Maid Service Problems

Let’s talk about problems associated with Maid Services. Let’s look them square in the eyes and peer into the very heart. There’s the “They missed this, but I don’t want to get anyone in trouble” problem, the “I don’t want strangers in my house” problem, the “I’m afraid they will steal” problem, the “I need to be there” problem, the “what if they judge my stuff” problem, the “what to do with my pets” problem, and I am sure I missed a few.

The "Random People in my House," Problem.

Let’s start with the Random People in my House Problem.  Its true.  You aren’t going to know every person who enters your house to clean it.  Just as you don’t know every nurse who attends to you at the Doctor, or even the Doctor themselves usually.  But somehow we still manage to don the very awkward gown and submit to the colonoscopy.  Now, I don’t want to relate house cleaning to having a probe stuck where the sun don’t shine but I do want to relate how you overcome the awkwardness of the experience.  You trust their professionalism.  Now, a cleaning tech certainly doesn’t have to go through the years of school and training to clean a house and for good reason.  It’s just house cleaning.  Not life or death.  You might even say that doctors/nurses have a much better reputation than house cleaning techs, but I have never seen an advertisement for Maid Service Malpractice lawsuits while watching the news but there are plenty of ads for the medical industry.

Now, let’s talk about how we go about identifying/developing the individuals that we do send into your house.  We have a set of Core Values that we use to measure everything we do.  Those Core Values are 1) Willing to change,          2) Honesty and Integrity,  3)Growth Oriented,  4) Opportunity on Merit.  If you don’t demonstrate adherence to ALL of these you can’t work here.  You might say “yeah right Jeremy, you couldn’t find enough employees with that criteria to staff a lemonade stand, let alone a big Maid Service” and I would say “exactly”.  We aren’t trying to be the biggest.  We are developing the Easiest, most Reliable, most Repeatable, and the most Trustworthy Maid Service we can. Because that’s all it boils down to-Trust.  We don’t retain people who don’t operate on those values because we wouldn’t want them in our house either.

The "I'm not Happy with the Cleaning," problem.

Now lets talk about what happens when you aren’t happy with the cleaning.  You aren’t going to be totally happy with every cleaning.  There.  I said it. No blowing smoke anywhere.  We have a 200% Guarantee but we still need to dig deeper on the subject.  I have had people tell me they are afraid if they complain the cleaners will be mad and retaliate somehow.  Let me refer that thought to core value #1[link].  We will not employ anyone who does not adhere to #1. Now, I hear this one the most-“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”  This one is the one that does the most damage to a maid service.  If we don’t know something needs improvement we can’t improve.  We believe our current customers should have the most influence on how we do our job.  Your input may very well identify non-adherence to a core value and non-adherence to a core value will cost someone their job if not corrected.  What happens when you let us know we missed something is we discuss it in our weekly meetings and identify the breakdown in our cleaning process.  Core Value #2 is Willing to Change.  We mean it, everywhere in the company.  When change is necessary, change happens.  The result of the meeting may be simply adding a job note to your account, might result in additional training, you might even (and this is the best one) be the catylist for a process change that improves our cleanings for ALL customers.  No one will get in “trouble.”  I don’t yell, demean, flip out, or any of the ugly things you have seen managers do.  We identify, discuss, and solve.

The "They Will Steal my Stuff," Problem. 

Refer to Core Value #1. I know you might be worried about that.  Cleaning techs do have deep access to your home.  The possibility certainly exists.  We have insurance coverage just in case someone slips through our vetting process. We work in teams for many reasons but one is accountability.  Theft is an obvious violation of Honesty for the theif, but it’s also an Integrity problem for the other team member. If an employee steals something and the other team member doesn’t bring it to management, when we do find out, we terminate both employees.  We have a polygraph policy whereas if we are accused of theft everyone on that job gets a polygraph test, so we will find out.  We have had to employ the polygraph policy once in 6+ years and were exonerated, and retained the customer.

Scheduling Problems

“I can’t be home when they clean” or “I can only get off work to let them in at lunch.”  No problem, just give us access.  “But, I’m afraid they will steal,”  We covered that.  “They won’t do a good job if I’m not home”  We covered that. You don’t have to be there when we clean.  We actually prefer you not be there.  It’s OK if you are home, but we are more efficient if we don’t get distracted from our process by talking to occupants.  Ever got a ding from your phone, looked at FB, and 30 minutes later can’t remember what you were doing before the ding?  Yep, happens to us too.  When you stop us to talk about (insert subject), it distracts us, which hurts efficiency and might even cause us to miss something.  If there is no way you’d give us access and you aren’t always home, then we aren’t the right cleaning service for you.

What will they think of my mess/dirtiness/weirdness/you name it?!

Don’t worry about it. We have seen plenty. If something is too much, we will talk with you about it. As it pertains to Integrity, we aren’t going to take photos and post them to social media

I hope this article was helpful and calmed fears you may have.  If you have a problem or fear that I didn't discuss, by all means, email us your thoughts at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  We will be happy to amend the post to cover it.

 Warmest Regards,

Jeremy Smith

Above and Beyond Residential Cleaning Service, Inc

The answer is, well, it depends. Here’s how we figure it out.

At above and beyond residential cleaning service we provide three services. Recurring cleanings (weekly, every other week, monthly), move in or move out cleaning, and deep cleanings. In this article I will discuss how we price these services.