How to Improve Cleaning Quality With Home Inspections
Providing your clients with quality cleaning is the foundation of any successful, customer-centered residential cleaning company.
Performing home inspections is an important part of the company's quality assurance program since it is what helps an organization achieve its quality objectives; to assure clients that it is positioned to deliver quality services on a regular basis. Home inspections measure and track cleaning services for each client. The company can then see how they are performing and what improvements may need.
Home inspections should be routine and are typically conducted on a per service bi-monthly, or monthly schedule. The primary goal of any home inspection is to:
- identify quality problems
- alert the cleaning technicians responsible
- form a correction response
- initiate the response
- communicate this to the cleaning technicians and management
Most of the time, the only communication cleaning companies have with their clients is when there is a problem or issue with their cleaning performance. Home inspections open up communication lines with the clients and allow the cleaning company to be proactive instead of reactive with regard to client complaints. This proactive process can allow the company to evaluate, measure, identify and correct the problems before the customer ever realizes there is a problem. Performing home inspections shows your company's commitment to achieve and sustain company quality control guidelines.
Who Should Perform Home Inspections?
Most cleaning companies will assign this task to the team leader, a quality control specialist, or a designated person that is in charge of supervising the cleaning.. The team leader is involved in the cleaning operations of the home and therefore is responsible for performing home inspections and follow ups with the client.
Home inspections are usually checklists that provide a breakdown for all of the tasks the cleaning technicians are required to perform based on the specifications list created for the home. The cleaning technicians can then be rated on their work by use of a scale that rates from poor to excellent.
In addition to visual inspections, which are subjective, is the process of using an ATP measuring device, which is scientific. ATP testing is used for measuring the growing microorganisms by using adenosine triphosphate or ATP for their detection.
ATP is an energy molecule found in living cells, which gives a direct measure of their health and biological concentration. ATP can be quantified by using a luminometer to measure organic matter on surfaces. Cleaning companies are using ATP-based inspections to detect and measure ATP on surfaces as a method of ensuring the effectiveness of their cleaning efforts.
ATP systems provide a rapid hygiene test for small surface areas. Invisible to the eye, this light is easily measured by a luminometer in relative light units (RLUs). The device is used by swabbing any small touch surface or object; the swab is then placed into the luminometer to measure the amount of ATP present. The measurement from the luminometer gives a reading in RLUs, which is then correlated to an estimated level of cleanliness for the test object or area.
Drawbacks to Team Leader Cleaning Inspections
One drawback to having the team leader performing the home inspections is that they can build a strong rapport with the cleaning technicians assigned to the home and not be totally objective in their inspection. Other reasons for a biased inspection may be that they experienced problems with staffing, equipment failures, or other factors that limited their ability to conform to the quality control guidelines. The team leader may take into account these “contributing factors” and submit an inaccurate inspection.
Home cleaning inspections can be a very stressful task for the team leader. They are not only accountable for the cleaning operations at the home, but must grade themselves and their cleaning staff when performing the home inspections. Ideally, the home inspection is meant to offer objective comments on the quality of work being performed by their cleaning staff. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Team leaders need to be able to separate themselves from their cleaning staff and grade the home inspections based on the company's quality control guidelines rather than any outside influences.
Cleaning companies should have a Team Leader Training Program in place for continuous leadership training and role responsibilities. The team leader also needs to take responsibility for any part they may have played in a poor performance rating during the home inspection. They need to be able to evaluate the cleaning staff's strengths and weaknesses and pass or fail the home without a biased opinion.
Other options for completing home inspections would be having the owner or a designated Quality Control person perform the inspections. Regardless of the type of inspections that are performed, the approach must be consistent to be effective. Excessive inspection processes, variances and mistakes can undermine an inspection outcome. Cleaning companies need to have documented processes in place to eliminate the chances for errors and missed assignments.
Home Inspections Using Mobile Device Apps
Thanks to today's mobile technology, you can throw away those paper-based home inspection checklists and trade it in for a home inspection app. These apps allow your company to use smartphones or tablet devices to complete home inspections, whether online or off-line. Cleaning companies can virtually eliminate the paper trail between the office and cleaning locations.
Use of inspection apps also eliminate the need for clip boards, pens, and paper checklists since the inspection information is captured directly to the mobile device. Team leaders can input the data into the mobile device while onsite and immediately pass along results to the office or client. Since most mobile devices today are equipped with cameras,team leaders can take photos of problematic quality issues and also offer visual proof that they were fixed.
