Tips for Growing A Cleaning Business Fast

Go from a "one-man show" to a full-fledged cleaning establishment.

Growing your cleaning company requires many resources: time, money, and mental investments to plan for future growth. If you want to do it fast, where do you start? We’ve got some ideas.

Market to existing customers.

Look to your current customer base to drum up business. Contact your customers by phone, email, mail, or social media. Today’s world is online and so are your customers. Reach them with new promotions and seasonal discount programs, or even birthday wishes. Get creative and think of something memorable that will entice your customers to hire you for their next cleaning job.

Offer discounts for referring new business to you. This can help grow your base, simply by word of mouth. Utilizing your current customers and performing good service gives you a great shot at success!

Search for leads using online communities.

Search for online communities in the cleaning service industry and become an active, participating member. This can give you a heads up on new business opportunities. 

Encouraging customers to leave positive reviews and ratings on review websites increases your rankings in the eyes of the public and helps you stay relevant. The business with the most positive online presence often converts the most sales. Find referral services and review sites to post your business. Provide awesome service and get awesome reviews!

Network with other businesses.

Attend trade shows, join community associations, and attend events related to cleaning services. Trade shows are a great way to present your services and see your competition. People from all over the country typically travel to these shows to meet colleagues and to show off new product lines. 

Work with construction companies for post-construction clean-up or real estate companies to clean up before or after an open house. Reach out to your local businesses directly and offer commercial cleaning. Reaching out to other businesses will get the word out about your services. Do good work, and one company may talk to another about you, helping you land even more business!

Make it easy for customers to contact you.

Provide contact forms on your website and collect requests from potential clients. This gives your customers a place to reach you if the office is not available (after hours, etc.). Have a simple form where your customers can leave a comment and a means of contact so you can follow up with them and discuss your offerings.

Optimize your website to rank higher on search engine results. Employ search engine optimization on your website and drive more traffic to your site by following the best practices guides most search engine providers offer. Ensuring your website ranks high on search engines like Google or Bing will result in more chances for new business. 

Train employees properly.

Make sure your employees pass background checks before you hire them. Having a competent and trained workforce is integral to your growth. You need to trust your employees as well as take care of them. With the right staff, your dream of operating a cleaning business will become a reality.

Give your employees proper training so they know what they need to do to get the job done. They should know your service packages inside-out and be able to work autonomously.  Structure your staff and ensure their roles are established. Synergy must exist for a successful business!

Use cleaning service software to plan routes and optimize scheduling.

Use a cleaning service software like Smart Service to keep track of your customers in an organized manner and optimize your schedule. This can help you maximizing the work you can get done every day. In Smart Service, you can enter your customer’s information, schedule their job, and collect payments for your cleanings.  You can start small with just a few jobs a day. As you enter more customers into the system, you will start to see how organized it will keep all your records/bills.

As you acquire more and more business, your schedule will fill up and require optimization. Using a tool like Advanced Routing in Smart Service can help optimize your schedule so you can efficiently travel to your customer’s destination. It finds the best stops in the right order to keep your technicians from zigzagging across your service area.

As you grow more you will need to bring on additional employees to keep up with demand. If you get to this point, consider your efforts successful!

Scheduling software keeps you organized and pinpoints growth potential.

Store your customers in Smart Service and make reports on their service history to forecast future decisions (such as creating a new division for specific services). Smart Service helps you identify which of your services generate the most profit and which may ultimately hurt you.

The Smart Service mobile app gives your cleaning crews their schedules in a digital format so you will not have to worry about lost paperwork. They can complete their jobs as they go and download any new jobs you send them. They can also collect payments at the time of service. All of this activity syncs back to Smart Service to make your workflow a simple, seamless process.

Conclusion

Never lose sight of your customers. Keep them happy by consistently providing amazing service. This more than anything else will ensure the success of your business!