire them, or you may find yourself out of some money, but still having a dirty home.
• Work out a visit. Once you have decided on a list of potential candidates, have them come over and see what they will be working on. This can be viewed as a "trial run" to see if you and the cleaning service can actually work together. When selecting cleaning services, you need to have an idea of how well they will work, and how long it will take them to get the work done, and this home visit can help you figure that out.
• Something got broke, now what? Accidents happen, even to the most professional of people. Before selecting a cleaning service, take time to ask what the company's policy is when something gets broken. Will the company replace the item that was broken, or do you have to replace it yourself?