No BS-Guide: Top 5 challenges for janitorial companies we learned after 700+ conversations (and how to solve them)

The harsh realities of the cleaning industry

Before we get into the specific pain points that your peers have been facing, we need to talk about some of the realities that are at the heart of every one of the conversations we’ve had. These issues underpin every pain point in the industry.Before we get into the specific pain points that your peers have been facing, we need to talk about some of the realities that are at the heart of every one of the conversations we’ve had. These issues underpin every pain point in the industry.

Razor-thin margins prevent meaningful change

The industry is plagued by razor-thin margins, usually sticking at a single-digit percentile. While this won’t surprise anyone, it’s a common issue that janitorial companies all share and it plays a large part in the pain points that we’ll be covering in this article.

These thin margins present a trap for BSCs. Increasing profit margins requires investment in new technology and more effective ways to work. However, because of their position, janitorial companies don’t want to invest in something that won’t quickly provide ROI.

The industry struggles with labor

High employee turnover is the name of the game for cleaning, with average rates between 75% and 200% annually. This has only become more pronounced with the rise of the gig economy. Janitorial companies are no longer competing with the Walmarts and McDonald's of the world for labor, but also DoorDash and Uber.

To make matters worse, this workforce is distributed and often unionized, making it that much more challenging to implement and scale new processes and tools.

The 5 most common pain points

With the stark realities of the cleaning industry out of the way, we move on to the meat of the issue: the pain points that razor-thin margins and labor shortages bring. Not every cleaning company will feel these in the same way, but you are most likely feeling some of them.

We’re going to outline these pain points and the solutions that work.

1: Lack of differentiation in the industry

Cleaning companies are effectively competing with anyone who has a bucket and a mop. Unfortunately, most clients consider cleaning largely utilitarian and non-differentiated as a service beyond who can offer the lowest price.

While some companies are taking steps to differentiate themselves through innovation and technology, many companies are hesitant to take that step due to low margins reducing their risk appetite.

To give an example, one company came to Mero saying that they felt very competitive on their pricing for their night cleaning services and had no problems winning RFPs. But, they couldn’t compete on pricing for day cleaning and felt like they were consistently losing their bids.  They couldn’t compete on price alone and were losing potential customers because of it.

This company’s challenge around losing bids is consistent with the industry as a whole — without a way to differentiate themselves from the rest of the competition they didn’t have a meaningful way to stand out outside of price.

Solution: Include Mero as a tool to increase transparency and accountability in your proposals

Instead of waiting for your clients to reach out whenever there’s an issue, Mero lets you track cleaning activities across sites and share detailed audit trails in seconds. This helps you:

• Win more RFP tenders by showing that you have tools in place to increase visibility, and accountability and can offer proof of service
• Impress your clients at your next QBR by showing how you’re on top of issues and fulfilling SLAs

2: It’s hard to keep employees accountable

There are a couple of things that are common with all labor-based industries. People make mistakes, get overwhelmed with the day-to-day and some will take the path of least resistance to finish their work.

Many janitorial companies are missing a way to effectively keep an eye on their employees to see if they’re completing tasks or showing up to work.

Solution: Track and validate cleaning tasks automatically

Mero lets you automatically track where employees are going, what they’re doing, and when was the last time they cleaned each area. No check-ins, scanning, tapping, or mobile phones are required.

You can make sure your staff is following the scope of work from an impartial source, free of human error. Site managers and supervisors can easily see completed tasks, remaining tasks, and how productive employees are. So they can proactively fix issues instead of reacting to complaints.

3: Most cleaning validation methods are unreliable

QR codes, mobile apps, and other validation methods give companies the illusion that they know what’s going on. However, some key issues prevent these methods from proving that people are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

1. They rely on human memory, and staff will forget to use them correctly.
2. There are many different ways to game the system. QR codes and forms can be scanned and filled out even if the work wasn’t done.

Solution: Remove the need for manual input from your cleaners

This is how Mero works:

1.  Your cleaners are tasked to clean washrooms in an office building three times a day every day of the week.

2. They complete the task as directed. No check-in, scanning, or filling out forms was required. Instead, they are carrying a Bluetooth beacon on their keychain.

3. The Bluetooth beacons ping basestations that are installed in the washrooms This automatically confirms the presence of an employee at specific times and durations ensuring task validation without manual input.

4. You get an audit trail showing whether the tasks are done by the amount of time spent in the washroom, and can manually verify tasks that aren’t completed.

You can trust that the data you get is unfalsifiable because it doesn’t rely on your employee remembering to do extra steps.

4: Janitorial companies rarely have ownership over occupancy data

Many have had to give up cleaning cost credits during the pandemic in order to keep their clients.

Since most cleaning companies have no ownership over data, they have to rely on what the PM tells them. This often puts them on the back foot for contract renegotiations.

To make things more frustrating, the accuracy of the data that they do share is spotty. Many will use proxies like counting cars in the parking lot.

Solution: Get your own occupancy data and use it to align on scope and price with your clients

This data can be used to make sure that your cleaners are working in areas when and where it matters most.

It can also help you set prices based on usage. Normally occupancy would be a he said, she said situation. If you’re relying on a PM who says that 20 people will be coming into the building, but your site supervisors are saying there are 100, you’re not being compensated properly for your work.

After installing occupancy sensors in a client site that’s up for renewal, you can know the exact traffic footfall for a given period of time. This gives you proof of the work that’s required and you can use it to negotiate with clients on pricing and scope of work based on real data, not guesswork

5: Effective auditing is rare and everyone knows it

Most janitorial companies will have audits once a month, sporadically or only when there is a complaint from the customer. This creates a lag time where cleaners can pile up mistakes or not complete work before you figure it out.

For others, auditing is often a handshake agreement between your site supervisor and the PM. There isn’t much going on in the way of actual proof.

Performance on this end has been so poor that there is a trend of larger PMs bringing their cleaning in-house so they keep better control over the quality.

Solution: Proactively prove the quality of your services with an automated audit trail

Mero acts as your virtual supervisor. It lets you see which tasks your cleaners have completed and how productive they are across your sites, so you can surface potential issues early and provide proof of service.

Instead of waiting for your clients to reach out whenever there’s an issue, Mero lets you track cleaning activities across sites and share detailed audit trails in seconds. This helps you:

Win more RFP tenders by showing that you have tools in place to increase visibility, and accountability and can offer proof of service.

Impress your clients at your next QBR by showing how you’re on top of issues and fulfilling SLAs

Takeaways

Here are the gaps in the industry that desperately need to be filled:

• BSCs want to know what’s happening on-site, where their employees are and make sure cleaning is done according to the scope of work.
• Overreliance on monthly audits and no way of proactively showing which sites or areas are clean to clients.
• Very few ways for companies to differentiate themselves beyond pricing and no proof that you’re better than the competition.
• Existing solutions to determine occupancy are proxies at best, producing inaccurate data that creates divisions between building service providers and clients.
• A low-risk solution that provides all the above, immediate value, and can be rolled out fast.

That’s where Mero comes in. Commercial cleaning executives use Mero to track cleaner performance and building usage so they can maximize productivity, build trust with clients, and win deals without undercutting the competition.