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How to pick a janitorial company for your building.
A cleaning company worth hiring shows its work before the first night: a walk of your building, a task list in writing and paperwork you can verify. Here is how to sort the candidates.
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What is the best way to choose a commercial cleaning company?
Choose the company that walks your building before it prices it, puts every room, task and frequency in writing, and backs that with a certificate of insurance and named supervision. Then call two references who run buildings like yours. Price comes last, once the bids cover the same work.
Each step below takes that answer apart, from the list to write before the first call to the warning signs that show up in a quote. When you want a bid to test it against, Arbor’s janitorial services start with a free walkthrough and a written plan.
Write down what you need first.
Before the first phone call, spend twenty minutes listing what the building holds and what bothers you about it today. Count the restrooms, kitchens and breakrooms. Note which floors are carpet and which are hard surface, when the last person leaves at night and who controls the keys. Then add the complaints you hear most, whether that is an empty towel dispenser by mid-afternoon or a film of dust on the conference table.
Having it in hand means each candidate prices an identical building, and it hands you a yardstick for every conversation after that. A candidate who raises items from your list before you mention them is already paying attention.
Insist on seeing the building together.
A price worked out from square footage alone is a guess. Ask each candidate to walk the space with you, ideally late in the day when wear is easiest to see. Watch what they look at. A careful estimator opens the supply closet, studies the finish in the entry, asks how many people share each restroom and notices where trash collects after lunch.
Bring along whoever fields cleaning complaints now, whether that is the office manager, the property manager or a facilities lead. That person knows which rooms draw grumbling and can settle access questions on the spot: alarm codes, freight elevators, locked suites and where the crew parks.
Give the walk the time it needs. A three-floor office toured in ten minutes rarely produces a quote that matches the real work, so plan on a slower pass through every room the crew will touch.
Get the tasks and frequencies on paper.
A good quote names each room, the tasks in it and how often each happens, with periodic work such as carpet extraction and floor refinishing on lines of their own and a line on who supplies paper, soap and liners. Our guide to writing a cleaning scope of work shows the level of detail to ask for. When a candidate sends back a single monthly figure, ask for that breakdown before the conversation goes any further.
The written list keeps the relationship healthy months from now. When something gets missed, you and the supervisor point to the same line rather than arguing over what was said on the walk.
Check the paperwork yourself.
When the insurance certificate arrives, go through it line by line. Look for two kinds of coverage, general liability and workers’ compensation, plus effective dates reaching beyond your first night of service and a named insured that matches the company on the bid. Property managers often want the building owner listed as a certificate holder for their files, so mention that early.
Next, find out what screening a cleaner goes through before getting keys, who supervises the crew and how that supervisor checks the work. Finish with the complaint path: who answers when you report a miss, how soon you hear back and how the fix gets confirmed. Plain, specific answers here count for more than a glossy brochure.
Phone the references.
References earn their place only when you pick up the phone. Ask for two or three accounts close to yours in size and building type, and speak with the person who deals with the cleaning week to week. Emailed replies tend to be short and polite, while five minutes on the phone usually tells you how the service really runs.
Questions that tend to draw honest answers:
- Has the same crew stayed on the building, or does it change often?
- When something was missed, how fast was it put right?
- Does a supervisor come by without being asked?
- Have invoices matched the original quote?
- Would you hire them again for another building?
Listen for specifics. A reference who can name the supervisor, describe how a missed restroom was handled or explain a change to the schedule knows the service firsthand. Warm praise with no examples counts for less, however friendly it sounds.
Ask how the start will go.
The first couple of weeks show whether a company plans or improvises. Ask who will be in the building on the first night, how the crew learns the layout and when a supervisor will look over the early cleans with you. A strong answer includes a short follow-up walk after the first few visits, where small misses get corrected before they settle into habits.
Ask as well what happens to keys and alarm codes: which people carry them, how each handoff gets recorded and how they are returned if the service ever ends. A clear answer about the end of the arrangement says a lot about how carefully the beginning will be handled.
Warning signs in a quote.
Several problems show up on paper before a single night of cleaning. Look out for a quote with no task list or frequencies, a number given over the phone before anyone has seen the space, and periodic work described only as “as needed”. Each of these leaves room for a dispute later about what the price covered.
Be cautious as well about a bid that can’t name who supervises the crew, a certificate of insurance that never quite arrives, or pressure to commit for a long term before you have seen one clean. A bid far below the rest earns a direct question: which tasks or hours did it leave out? Lay the bids side by side, line by line, and the gap usually becomes obvious.
Making the decision.
Narrow the field to two and judge them on what lasts: how specific the task list is, how clearly they answered the supervision and complaint questions, and what their references said. Price matters, yet a slightly higher bid that spells out every task is usually easier to live with than a lower one that needs chasing each week.
Arbor Janitorial begins every account with a free walkthrough and a written plan of rooms, tasks and frequencies, and our certificate of insurance reaches each client before the first visit. When you are ready to compare, book a walkthrough and hold our quote to the same checklist.
A few useful answers
Common questions
What should I ask a commercial cleaning company before hiring?
Ask who will clean the building and who supervises them, how the work gets checked, what the quote lists room by room, and how a missed task is reported and put right. Ask for a certificate of insurance and two references with buildings like yours.
How many companies is it worth inviting to walk the building?
Three is a practical number. It gives enough range to spot an outlier on price or coverage without turning the search into a month of walkthroughs.
Does the lowest number on the table deserve the job?
Only when its task list and frequencies match the others. Compare the proposals line by line first, because a low price that drops restroom nights or periodic floor work is a different service.
Should we tell candidates what we pay now?
There is no need. Share your task list and the problems you want solved, and let each company price the building on its own. Comparing their numbers with your current invoice afterward tells you more than anchoring them to it.
Who from our side should take part in the search?
The person who hears cleaning complaints today and the person who controls building access. Where several tenants share the building, the property manager usually leads and brings in any tenant with special needs, such as a medical suite.
Does Arbor Janitorial see the building before quoting?
Yes. Every quote follows a free walkthrough, and you receive the tasks, frequencies and price in writing before any cleaning begins.
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